History of Penn Fields Conservation Area
Until the second half of the 19th century, the land enclosed within today’s Penn Fields Conservation Area was a rural area of land beside the intersection of the Penn Road with the roughly east-west routes of the roads known today as Stubbs Road and Coalway Road. These roads were already established by the 16th century
The title map for the area of 1842 shows a largely green field site comprising pasture and meadowland with a small number of houses and associated outbuildings.
By 1884 the Ordnance Survey map shows the area largely developed for housing. A number of houses have visible datestones:
- 32 Coalway Road (1860)
- 38 Riley Crescent (1865) aos.
- 24/26 Coalway Road (1891).
The built environment of Penn Fields Conservation Area was completed in a period of under 50 years between 1845 to 1895.
In the 1930s and 1940s small scale infill of the remaining undeveloped part of the Victorian development took place mostly in Riley Crescent and also a new dwelling at no. 2 Coalway Road. By 1937, a large property known as Haddon Lodge had been converted into a Carmelite Convent.
More radical changes occurred in the 1960s and 1970s when a large house, Chequerfield House, was demolished and its grounds and adjoining land to the south were redeveloped to form Chequerfield Drive and Shenstone Court. Further development has occurred sporadically towards the end of the 20th century.
Despite the later 20th century developments a substantial number of Victorian buildings remain although many have been altered and extended. |