_THE HAMLET OF KILBURN._
As only one side of this hamlet is in Hampstead parish, there is not much
to be said of it here. It was rapidly increasing when Park wrote his
description of it; but that was nothing to the proportion of its increase
during the last ten years, when it has grown to the dimensions of a town.
Its name comes from two Saxon words, _kele_, cold, and _bourn_, a rivulet.
By this cool stream,[298] which rose on the southern slope of Hampstead,
hard by the forest-side, one Godwyn, in the time of Henry I., built
himself a cell, and for a time at least led a hermit’s life.
There can be little doubt, from the fact of his ultimately making over
this nucleus of the future nunnery, with the grounds belonging to it, to
the Church of St. Peter of Westminster, in trust to the Abbot for the
use and abode of three retired Maids of Honour to Queen Matilda (herself
a Benedictine nun), that Godwyn was a penitent courtier or nobleman.
Eventually he himself was made Warden of the abode and guardian of the
maidens, Emma, Christiana, and Gunilda, who took upon themselves a holy
life, though no particular monastic rule is mentioned, nor does it appear
in the foundation deed that they were vowed to celibacy.
On the death of Godwyn some other person was to be chosen to his office,
with the advice of the Abbot of Westminster, and with the consent of the
nuns themselves; no one could be appointed without their approval, nor
was to interfere with matters relative to their temporal affairs, nor
with the affairs of the church, except at their desire.
The Abbot, Osbert de Clair, Prior of Westminster, augmented the grant
to the cell of Kilburne by a rent of thirty shillings and land at
Knightsbridge, after which it became a nunnery of the Benedictine Order,
dedicated to the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. At the dissolution of
the monasteries the lands of Kilburn nunnery at Hampstead and Kilburn
were given by Henry VIII., in exchange for Paris Garden and other
estates, to the Knights of Jerusalem, whose Order he soon after dissolved
(1540).
Subsequent to the dissolution of the Knights of St. John it became the
property of John, Earl of Warwick, who lost no time in alienating it to
Richard Taverner, Esq. In 1604 Sir Arthur Atye died seized of Kilburn and
Shuttop Hill. It was recently in the family of the Powells, an old name
at Hampstead.
At no time does it appear to have been a religious house of any
importance, though dignified with the name of Priory. Park states its
revenue at the time of the Dissolution to have been under £200 per annum.
Dugdale sets it down at £74 7s. 11d. per annum, and the whole building,
inclusive of kitchen, larder, bakehouse, and brewhouse, beside the
church, contained only twelve rooms.
From a rude but interesting etching in Park’s ‘History of Hampstead,’ of
some parts of the domestic buildings, the only relics of it remaining,
and which were standing in 1722, no idea can be formed of the appearance
of the conventual structure, the site of which was distinguishable at the
beginning of the present century by a rising bank in what was called the
Abbey Fields, near the Tea Gardens.
No doubt the Kilburn well, a mild chalybeate, was one of the so-called
holy wells with which the vicinity of London abounded in Catholic
times. But it was not until 1714 that some speculator bethought him of
converting the slightly-medicated waters to use.
[Illustration: _The George Inn before 1870._]
The spring or well is situated at the south-western extremity of the
parish of Hampstead. It rises about 12 feet below the surface, and is
enclosed in a large brick reservoir, with the date cut in the keystone
of the arch over the door. It is a simple saline water with too little
iron to give it the character of a true chalybeate, as may be easily
imagined when we read that in 1813 it was used chiefly for the domestic
purposes of the adjoining tavern. In 1773 the Kilburn wells were attached
to a tea-drinking house, ‘well known to the holiday folk of London,’ the
advertisement of which, transcribed by Park from the _Public Advertiser_
in the July of that year, is amusing:
‘KILBURN WELLS, NEAR PADDINGTON.—The waters now in the utmost
perfection; the gardens enlarged and greatly improved; the
house and offices repaired and beautified in the most elegant
manner.
‘The whole is now opened for the reception of the public,
the great room being particularly adapted to the use and
amusement of the politest companies; fit for music, dancing, or
entertainments.
‘This happy spot, celebrated for its rural situation, extensive
prospects, and the acknowledged efficacy of its waters, is most
delightfully situated on the _scite (sic) of the once famous
Abbey of Kilburn_, on the Edgware Road, at an easy distance,
being but a _morning’s walk_ from the Metropolis, two miles
from Oxford Street, the footway from Marybone across the fields
still nearer. A plentiful larder is always provided, together
with the best of wines and other liqueurs.
‘Breakfasting and hot loaves.
‘A printed account of the waters, as drawn up by an eminent
physician, is given gratis at the Wells.’
Brewer tells us that this house was much frequented by holiday people
from London.
We have noted elsewhere that Oliver Goldsmith had lodgings in a cottage
near a place called The Priory at Kilburn. Poor Goldy had retired thither
with the intention of practically studying the habits of some of the
animals he was writing of in his ‘Animated Nature.’ His range of subjects
must have been necessarily restricted, for, beyond the humble farmyard of
his landlord, the rusticity of Kilburn appears at that point of time to
have been limited to cow-keepers and market-gardens. It had an evil fame
for dog-fights and pugilistic encounters, at which Hogarth is said to
have been a frequent spectator—not from a love of such sights, but with a
view to the work of humanity he was then doing, in displaying the coarse
brutality and repulsively cruel features of those so-called sports with
all the realism of his caustic pencil.
