_FINCHLEY ROAD, CHILD’S HILL, AND NEW END._
At the hand-post on Golder’s Green—a bit of the original waste in
1859—Hampstead parish ends in this direction. Here Finchley Road, running
north and south, divides the road to Hendon from North End Road.
The name of Hendon reminds me that John Taylor, the ‘Water Poet,’ in his
curious poetical production ‘The Fearful Summer; or, London’s Calamitie,
the Countrie’s Discourtesie, and both their Miserie,’ while including the
inhabitants of Hampstead with the other country people around London as
‘beastly, barbarous, cruel countrie cannibals,’ excepts those of Hendon,
who did what they could for the plague-stricken Londoners.
With Finchley parish Hampstead has no other connection than that it
borders it; but having taken the Finchley Road, it is scarcely fair to
leave this once too-famous neighbourhood without a word. The Common had
for many years been a terror to travellers, and in 1790-1, when Landmanor
wrote his ‘Recollections and Adventures,’ its reputation had not
improved. It was still the haunt of footpads and highwaymen, as, indeed,
was Hampstead Heath also.
Half a dozen years after the above date, Lord Strathmore, then residing
at Hampstead, was attacked by two men when driving over Finchley Common,
who rode up to the carriage intending robbery, but his lordship, with
the aid of his servants, turned the tables on them, shot one, and made
the other prisoner—an evil day for these ‘gentlemen of the road.’ Yet,
in spite of such incidents, some hardy householders were bold enough
to purchase property and build houses in the neighbourhood; and Mrs.
Barbauld tells us that at one time (about 1754), when Richardson was
looking about for a country retirement, as became a fortunate bookseller
who was his own novelist, he bethought him of the pretty district of
Finchley.
While thinking of doing this, his friend Mr. Dunscombe wrote to him that
the place would ‘affect his nerves,’ for that all the crimes in the
Decalogue were of daily occurrence there, and finished by saying: ‘If
you are planted so near the scene of action as to be constantly hearing
of highwaymen and viewing of gibbets, in vain will Lady B. [Braidshaigh]
send you her sylphs and fairies, in vain will Miss M. [Miss Mulso]
terrify with dreams and visions.’[179]
The author of the ‘New and Complete British Traveller’ prosaically
confirms this account: ‘A large tract of ground called Finchley Common
has long been remarkable as a particular spot for the commission of
robberies, and it has been usual to erect gibbets on it, where some of
the most notorious malefactors have been hung in chains.’
So, though the village on the west side of the Common had some good
houses on it, Richardson’s inclination for a Tusculum at Finchley was
probably not very strong, or his friend’s badinage, from the proportion
of truth it contained, proved convincing, for we find him settling down
in the placid respectability of Parson’s Green, and the enjoyment of
that delightful summer-house at the end of the garden, with room enough
in it for the literary young ladies who buzzed about him like bees
about a bed of borage, with their mild suggestions and criticism, all
commendatory, and praises altogether saccharine, till we believe in the
truth of Johnson’s remarks to Mrs. Thrale, afterwards Madame Piozzi:
‘You think I like flattery, and so I do, but a little too much disgusts
me. That fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to
sail quietly down the stream of reputation without longing to taste the
froth from every stroke of the oar.’ An anecdote which Finchley is not
concerned in, though apropos to our talk of Richardson.
[Illustration: _Madame Piozzi._]
If we take the Finchley Road back, we can make our way by Cricklewood to
Child’s Hill Lane, and so back to the West Heath. There were in 1859 two
or three good houses to the left of the road, with large, newly-enclosed
grounds, but a few years later this portion of the Finchley Road was the
least interesting and the most vitiated place on the skirts of Hampstead.
The melancholy attempt to raise good houses on either side appeared to
have been blighted by the unwholesome airs arising from the ill-drained
and already-crowded suburb of Child’s Hill lying in the bottom to the
right. Here various businesses the reverse of sanitary were carried
on, the vile smells from which in hot weather, even at a considerable
distance, made the inhaling of them dangerous, and occasioned a sort of
local fever, from which it was said the neighbourhood was seldom free.
