Only a couple of farms and the Neithrop Guardens orchards stood in the unspoiled countryside until the 1940s. Wythicome Drive was built in 1947, but development then slowed and re-focused on Woodgreen. Most of the streets' first inhabitants were from Banbury, London and Oxford. The estate was built in the 1960s because of the growth of the town due to the North London overspill and a slum clearance scheme in both Solihull and Coventry. It was expanded further in the north during the mid-1970s. The estate is also home to the large Princess Diana Park. The now derelict Bretch Farm, near Claypits Close, opened in about 1900, was expanded slightly in 1910, lost a large part of its land to the Bretch hill development (the watertower and communications transmissions mast) in the 1960s, closed in 1990 and has been derelict ever since.