Many years later Kilburn lay heavy on the minds of the Middlesex
magistrates, and during the first half of the present century its
reputation was decidedly low, and its inhabitants, or the additional
ones they sheltered, a frequent trouble to the constables of those days.
Time and the builders have amended all that, and the village of Kilburn
is (1860) partly a suburb of genteel villas, and a struggling ground for
newly-started professional men and tradesmen of large hope and small
capital, with ultimate success as the prize for those who can play a
losing game longest.
Before leaving Kilburn I may add that, in the spring of 1878, when the
work of widening the London and North-Eastern Railway was going on at
Kilburn, the workmen came upon a curious brass coffin-plate, bearing an
effigy supposed to be that of an Abbess of Kilburn Nunnery. The nuns gave
a touching reason for the dilapidated condition of their house (which
lay close to the highway for wayfarers and pilgrims to the shrine of St.
Alban’s) in the daily charity of the poor sisters to those of the poorer
sort, a charge they were ill able to bear; and this fact, in connection
with the well-known poverty of their house, exempted them from taxes to
the Crown, which recompensed itself at the dissolution of the religious
houses by taking the whole of the little they possessed. At this time
the buildings of the priory consisted of the hall, the chamber next the
church, the middle chamber between that and the Prioress’s chamber;
the buttery, pantry, and cellar; the inner chamber to the Prioress’s
room, the chamber between the latter and the hall, the kitchen, the
larder-house, the brewhouse and bakehouse, the three chambers for the
chaplain and the hinds or husbandmen, the confessor’s chamber, and the
church. The orchard and cemetery, valued at ‘xx_s._ by the yere, and one
horse of the coller of black at vs. For all these chambers 2 bedsteads of
bordes, 1 featherbed, 2 matteres, 2 old coverlettes, 3 wollen blanketts,
a _syller_ of old stained work, and 2 pieces of old hangings paynted,’
appear a sparse allowance of comfort. They were better off in the matter
of church furniture and vestments, as not only altar-cloths, curtains,
hangings, copes, which were nuns’ work, and very likely made by them,
but chalices are enumerated; and they also possessed, closed in silver,
and set with counterfeit stones and pearls, a relique of the Holy Cross,
and a cross with certain other reliques, ‘wt silver gilded. Item, a case
to keepe in reliques, plated and gilt ... and a clocke.’ These were the
nuns’ small treasures, and all were confiscated.
In the ‘Romance of London,’ by the late industrious Mr. Timbs, there
is a legend, quoted by Mr. Walford, of Kilburn Priory. He calls it
traditionary, and says that Mr. Timbs could not trace it to any authentic
source; yet it appears to have been well known to that enthusiastic
collector of ancient ballads and legendary lore, Sir Walter Scott, who
had written a lyrical version of the story long before Mr. Timbs produced
his ‘Romance of London,’ though without publishing it. Here is the tale
of its origin, according to Mr. H. G. Atkinson, who tells us the verses
(which I give further on) remained unpublished till their appearance in
the columns of the _Athenæum_, September 17, 1881:
‘My father, an architect, was a friend of Scott’s, and helped him, as
a friend, in the decoration and finishings of Abbotsford. Scott would
often dine with my father when in London, and was greatly interested
in the garden. In one corner there was some rockwork, in which were
inserted some fragments of stone ornaments of Kilburn Priory, and
crowning all was an irregularly-shaped stone, having a deep red stain,
no doubt of ferruginous origin. This stone was sent to my father by Lord
Mulgrave in one of his cement vessels, my father having been struck with
its appearance on the shore at Whitby, and from these simple, really
unconnected facts Scott made out the following story in verse, which
might be regarded as a kind of friendly offering in return for services
rendered. Here are the lines; I had supposed them lost, but my sister, in
turning over some old papers, found a copy.’
This I have taken the liberty to reproduce:
THE MUCKLE STAIN, OR BLEEDING STONE OF KILBURN PRIORY.
For the blessed rood of Sir Gervase the Good
The nuns of Kilburn pray;
But for the wretch who shed his blood
No tongue a prayer shall say.
The bells shall ring, and the nuns shall sing,
Sir Gervase to the blest;
But holiest rites shall never bring
His murderer’s soul to rest.
‘Now tell me, I pray, thou palmer gray,
Why thou kneelest at this shrine;
And why dost thou cry so eagerly
Upon the help Divine?
‘Oh, tell me who the man may be,
And what his deadly sin,
That the Church’s prayer, for his soul’s despair,
The mercy of Christ may win.’
‘I cry at this shrine on the help Divine
To save the soul of one
Who in death shall lie ere morning shine
Upon this ancient stone.
‘Sir Gervase rode forth far in the north
To Whitby’s holy see;
In her bower alone his lady made moan,
A fairer could not be.
‘His false brother came to the weeping dame:
“Oh, I love you dearer than life.”
“Hence! would you win to shame and sin
Thy brother’s wedded wife?”
‘“He is far away, thou sweet ladie,
And none may hear or see;
So, lady bright, this very night,
Oh, open your door to me.
‘“Sir Gervase rides forth far in the north,
’Tis long ere he comes back,
And thine eyes shine bright like stars by night,
From thy hair of raven black.”