It was a relief, when leaving the sight of coal-yards covering what
had been delightful meadows only a few years ago, and the useful, but
certainly unpicturesque, railway-station to the right, to turn the corner
by a semi-rural hostel at Cricklewood, and a row of village shops, and,
mounting the slope, to enter what was quite recently a deep-hedged
country lane, into which, according to the exploded theory of my
antiquarian friend, the old Roman road over Hampstead Heath struck down
by way of Cricklewood to Hendon. We pass the Hermitage, the temporary
summer home of many well-known artists, and two or three cottages. The
road, in places still fringed with trees, suggesting the shady way it
must have been in olden time, ends at the spot that Platt’s Lane brought
us to, within a short distance of West Heath.
Had we desired a longer walk on the Finchley Road, we might have found
our way back through a field-gate a little to the east of Platt’s Lane,
and of the path I have already described, leading to a gate opening into
Oak Hill Fields at New West End, a region of rich grass fields, the
quality of which recommended the purchase of 14 acres of meadow-land at
Child’s Hill to the trustees of the Campden Charity, with which they
joined the bequest of an unnamed but eccentric gentlewoman who left the
parish £40 for the purpose of distributing among the inhabitants of
Hampstead, _rich and poor_, halfpenny loaves (cross-buns, probably) on
the morning of Good Friday annually.
If we follow the path, we find ourselves in the midst of a scene of
pastoral beauty still unspoiled. Cattle, such as Sidney Cooper loves to
paint, sleek and dappled, were, when I last saw it, placidly cropping
mouthfuls of juicy grasses, or lying about on the slope of the upland
field, lazily chewing the cud. In the hedgerows oak-trees, some of
them hollow with age, and others young and verdant, appeared scattered
over the face of the hill, which takes its name from the numbers of
them once growing there. It was a walk for summer mornings and summer
evenings—peaceful, sequestered, lovely—a walk that many a poet had
trodden, and one in which many an artist besides Landseer had found
inspiration and charming subjects. The hedgerows still sheltered their
indigenous wild-flowers; hawthorn and elder, wild rose and woodbine,
beautified the hedges in their several seasons, and though it felt and
looked far away from the town, a very short walk to the gate or stile led
to the main road, and past Oak Hill House, and Oak Hill Lodge, to the
junction of Frognal Rise with Branch Hill.
We may either follow the latter road to the West Heath, or strike into
the road past Lower Terrace, and come out between the enclosure of the
Hampstead Waterworks and the walls of Mrs. Johnstone’s premises, at the
angle of which, railed in, stands a fine old elm,[180] memorable as
Irving’s Elm, under the shade of which some of the old inhabitants of
Hampstead may remember to have seen the preacher of the ‘unknown tongue’
take his stand, and with vehement language and gesture address a crowd
half curious, half eager to listen to his passionate pleadings or fierce
denunciations.[181]
It is curious that Edward Irving, like Whitfield, was remarkable for a
fearful squint. The _Edinburgh Review_, with a cruelty not unusual in its
criticisms, attacked his appearance, actions, tones, gesticulation, and
pronunciation, and stated that he thundered forth a growling falsetto,
and ‘draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.’ It describes his violent contortions of countenance, and winds
up by asserting that there had never been such a tossing of brawny arms,
and such a lowering of bushy eyebrows performed ‘to so little purpose.’
But the critic adds that, ‘were he to dispense with his absurd, fitful,
inappropriate vehemence, and eternal straining after singularity in the
most minute points, he might become a rational and respectable minister
of the Gospel.’
Turning back a few yards to Branch Hill, a road runs off at an angle with
the main road past Lower Terrace, at No. 2 of which Constable, with his
‘placid companion’ and their little ones, had lodgings in 1821, and takes
us out by the reservoir of the Hampstead Waterworks upon the Heath.
