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A beautiful, self-managed estate
The Hanger Hill Garden Estate (HHGE) is one of London's finest surviving examples of what is popularly known as Mock Tudor or Tudorbethan architecture. But don't mock it too hard. The style is no longer unfashionable: the Estate's quiet surroundings, disturbed only by birdsong and the chattering of children on summer evenings, are within easy reach of both Heathrow and central London.
The 'village' feel of the architecture is matched by a strong sense of community. In the early days, this focused on the club house (now Holy Family School), where tea dances, amateur dramatics and tennis parties were held. Later, residents came together to rescue the Estate after it fell into bankruptcy. More recently, there have been social events, crowdfunding for the Princes Gardens restoration project, and fantastic community support during the Coronavirus crisis.
HHGE is regularly mentioned in the media and has been used as a location for films and TV series.
The houses and flats on the Estate command high prices and residents will bear witness to the reality of what the writer Nicklaus Pevsner has described as "the beau ideal of romantic ideal Metroland".
The Estate covers some 258 flats in blocks along Queens Drive, Links Road and Monks Drive, and 361 houses in Links Road, Queens Drive, Monks Drive, Vale Lane, Princes Gardens and Tudor Gardens.
The flats are styled on Tudor manor houses and are surrounded by extensive lawns. The houses are built in pairs or short terraces of 4, 6 or 8 according to half a dozen templates that create variety within the overall design. Service roads with garages run behind the houses and flats.
During the early years of the last century, the land the Estate stands on was an aerodrome and aircraft manufacturing centre. The houses and flats were built in two phases between 1928 and 1936 to a design by architects Douglas Smith and Barley. The Estate's heyday in the pre-war years later gave way to decline as the gardens and service roads fell into a legal limbo and maintenance all but ceased. Residents have since progressively taken matters into their own hands, and a companies controlled by leaseholders (in the case of the flats) and the Residents Association (for houses) now own and manage the gardens and service roads on behalf of all who live here. To read a more detailed history, click the link on the left.
The Estate's special character derives from its privacy -- there are only three ways in by road -- and the quality of its half-timbered style and formal landscaping, including a rose garden at the north end of Princes Gardens and 'village pond' at the junction of Monks Drive and Links Road. Alterations and development have been strictly controlled since 1969, when the Estate was declared a Conservation Area.