‘“The fire shall burn at the door stone
Ere I open my door to thee,
And thy suit of hell to Sir Gervase I’ll tell,
And a traitor’s death thou wilt die.”
‘“Then fare ye well, Dame Isabel,
Thou lady of mickle pride;
Thou shalt rue the day thou saidst me nay,
When back to thee I ride.”
‘The day declined, the rising wind
Sung shrill on Whitby sands;
With ear down laid, and ready blade,
Behind a rock he stands.
‘Sir Gervase rode on in thought alone,
Leaving his men behind;
The blow was sure, the flight secure,
But a voice was in the wind:
‘“False brother, spur thy flying steed,
Thou canst not fly so fast;
But on this stone where now I bleed
Thyself shall breathe thy last.”
‘That stone was then on Whitby’s shore,
And now behold it here;
And ever that blood is in my eye,
And ever that voice in mine ear!’
‘Now, thou palmer gray, now turn thee, I pray,
And let me look in thine eye.
Alas! it burns bright with a fearful light—
Like guilt about to die.
‘That stone is old, and o’er it has rolled
The tempest of many years;
But fiercer rage than of tempest or age
In thy furrowed face appears.’
‘Oh, speak not thus, thou holy man,
But bend and pray by me,
And give me your aid in this hour of need,
Till I my penance drie.
‘With book and beads, with ave and creed,
Oh, help me while you may;
When the bell tolls one, oh, leave me alone,
For with me you may not stay.’
Sore prayed the friar by the gray palmer,
As both knelt o’er the stone;
And redder grew the blood-red hue,
And they heard a fearful groan.
‘Friar, leave me now, on my trembling brow
The drops of sweat run down;
And alone with his sprite I must deal this night,
My deadly guilt to atone.’
By the morning light the good friar came
By the sinner’s side to pray;
But his spirit had flown, and, stretched on the stone,
A corse the palmer lay.
And still from that stone at the hour of one—
Go visit it who dare—
The blood runs red, and a shriek of dread
Pierces the midnight air.
Mr. Timbs’ prose variant of the story, briefly told, is as follows:
At a place called Kilburn Priory, near St. John’s Wood, there was a stone
of a blood colour, which stain was caused by the blood of Sir Gervase de
Morton, or de Mortonne, who was slain by his brother centuries ago. The
latter, Stephen de Morton, had sinfully fallen in love with the beautiful
wife of Sir Gervase, whom he persecuted with his illicit passion, till at
length she threatened to inform her husband. To prevent this, and enraged
by hate and jealousy, the wicked brother lay in wait in a narrow lane
through which Sir Gervase had to pass on his way home, and on one side
of which was a quarry with some rocks projecting. Here Stephen de Morton
lay in ambush, and, as soon as his brother passed, stepped from his
concealment, and stabbed him in the back. Sir Gervase fell forward upon a
part of the rock mortally wounded, and in dying recognised his brother in
his murderer, who he solemnly predicted should also die upon that stone.
Stephen appears to have thought but lightly of his crime, and less of
his murdered brother’s denunciation. He returned immediately to the
prosecution of his design; but the lady was obdurate, and resented his
insulting proposals with indignant scorn, upon which his base passion
turned to hate, and he pitilessly consigned her to a dungeon.
Subsequently he strove to forget his crime, and the innocent cause of
it, by riotous living, but all to no purpose; his conscience would not
rest, and he suffered such an access of remorse that at length he caused
the remains of his brother to be brought to Kilburn Priory, and ordered
a handsome tomb to be erected to his memory. The stones used in building
it were brought from the neighbourhood of the place where the murder was
committed, and amongst them was the one on which the blood of Sir Gervase
had flowed, and which, as soon as the wretched Stephen approached it,
oozed out blood. Upon this the horrified man confessed his crime to the
Bishop of London, submitted himself to severe penance, and bequeathed all
his worldly possessions to Kilburn Priory. But all in vain; he soon after
pined away and died, breathing his last upon the stone stained with the
blood of his brother, and this miraculous stain was the ‘Bleeding Stone’
of Kilburn Priory. Not a word is said of the unfortunate lady’s release
from her undeserved dungeon, from which we can only hope she was freed
to find a place amongst the nuns, and be near the resting-place of her
husband.
Mr. Atkinson, in writing of Sir Walter Scott’s verses, thinks their
origin interesting, equally in an artistic, literary, and psychological
point of view; but looking at Mr. Timbs’ independent presentation of the
same story, the inference is that, the legend being known to Sir Walter,
the juxtaposition of the red stone and the fragmentary relics from
Kilburn Priory quickened the imagination of the poet, and helped him to
produce the lines. In some place or other the tradition must have had an
independent existence, or it could not have appeared in Timbs’ ‘Romance
of London’ previous to its publication in the _Athenæum_.
APPENDIX.
HEATH HOUSE.
It would be doing injustice to a family long known and honoured in this
neighbourhood to bid farewell to Hampstead and the Heath, without some
special notice of Heath House, the present residence of Lord Glenesk, but
in 1790 the home of Samuel Hoare, Esq.