By making a little détour to the left, in front of Upper Terrace, and
taking advantage of an opening between the houses, we find ourselves in
the Judges’ Walk, or _Prospect Terrace_, as at one time modern Hampstead
was inclined to call it, forgetting the archæological interest attached
to the old name, and find ourselves face to face with a surprise of
prospective beauty—a view so wide in extent, so rich in woodland scenery,
rolling on over the Hertfordshire hills to the right, and all between a
wide expanse of fertile country, that in all England there is scarcely
a finer woodland and pastoral view. The trees and houses to the left
shut out the sight of Harrow, and the glittering waters of the Kingsbury
reservoir are no longer seen; but looking to the right, the view is
charming, and to witness a sunset from this eminence is worth, on a fine
summer’s day, a pilgrimage to Hampstead.
The Judges’ Walk was so called, it is said, because during the year of
the Great Plague the judges removed their Courts from Westminster, and,
returning to the normal practice of their prototypes in Saxon and Norman
times, held their _Seats of Justice_ ‘under the green tree’s shade.’
Court Tree, in the Isle of Sheppey, has its name from this antique
custom, and the laws are thus annually promulgated on the Tynwald Hill in
the Isle of Man.
[Illustration: _Harrow and Welsh Harp, from Hampstead Heath._]
Now that we are so near the Whitestone Pond, and the half square of
houses opposite, let us cross over, and, passing at the side of the
last of these, walk to the end of the tree-shaded alley, the view from
which is one of the many scenic surprises of the Heath. There lies—or
has it, with many other charms, been swept away?—the still pond, its
surface scarcely ruffled by the movements of the swans, the green Heath
on this side dipping down to its margin, and beyond the wooded heights of
Highgate and the church. It is a picture that requires no composing; it
is perfect in its natural picturesqueness.
A path under the garden wall of a house to the left brings us out at
the Holford Road, between high walls, skirted by well-grown trees, past
Heathfield House to the left, and other enclosed premises to the right,
with Christ Church facing us, fringed by some grand old trees (part of
a grove), leading by Cannon Place to Squire’s Mount. To the left of
the church is a space half surrounded by houses, in one of which the
well-known popular Nonconformist minister and eloquent preacher and
writer, the Rev. Newman Hall, resided. To the east of the church are the
school buildings appertaining to it, and Christ Church Road, which runs
down to the Willow Walk and East Heath.
Leaving the church, which stands slightly raised above the roadway, on
the right hand, we pass a row of good but dully-situated houses, known
as Cannon Place, which extends from Christ Church to Squire’s Mount, and
takes its name from the old cannon which stand as kerb-posts, muzzles
downwards, in front of the courtyard of Cannon Hall, at the north-east
corner of Squire’s Mount. Unfortunately, the history of the cannon
is lost, and so also is that of the man who originally placed them
there. Modern Hampstead is inclined to believe it the work of Sir J. C.
Melville, but the older inhabitants, whose ‘fathers have told them,’
assert that the cannon were there long before this gentleman resided at
Hampstead. There are, besides these peacefully-utilized pieces, two other
very curious small bronze pieces of ordnance of beautiful workmanship and
great age (said to have been taken from the Dutch), one bearing the date
1640, the other inscribed 1646. These find a place in the very beautiful
grounds in which the house stands, an old red-bricked, two-storied
mansion of early eighteenth-century design. The views from it—especially
to the south—are said to be very extensive. It possesses a garden an
acre in extent, and the ornamental grounds descend from 400 feet to the
level of the Thames.
