Метролэнд: История пригородов Лондона, созданных железной дорогой.

Metro land (or Metroland – see note on spelling, below) is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the 20th century that were served by the Metropolitan Railway. The railway company was in the privileged position of being allowed to retain surplus land; from 1919 this was developed for housing by the nominally independent Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE). The term "Metro land" was coined by the Met's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London until the Met was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933.

The Metropolitan Railway was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its mainline heading north from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex suburbs. Its first line connected the mainline railway termini at Paddington, Euston and King's Cross to the City, and when, on 10 January 1863, this line opened with gas lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, it was the world's first underground railway. When, in 1871 plans were presented for an underground railway in Paris, it was called the Métropolitain in imitation of the line in London. The modern word metro is a short form of the French word. The railway was soon extended from both ends and northwards via a branch from Baker Street. It reached Hammersmith in 1864, Richmond in 1877 and completed the Inner Circle in 1884, but the most important route became the line north into the Middlesex countryside, where it stimulated the development of new suburbs. Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line eventually extended as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 mile (80 km) from Baker Street and the centre of London. From the end of the 19th century, the railway shared tracks with the Great Central Railway route out of
Electric traction was introduced in 1905 with electric multiple units operating services between Uxbridge, Harrow on the Hill and Baker Street. To remove steam and smoke from the tunnels in central London, the Metropolitan Railway purchased electric locomotives, and these were exchanged for steam locomotives on trains at Harrow from 1908. To improve services, more powerful electric and steam locomotives were purchased in the 1920s. A short branch opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925. The 4 mile (6 km) long Stanmore branch from Wembley Park was completed in 1932.

Unlike other railway companies, which were required to dispose of surplus land, the Met was in a privileged position with clauses in its acts allowing it to retain land that it believed was necessary for future railway use. Initially the surplus land was managed by the Land Committee, made up of Met directors. In the 1880s, at the same time as the railway was extending beyond Swiss Cottage and building the workers' estate at Neasden, roads and sewers were built at Willesden Park Estate, and the land was sold to builders. Similar developments followed at Cecil Park, near Pinner and, after the failure of the tower at Wembley, plots were sold at Wembley Park. Robert Selbie, then General Manager, thought in 1912 that some professionalism was needed and suggested a company be formed to take over from the Surplus Lands Committee to develop estates near the railway. The First World War delayed these plans however, and it was 1919, with the expectation of a housing boom, before the MRCE was formed. Concerned that Parliament might reconsider the unique position the Met held, the railway company sought legal advice. The legal opinion was that although the Met had authority to hold land, it had none to develop it, so an independent company was created, although all but one of its directors were also directors of the railway company. The MRCE went on to develop estates at Kingsbury Garden Village near Neasden, Wembley Park, Cecil Park and Grange Estate at Pinner and the Cedars Estate at Rickmansworth and create places such as Harrow Garden Village. The term Metro land was coined by the Met's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro land guide, priced at 1d. This promoted the land served by the Met for the walker, the visitor and later the house hunter. Published annually until 1932, the last full year of independence for the Met, the guide extolled the benefits of "The good air of the Chilterns," using language such as "Each lover of Metroland may well have his own favourite wood beech and coppice – all tremulous green loveliness in Spring and russet and gold in October." The dream promoted was of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London. From about 1914 the company had promoted itself as The Met, but after 1920 the commercial manager, John Wardle, ensured that timetables and other publicity material used the term Metro instead. Land development also occurred in central London when in 1929 a large, luxurious block of apartments called Chiltern Court opened at Baker Street, designed by the Met's architect Charles W. Clark, who was also responsible for the design of a number of station reconstructions in outer "Metro land" at this time. A few large houses had been built on parts of Wembley Park, south west of the Metropolitan station, as early as the 1890s. In 1906, when Watkin’s Tower closed, the Tower Company had become the Wembley Park Estate Company (later Wembley Ltd.), with the aim of developing Wembley as a residential suburb. Unlike other railways, from an early date the Metropolitan Railway had bought land alongside its line and then developed housing on it. In the 1880s and 1890s it had done so with the Willesden Park Estate near Willesden Green station, and in the early 1900s it developed on land in Pinner, as well as planning the expansion of Wembley Park. In 1915 by the Metropolitan Railway's publicity department had created the term Metro land. It was used as the new name for the company's annual guide to the places it served (known as Guide to the Extension Line prior to 1915). The Metro land guide, although partly written to attract walkers and day trippers, was clearly primarily intended to encourage the building of suburban homes and create middle class commuters who would use the Metropolitan Railway's trains for all their needs. It was published annually until 1932, but when the Metropolitan became part of London Transport in 1933 the term and guide were abandoned. By then North West London was well on the road to its reputation for suburbanisation. The 1924 Metro land guide describes Wembley Park as "rapidly developed of recent years as a residential district", pointing out that there are several golf courses within a few minutes journey of it. Over the years during which the guide was published, large numbers of Londoners moved out to the new estates in north west London. Some of these estates were developed by MRCE, a company that Robert H. Selbie, the Metropolitan Railway's General Manager, set up in 1919. It would eventually build houses along the line, from Neasden reaching far out as Amersham. One of the earliest of these MRCE developments was a 123 acre one at Chalkhill, within the bounds of what was Repton’s Wembley Park. MRCE acquired the land shortly after it was created and began selling plots in 1921. The railway even put in a siding to bring building materials to the estate. The term ‘Metroland’ (often seen now without the hyphen see Note on spelling, below) has become shorthand for the suburban areas that were built in north west London and in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex following the Metropolitan branches. It had become immortalised well before the guide stopped being published. A song called "My Little Metro land Home" had been published in 1920, and Evelyn Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall (1928) has a character marrying a Viscount Metroland. She reappears, with the title Lady Metroland, in two more of Waugh's novels; Vile Bodies (1930) and A Handful of Dust (1934). The British Empire Exhibition further encouraged the new phenomenon of suburban development. Wembley's sewerage was improved, many roads in the area were straightened and widened and new bus services began operating. Visitors were steadily introduced to Wembley and some later moved to the area when houses had been built to accommodate them. Between 1921 and 1928 season ticket sales at Wembley Park and neighbouring Metropolitan stations rose by over 700%. Like the rest of West London, most of Wembley Park and its environs was fully developed, largely with relatively low density suburban housing, by 1939.