It is a large, square, heavy-looking Georgian house of brown brick,
surrounded by trees and shrubs, close to the Broad Walk on one side, and
divided by a narrow roadway from Jack Straw’s Castle on the other. It
stands upon the highest ridge of the Heath, at the same elevation as the
tavern, and the windows command fine views east, west, and north, whilst
from the flat, lead-covered roof one may see on a clear day, it is said,
six counties.
In 1772 Mr. Hoare had joined the firm of Bland and Barnett, bankers, of
62, Lombard Street, in which his son, grandson, and great-grandsons were
afterwards partners, when the bank was known as Barnett, Hoare and Co.
When the first Samuel Hoare moved to Heath House, his family consisted
of himself and second wife, whom he had married two years previously;
his only son Samuel, a boy seven years old; and a little daughter. The
coming of this family to the Heath was an epoch in the social history of
Hampstead.
Refined, intellectual, religious in the best sense of the phrase, yet
largely liberal, the Quaker banker opened wide his hospitable doors to
friends and neighbours, and brought into their midst the men and women
then most distinguished in literature, philanthropy, and for high social
aims. Nor were the poor forgotten in the ‘beneficent schemes that filled
the mind of this benevolent man.’ Whatever could improve the condition,
or help the needs of his humble neighbours had his earnest aid. England
had been for some time conscience-smitten, and agitated with the wrongs
inflicted on the unhappy negro race. Young Clarkson was calling the
attention of every man of influence he could get at to their cause, and
Wilberforce, one of his earliest converts, had become his eloquent and
pertinacious second. It is well known that the first petition for the
abolition of the slave trade presented to the House of Commons came from
the people called Quakers. To this amiable and unobtrusive sect belongs
the honour of having taken the initiative in the crusade against this
barbarous traffic, and the young enthusiast Clarkson, who was preparing
for the Church, but had chosen a wider platform for the diffusion of his
impressions of Christian charity, found in Mr. Hoare, not a disciple, but
an apostle already in close sympathy with his purpose, and daily working
for its accomplishment.
Here at Heath House these ever-to-be-remembered men discussed with their
host their trials, hopes, and disappointments; for during a series of
sixteen or seventeen years the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade, which Wilberforce Session after Session presented to the House of
Commons, was as constantly thrown out, and two years before the final
triumph of their cause (1827) their associate and helper, Samuel Hoare
senior, died (1825), aged seventy-five.
I have not seen it mentioned in the History or ‘Records of Hampstead,’
but find in a paragraph of the _Lady’s Magazine_, December, 1812, that
‘the Lancastrian school which Mr. Hoare, the banker, has erected at his
own expense at Hampstead was opened a few days ago with about a hundred
children. The establishment is capable of accommodating about one hundred
and fifty, and promises to be soon filled up.’
Some years before his father’s death, Samuel Hoare junior had married one
of the famous Earlham sisters, Louisa, daughter of John Gurney, banker,
of Norwich, and had gone to reside at the Hill, North End (the house a
wedding-gift from his father). Later on Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who
had married Hannah, another of the Miss Gurneys, also resided for some
time at North End, at a house now known as Myrtle Wood, a delightful
event for the sisters, their relatives, and friends. It is of Hill
House, during the residence of Sir Fowell and Lady Buxton in its near
neighbourhood (1820), that the celebrated Severen of Cambridge wrote:
‘More of heaven I never saw than in the two families at Hampstead’ (the
Hoares and Buxtons).
Of course, the same circle of friends were received at the houses of
both father and son; but when the death of Samuel Hoare senior occurred,
though his widow and daughter continued to occupy Heath House, the
delightful reunions that have made it memorable ceased.
Like his father and his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Samuel
Hoare the second entered heartily into the views of his friends, Clarkson
and Wilberforce, and gave their great scheme for the abolition of slavery
his steady help and influence. He lived long after the cause they battled
for so pertinaciously had been won, and, with his sympathetic wife,
inaugurated various projects for bettering the condition of the poor of
Hampstead, some of which I am told are still actively beneficial.
There are just two or three old inhabitants of Hampstead who remember the
tall figure of the second Samuel Hoare, who used to go down to town on
horseback followed by his servant; later on I am told the servant’s place
was changed, and he rode very close to—indeed, side by side with—his
master, who towards the end of his life was subject to sudden seizures.
This gentleman died December 26, 1846, at the comparatively early age of
sixty-four, and Hill House became the property of his son Samuel, who did
not live very long to enjoy it, dying in the twenty-sixth year of his
age, October 27, 1833. The present Sir Samuel Hoare, Member for Norwich,
is the fourth of the name, and the great-grandson of the first Samuel
Hoare of Heath House, of which he is the owner, as well as of the Hill,
and other property at Hampstead.
Mrs. Hannah Hoare, the second wife and widow of Samuel Hoare of the
Heath, continued to reside there with her step-daughter for many years in
the near neighbourhood of their relations at the Hill. There is something
touchingly suggestive in the fact that they both died in the same year,
the widow on January 21, and her step-daughter on October 21, 1833. Mr.
Gurney Hoare, son of the second Samuel Hoare, lived at Hill House many
years, and died there. The only representatives of this family now at
Hampstead (1899) are Mrs. MacEnnis and her sister, Miss Greta Hoare, who
reside at Wildwood Avenue.
WENTWORTH PLACE, JOHN STREET.