At the end of Cannon Place is Squire’s Mount, with some good houses
cresting it, and a row of cottages running in a straight line towards the
East Heath, with the Vale of Health (not assertive in offensive ugliness,
as at present) modestly nestling right opposite, the Broad Walk crossing
the Heath above it. At Squire’s Mount, in the house (one of those with
some fine old trees sheltering them on the north-east) distinguished by
a magnificent horse-chestnut in front of it, resided the octogenarian
artist, Mrs. Harrison, a fine-looking, genial old lady, whose charming
transcripts of spring flowers, wild blossoms, bird-nests, and bits of
hedgerow beauty, were well known to visitors at the Old Painters in Water
Colours’ Exhibitions. So late as the spring of 1864-65 she had copied
primroses from nature.
At the back of Squire’s Mount Cottages are a group of small houses, known
as Heath Cottages, looking out on a delightful view, but one which is
said to be threatened with extinction. It takes in the red viaduct and
wooded neighbourhood of Caenwood Farm, with Highgate; but when these
lines were written, a brickfield smouldered on one side, and the ground
it covered will, it is said, be shortly in the hands of the builders.
If, instead of walking across the Heath, we desire to return to the
town, we must turn back to Cannon Place, at the western end of Squire’s
Mount Cottages, and, crossing the road at the bottom to the right, keep
down a short lane, at the end of which is Well Walk. Keep straight past
the Burgh, and Wetherall House, and, still bearing to the right, above
the new districts of Gayton and Gardener’s Roads—the latter probably so
called in memory of the allotments, formerly the garden, playground, and
orchard of a rather celebrated school—keep on down Flask Walk to the High
Street. Or return by Christ Church Road, here leading east and west; or
by way of New End to Heath Street. And this reminds me that New End
requires some notice.
[Illustration: _Squire’s Mount, about 1840._]
It marked, no doubt, as its name implies, a new epoch in the growth
of Hampstead, and an attempt at making a straight street, which the
genius of the place appears to have resented, the outline of New End
representing that of an ill-proportioned funnel, with its mouth to the
east, and its narrow termination in Heath Street, where, on both sides
of the way (for the place was sadly in request by tramps journeying to
London), used to be posted up ‘To New End and the Workhouse.’ Park does
not mention the neighbourhood, except to notice the purchase by the
parish of Mrs. Leggatt’s mansion for the new workhouse. Yet in 1811 there
were fifty rateable tenements, besides some untenanted, in the district;
eight of them rated at £25 per annum, one at £60—the residence of a Mr.
Richard Otley—were probably private residences.
These houses rose on the rim of the bowl in which Mrs. Leggatt’s
handsome red-brick mansion (as we see it to-day the façade remains
unaltered) was set down, a reason, no doubt, for disposing of it, and
which was objected to on the part of some of the people in authority as
likely to prove detrimental to the health of its future inmates. From the
schedule before me of the old materials, it is possible to rehabilitate
the mansion, the body of which forms the centre of the present workhouse,
and relieves, with brilliant ruddiness, the added ugly gray buildings
overlooking it. It had a ventilator and turret on the roof; there were
bows to the parlour, dining, and drawing rooms looking to the east, a
probably uninterrupted view originally.
These rooms had handsomely stuccoed ceilings, cornices, and mouldings,
and marble chimney-pieces, carved, no doubt, after the lovely fashion
of their day, with an old Roman triumph, or a procession of Ceres, or
a vine-crowned Bacchus and Bacchantes. The great stairs, with mahogany
hand-rail and banisters, sprang up from the ground-floor in the centre
of the building to the two-pair story; and these, and all the marble
chimney-pieces, except those left in the Master’s room, and the room
over it, were to be taken at a valuation by the contractors, unless
available in the work. All the offices were at the west side, or back, of
the house; there was a clinker-paved stable, a laundry, and greenhouse,
and what are called stewing-stoves in the kitchen—in short, all the
appointments of a well-arranged establishment, the finishing touch to
which is suggested in the enriched chimney caps.
Since then the character of the whole district seems to have fallen, and
New End is chiefly occupied by humble shops and cheap lodging-houses.
The square, an imperfect triangle, still asserts itself superior to the
dingy, sordid neighbourhood, about which the less said the better.