On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan Railway amalgamated with other Underground railways, tramway companies and bus operators to form the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), and the railway became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. The LPTB was not interested in running goods and freight services and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) took over all freight traffic. At the same time the LNER became responsible for hauling passenger trains with steam locomotives north of Rickmansworth. The lines north of Aylesbury to Verney Junction and Brill were closed; last train to Brill ran on 30 November 1935 and to Quainton Road and Verney Junction on 2 April 1936. Quainton Road continued to be served by the LNER. For a time, the LPTB used the "Metro land" tag: "Cheap fares to Metro land and the sea" were advertised in 1934 but the "Metro land" brand was rapidly dropped. London Transport introduced new slogans such as "Away by Metropolitan" and "Good spot, the Chilterns". Steam traction continued to be used on the outer sections of what had become the "Metropolitan line" until 1961. From that date Metropolitan trains ran only as far as Amersham, with main line services from Marylebone covering stations between Great Missenden and Aylesbury.

The term Metro land is applied to suburban areas around the route of the Metropolitan Railway, areas which urbanised under the influence of the railway in the 20th century. It applies to land in Middlesex, west Hertfordshire and south Buckinghamshire. The Middlesex area is now administered as the London Boroughs of Brent and Harrow, together with part of the London Borough of Hillingdon. The architect Hugh Casson regarded Harrow as the "capital city" of Metro land, while Arthur Mee's King's England described Wembley as its "epitome". The Metro land guide insisted that Metro land was "a country with elastic borders that each visitor can draw for himself". Even so, Metro land was quite firm that, so far as the Buckinghamshire Chilterns were concerned, its "Grand Duchy" was confined to the hundred of Burnham: "the Chilterns round Marlow and the Wycombes are not in Metro land". The usefulness of the term Metro land, has occasionally led journalists to use the term for the suburban catchment of other underground lines.

The Metropolitan's terminus at Baker Street was "the gateway to Metro land" and Chiltern Court, which opened over the station in 1929 and was headquarters during the Second World War of the Special Operations Executive, was "at the gateway to Metro land". In similar vein, Chorleywood and Chenies, later described by John Betjeman as "the essential Metro land", were "at the gateway" of the Chiltern Hills (of which Wendover was the "pearl").

Before the end of the First World War George R. Sims had incorporated the term in verse: "I know a land where the wild flowers grow/Near, near at hand if by train you go,/Metroland, Metroland". By the 1920s, the word was so ingrained in the consciousness that, in Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Decline and Fall (1928), the Hon Margot Beste Chetwynde took Viscount Metroland as her second husband. Lady Metroland's second appearance in Vile Bodies in 1930 and A Handful of Dust in 1934 further reinforces this. Metro land further entered the public psyche with the song My Little Metro land Home (lyrics by Boyle Lawrence and music by Henry Thraile, 1920), while another ditty extolled the virtues of the Poplars estate at Ruislip with the assertion that "It's a very short distance by rail on the Met/And at the gate you'll find waiting, sweet Violet". In 1997, Metroland was the title and setting for a movie starring Christian Bale about the development of the relationship between a husband and wife living in the area. The movie was based on the novel of the same name written by Julian Barnes. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark recorded a song Metroland on the English Electric album. It was released as a single, with the video showing the singer dreamily gazing out from a train at an idealised suburban landscape.

In 1903 the Metropolitan developed a housing estate at Cecil Park, Pinner, the first of many such enterprises over the next thirty years. Overseen by the Metropolitan's general manager from 1908 to 1930, Robert H Selbie, the railway formed its own Country Estates Company in 1919. The slogan, "Live in Metro land", was even etched on the door handles of Metropolitan carriages. Some stations, such as Hillingdon (1923), were built specifically to serve the company's suburban developments. A number, including Wembley Park, Croxley Green (1925) and Stanmore (1932), were designed by Charles W. Clark (who was responsible also for Chiltern Court) in an Arts and crafts "villa" style. These were intended to blend with their surroundings, though, in retrospect, they arguably lacked the panache and vision of Charles Holden's striking, modern designs for the Underground group in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Nearly 70 years later the Chilterns Conservation Board was advertising "Chilterns Country – countryside walks from rail stations" (2004). Drawing no doubt on "Metro land, a guide for ramblers", published by British Railways Southern Region shortly after the Second World War, it referred to the "Rambleland" stations of Surrey and Sussex.