The now frequented thoroughfare of John Street has been long in coming
into its inheritance—namely, the interest it derives from the fact that,
after the death of his brother, John Keats resided here for nearly twelve
months, and the last month of his life in England was spent here.
Wentworth Place lies on the right side of the road going from St.
John’s Chapel (on Downshire Hill) to the station. It consisted of two
adjoining houses, one of them occupied by Charles Armitage Brown, the
personal friend and sympathetic admirer of the poet; the other by the
Dilkes—Charles Wentworth Dilke, the critic, who was afterwards editor and
part proprietor of the _Athenæum_, and his brother William.[299] A lady,
born at Hampstead, and who resided there till twenty-two years of age,
remembers that a low fence encircled the garden, within which was a hedge
of laurustinus and China roses; latterly it was railed round.
I can imagine the road then, with only a few houses bordering it, each in
its setting of greensward and evergreens, almost impinging on the green
slope of South Hill, and leading round by Sol’s Row, where Wilkie at one
time had lodgings, and where a great nobleman and his wife and daughter
called upon him with a proposal for him to paint the portrait of one or
both the ladies, to which the unsophisticated Scotchman bluntly replied
that ‘he would think about it.’
Sol’s Row then looked out upon a wide stretch of meadow-land, beautiful
with divisional elms and other trees, and had a fair-sized pond in the
foreground.
It was with his friend Brown, as I have before said, that Keats visited
Scotland, but had not strength left to attempt it a second season. He
occupied the front sitting-room in his friend’s house, and here he
wrote the greater part of ‘Hyperion,’ and the Odes to ‘Indolence’ and
to ‘Psyche,’ ‘On a Grecian Urn,’ and to ‘A Nightingale.’ Here also he
commenced the unfinished ‘Cap and Bells,’ and wrote ‘La Belle Dame sans
Merci’; and here, at a party given by the Dilkes, he met Miss Brawne, the
lady who ‘was not Cleopatra, but was at least Charmian,’ and who, with
her fine eyes and fine manners, and her rich Eastern looks, was fated to
play so large a part in the inner tragedy of his short life.
The lady whom I have just now alluded to, who knew Miss Brawne till she
herself was fifteen years of age, when the latter left England, describes
her as a very striking, dignified-looking woman, fair, but pale, with
bright dark eyes and light brown hair. She remembers her mother saying
that Fanny Brawne was a lovely girl, but that she had lost her colour in
an illness she had after her engagement with Keats was broken off—‘that
mad boy Keats,’ as they used to call him.
When subsequently the Dilkes moved to Westminster, Mrs. Brawne and her
daughter took their house, so that the lovers must have seen each other
daily. Keats resided with his friend from 1818 to 1819, when, in order
to be near Leigh Hunt, who had left the Vale of Health and was living
at Kentish Town, he removed there. Afterwards, when Hunt left England
for Italy, Keats made trial of a cheap lodging in College Street,
Westminster, where he only remained a week, returning instinctively to
Hampstead, where the Brawnes, from womanly compassion, received him (he
was then hopelessly ill), and tenderly nursed him in the white bedroom,
with the white curtains and white quilt, in which Haydon, the painter,
saw him, the bright hectic of his flushed cheeks the only relief to the
surrounding wanness. Here he remained a month, the last month of his life
in England, and Hampstead and his lady-love possessed it.
If ever a spot of earth could claim as its own one whose charmed gift of
poesy has impenetrated and irradiated the whole sphere of intellectual
life, surely Hampstead may call Keats her own.
When the Brawnes left Wentworth Place, an actress of some eminence—a Miss
Chester, who held the post of Reader to George IV.—took both houses,
threw them into one, and called her home Lawn Bank, by which name it
continued to be called till inquiries began to be made for Wentworth
Place, which readers of the ‘Northern Heights of London’ will remember
William Howitt could not find. The name has now been restored.
Upon this house the Society of Arts placed a memorial tablet of
terra-cotta, inscribed:
JOHN KEATS,
POET,
LIVED IN THIS HOUSE.
BORN 1795. DIED 1821.
Not a very clearly-expressed inscription, since anyone ignorant of the
poet’s history might naturally infer that he had not only lived, but
had been born and had died here. However, this is better than barren
forgetfulness, and now John Street has its visitors, as Flask Road had in
times gone by, but with far livelier interest, for he who lived and wrote
some of his most lovely poems within these walls, to paraphrase his own
prophecy, ‘lives among the English poets after death.’
Alas! it would seem that even this poor, long-delayed honour, the only
one his countrymen have afforded him, was a mere mockery, for I find
it stated in the public papers under the date of August 1, 1898, that
Wentworth House has been sold on a building lease of ninety-nine years,
with a proviso that only houses of a superior class shall be erected on
the site.
VANE HOUSE.
It is generally believed that the fine old red-brick mansion to the left
of the road as you ascend Rosslyn Hill, now the ‘Home of the Soldiers’
Daughters,’ is the veritable house which the unfortunate Sir Harry Vane
built for himself on Hampstead Hill, a place in which he had hoped to
pass the declining years of his life in peace.
Of the original house only an old staircase leading to the garden exists,
but the interior of the mansion has suffered so many changes, both before
and after it became the residence of the celebrated Dr. Butler, that,
together with the alterations necessary to fit it for its present use,
not one of the original apartments remains.
