Norwood Hall
Initially called Norwood Lodge, Norwood Hall was designed by Sir John Soane for John Robins and built in 1801-3. Later occupants, the Unwin family, made alterations to the house. It had extensive grounds, including a walled garden and orchards, with pleasure gardens laid out in mid-Victorian gardenesque style separated from the grazing lands by a ha-ha.
From the 1920s all but 19 acres of the estate were sold off for housing development and in 1945 the Unwins sold the house and remaining land to Middlesex County Council. In 1955 it became Norwood Hall Institute of Horticultural Education, instructing students in both theory and practice of gardening, with plants grown on 2 acres of the site. It later became part of Ealing Tertiary College.
The site was later purchased for £2.8m by Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall as the site for a new school. The foundation ceremony for Khalsa Primary School took place on 26 April 2009. The school has now been open since September 2010.
The House itself has undergone a £1.3 million refurbishment, funded by the Sikh Community via Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall, and many of the original features still remain. New additions to the building are a wheelchair lift at the front entrance and a lift inside to the upper floor levels for people with disabilities.
Link to London Open House Norwood Hall factsheet