The south wing of the house has been cut off; the northern half is in
good repair, and makes a commodious house. It has received the name of
Belmont. When Baines wrote the ‘Records of Hampstead’ this was the home
of H. J. Griffiths, Esq. The fine avenue of elms that anciently skirted
Vane House, some of which were standing in quite recent years, has wholly
disappeared.
The gardens and grounds were very extensive and well laid out, but these
have been despoiled, though ‘one ancient mulberry-tree survives.’
When the grand old house was converted to its present use, two-thirds of
the garden were taken for the children’s playground, and quite recently
half an acre of the kitchen garden has been sold for £5,000!
It seems extraordinary that there should be any question as to the
identity of the house. Its original owner was executed on June 14, 1662,
just thirty years before the birth of Butler, who was born in 1692.
The Bishop, who only lived to be sixty, dying in 1752, appears to have
resided here for many years, and ornamented the windows with a quantity
of painted glass.
One would imagine that a building of such distinction, so strikingly
situated, and tenanted from time to time by important personages—it was
afterwards the home of Mr. Thomas Neave and of J. Pilgrim, Esq.—without
the tragic story attached to it, was not one to be lost sight of in the
annals of the then small village. Its history might, one would think,
even without the aid of highway and parish books, be fairly trusted
to oral tradition from one generation to another, in a period covered
by ninety years, from the date of Sir Harry Vane’s execution till the
death of Dr. Butler. The architectural characteristics of the building
when intact bore out its claim to have been built in the days of the
Commonwealth.
Eliza Meteyard, in her ‘Hallowed Spots of Ancient London,’ a book
deserving a better fate than it has met with, tells us that the famous
avenue was the scene of Sir Harry’s arrest. Here on the evening of an
early day in July, 1660, just as the sun was setting, Sir Harry walked
and meditated, as was his wont, till the glowing splendour of the
western sky gradually faded, as did the sounds of the cotter children
at their play, the barking of a sympathetic dog, or some broken scrap
of hymn, and still Sir Harry continued to pace beneath the elm-trees,
the sweetness and the stillness deepening with the twilight, when the
measured tramp of soldiers on the hill, some of whom marched straight
to Vane House, whilst others guarded the exits, struck terror into the
hearts of his humble neighbours, who, before night settled fully down,
saw Sir Harry taken from his home, a prisoner on his way to the Tower,
whence, after two years of torturing uncertainty, and removals from one
place of captivity to another, he came forth on another summer’s day,
June 14, 1662, to die by the hand of the executioner on Tower Hill,
another martyr to the liberties of his country.
Readers will remember Pepys’ hurry to shut up his office that morning,
and get off with his friends to see how the great Commonwealth man would
comport himself on so public and so trying a platform as the scaffold. He
is a witness, amongst others, to the calmness and self-command which the
ill-used enthusiast exhibited in parting from mortality.
POND STREET.
POND STREET—evidently the fashionable street in the eighteenth
century for the reception of visitors of the class dignified as the
‘quality’—appears to have been in the early years of this, the Harley
Street of Hampstead. Here resided Baron Dimsdale, in a house on the
left side of the road going down, the physician who inoculated the
Empress Catherine of Russia for small-pox. It will be remembered, to the
Empress’s credit, that she requested him to leave the country as soon as
possible after the operation, as in the event of her death he would be
held guilty of it.
Dr. Rodd, Dr. Lond, and various other medical men, lived in Pond Street.
I can remember it with a row of trees on the right-hand side of the way
as you entered it from the highroad, and a strip of greensward running
down it—a quiet street of formal appearance, with an air of genteel
frigidity characteristic of its period.
It was in Pond Street that ‘poor Kirkman,’ as Keats sympathetically
calls him, ‘fell amongst thieves,’ who stopped and beat and robbed him
of his watch. He had been visiting the poet at Wentworth Place, and left
about half-past eight in the evening, and was on his way to the London
Road, probably intending to meet the coach there, when he was waylaid,
maltreated and robbed. This was in 1818, so that the middle passage
between Hampstead and the Metropolis was not even then without its danger.
Keats, writing to his brother some days after the event, tells him he had
been to see Kirkman, who had not recovered of his bruises.
A FRAGMENT OF THE FLORA OF HAMPSTEAD.
In the reigns of Elizabeth and James the herbalists appear to have had
Hampstead Heath very much to themselves. The laundresses must have had
light feet, and children have been comparatively few.
Otherwise they did not wander so far as Bishop’s Wood, or the old Target
Bank, where the lilies of the valley grew so plentifully in Johnson’s
time. Johnson was the pupil of Gerard, and the editor of a new edition
of his master’s work, the ‘Great Herbal.’ To this lover of Nature, an
apothecary by profession, is due the honour of having prepared the first
catalogue of local plants ever published in England, the locality of
these plants being the Heath and the Woods of Hampstead; many of the
plants have survived the predatory habits of London flower-vendors, and
still flourish in their old habitats.
Of the survivors, we are glad to give the following list from personal
acquaintance with them:
_March and April._
COMMON DAISY (_Bella perennis_).—Perennial everywhere. We
gathered it on the East Heath January 26, 1874.
BLACKTHORN (_Prunus spinosa_).—Upper and West Heath.
MARSH MARIGOLD (_Caltha palustris_).—The borders of the
old watercourse at the back of Jack Straw’s Castle. This
watercourse is now extinct (1895).
PASQUE FLOWER (_Anemone Pulsatilla_).—On a bank at the edge of
the Upper Heath. A small bed of it amongst the whitethorn-trees
going to the Leg of Mutton Pond.
DANDELION (_Leontodon taraxacum_).—In grassy places. East and
West Heaths, everywhere.
WOOD CROWFOOT, GOLDYLOCKS (_Ranunculus auricomus_).—Amongst the
trees beyond the red viaduct, Lower Heath.
We look in vain for the primroses which adorned the hedgerows and
overspread the woods in Gerard’s time, and the cowslips ankle-deep in the
meadows between Kilburn and the Heath. Like the lilies of the valley, the
orchids and ophreys, they have long since been exterminated by mendicant
root-vendors, or buried under the foundations of modern streets.
_May._
WILD HYACINTH, BLUEBELL (_Hyacinthus non-scriptus_).—Plentiful
on the grassy banks beside the New Road leading to Child’s Hill.
SPEEDWELL GERMANDER (_Veronica_).—In the same neighbourhood.
WOOD SORREL (_Oxalis acetosella_).—Under the shade of some old
thorn-stocks, south side of the watercourse, Upper Heath.
BUTCHER’S BROOM (_Ruscus aculeatus_).—Bushy places about the
neighbourhood of the pond, near the red viaduct, Lower Heath.
SHEPHERD’S PURSE (_Bursa pastoris_).—Common by roadsides
everywhere.
CRAB APPLE (_Pyrus malus_).—On the right hand of the
watercourse behind Jack Straw’s Castle, descending the Heath,
near the pond.
HAWTHORN, HAGTHORN, MAYBUSH (_Crategus oxyacanthus_).—In the
same neighbourhood, right and left.
DOG VIOLET (_Viola canina_).—In various places on the West
Heath.
DWARF WILLOW (_Salix repens_, Smith, _Salex repens_,
Bab.).—Near the bog opposite the grounds of Hill House, North
End.
_June._
COMMON WATERCRESS (_Nasturtium officinalis_).—In a pool at the
lower end of the watercourse.
RAGGED ROBIN (_Lychnis flos-cuculi_).—On the moist margin of
the same place near the pond.
MARSH STITCHWORT (_Stellaria glauca_).—Same habitat as the
above.
WATER RANUNCULUS (_R. aquatilis_).—In the pond at the bottom of
the old watercourse.
NEEDLE GREEN-WEED, PETTY-WHIN (_Genista anglica_).—On high
ground on the West Heath.
COMMON BROOM (_Cytisus scoparius_).—Frequent on both Heaths,
making the gravelly hollows luminous. These now effaced (1895).
BUCK BEAN (_Menyanthes trifoliata_).—On the sphagnum by the
watercourse.
MARSH RED RATTLE (_Pedicularis palustris_).—Beds of its rosy
flowers in moist places frequent on the West Heath.
COTTON GRASS, DOWNY-STALKED (_Eriophorum pubescens_).—Once
plentiful in May and June beside the watercourse, in the bed of
which I found it lingering in the summer of 1873. Abundant June
3, 1874; lost 1895.
COTTON GRASS (_Eriophorum angustifolium_).—Same habitat.
MARSH PENNYWORT (_Hydrocotyle vulgaris_).—In damp places on the
West Heath.
CUCKOO-FLOWER, LADY’S SMOCK (_Cardamine pratensis_).—On bogs on
West Heath, of a beautiful deep lilac hue.
COMMON MILKWORT (_Polygala vulgaris_).—I call it gay-wings.
Blue, pink, purple and white, disports itself in all the grassy
hollows on the Western Heath.
SWEET WOODRUFF (_Asperula odorata_).—In the shade of the trees
in the neighbourhood of the red viaduct, near Lord Mansfield’s
grounds, Lower Heath.
SCARLET PIMPERNEL, SHEPHERD’S WEATHER-GLASS (_Anagallis
arvensis_).—Borders of the sandy roadsides, fields and paths.
LESSER STITCHWORT (_Stellaria graminea_).—In the little dells
on lower part of West Heath.
REST HARROW (_Ononis arvensis_).—On Upper Heath.
COMMON FURZE (_Ulex europæus_).—Everywhere amongst the gravelly
mounds and hollows on the Upper Heath and North End Hill.
MARE’S-TAIL (_Hippurus vulgaris_).—Margins of ponds, Upper and
Lower Heath.
BROOKLIME (_Veronica beccabunga_).—In channel of the old
watercourse.
COMMON ELDER (_Sambucus nigra_).—Plentiful in hedgerows and
lanes in the vicinity of the Heath. Constable noticed the
beauty of its rounded cymes.
SPEEDWELL (_Veronica spicata_).—On West Heath, near Leg of
Mutton Pond.
SHEEP’S SORREL (_Rumex acetosella_).—Abundant on West Heath,
its deep red clustered spikes of flowers conspicuous above the
yet unopened white ones of _Galium saxatile_, among which it
frequently appears.
GREATER STITCHWORT (_Stellaria holostea_).—Amongst the bushes
near the Leg of Mutton Pond, West Heath.
WHITE DUTCH CLOVER (_Trifolium repens_).—Sparsely on the
West Heath, near the reservoir, and in the fields going to
Parliament Hill.
DWARF MALLOW (_Malva rotundifolia_).—Under the garden-wall of
Hill House, North End.
_July._
DEVIL’S-BIT SCABIOUS (_Scabiosa succisa_).—On the higher part
of West Heath.
COMMON EYE-BRIGHT (_Euphrasia officinalis_).—On the high ground
under the western plateau of the Heath. One of Milton’s flowers.
COMMON BUGLE (_Ajuga reptans_).—In moist places; abundant over
all the Heath; perennial.
UPRIGHT ST. JOHN’S WORT (_Hypericum pulchrum_).—On the dry
banks above Leg of Mutton Pond, at the foot of the watercourse.
COMMON FILAGO (_F. germanica_).—Frequent about the gravel-pits,
Upper Heath.
WOOD SAGE (_Teucrium scorodonia_).—Abundant on Upper Heath.
COMMON BIRD’S-FOOT TREFOIL (_Lotus corniculatus_).—Abundant on
the West Heath.
GREATER BIRD’S-FOOT TREFOIL (_Lotus major_).—Near the old
watercourse, towards the pond.
PURPLE SANDWORT (_Arenaria rubra_).—On the sandy paths and
hillocks east of Jack Straw’s Castle, Lower Heath.
TORMENTILLA (_T. reptans_).—Its red trailing stems,
strawberry-shaped leaves, and bright yellow flowers, common
everywhere upon the Heath all summer.
HEATH BEDSTRAW (_Gallium saxatile_).—Great spaces on the high
ground of the Upper Heath snowy white with the dense panicles
of this lovely little plant.
HAREBELL (_Campanula rotundifolia_).—Common over all the upper
parts of the Heath.[300]
LESSER SPEARWORT (_Ranunculus flammula_).—Along the margins of
the old watercourse.
CELERY-LEAVED CROWFOOT (_R. sceleratus_).—In the same
neighbourhood.
GREAT REEDMACE, OR CAT’S-TAIL (_Typha latifolia_).—In the pond
on Lord Mansfield’s grounds, beside the viaduct, where an old
boat lies stranded (1856).
WATER VIOLET (_Viola palustris_).—Margin of the same pond,
and in the pool at the bottom of the watercourse behind Jack
Straw’s Castle.
MEADOWSWEET, QUEEN OF THE MEADOW (_Spiræa ulmaria_).—In the bed
of an old runnel on the right of the New Road going to Child’s
Hill.
SUNDEW (_Drosera rotundifolia_).—Boggy places amongst sphagnum
beds in the vicinity of the watercourse, West Heath.
COMMON YARROW, MILFOIL (_Achillea millefolium_).—Almost
everywhere on the Heath.
MOUSE-EAR HAWKWEED (_Hieracium pilosella_).—Runs over all the
little mounds and hillocks on the Western Heath; abundant all
the summer.
_August._
COMMON CHAMOMILE (_Anthemis nobilis_).—In many places on the
Upper Heath.
DODDER (_Cuscuta epithymum_).—Found on furze bushes on the
Upper Heath August, 1859.
BETONY (_Betonica officinalis_).—Amongst furze clumps in a line
with the old watercourse.
FINE-LEAVED HEATH (_Erica cinerea_).—On the West Heath in
gravelly, grass-grown hollows.
LING (_Calluna vulgaris_).—Amongst the gravel-beds frequent.
YELLOW WATER-LILY (_Nuphar lutea_).—In the pond at the viaduct,
Lower Heath. Note its flask-like seed-vessels, which have
libelled it with the name of ‘brandy-bottle.’
COMMON ARROW-HEAD (_Sagittaria sagittifolia_).—Margins of the
same pond.
SMALL-FLOWERED HAIRY WILLOW HERB (_Epilobium
parviflorum_).—Lower end of old watercourse.
SWEETGALE (_Myrica_).—On West Heath.[301]
To this list I may add a few other plants found on the Heath and its
vicinity by Messrs. Bliss, Hunter and others, leaving out those proper to
Caen Wood, which is still rich in the plants that flourished on the Heath
and in the woods when Gerard wrote:
HENBANE (_Hyoscyamus niger_).—Near the Vale of Health.
LESSER CENTAURY (_Erythræa pulchella_).—In the same habitat and
on the West Heath.
GREAT YELLOW LOOSESTRIFE (_Lysimachia vulgaris_).—In a field
near North End.
LESSER PERIWINKLE (_Vinca minor_).—Under the hedge in Belsize
Lane.
BOG PIMPERNEL (_Anagallis tenella_).—Boggy places on the Heath,
west side.
BLACK WHORTLEBERRY, OR WHINBERRY (_Vaccinium myrtillus_).—On
several parts of the Heath.
LESSER SKULLCAP (_Scutellaria minor_).—Among the bushes near
the bogs on the west side of the Heath, and very abundant on
the east side between the Vale of Health and Well Walk.
MUSK MALLOW (_Malva moschata_).—In a field between Turner’s
Wood and North End.
Only two species of moss were said to grow in a bog to the west of the
Heath, and these I found still growing there, viz.: _Hypnum stramineum_,
straw-like feather moss, and _Hypnum cuspidatum_, pointed bog feather
moss. In 1895, the researches of the London Natural History Club added
quite a long list to them, and they appear to be as numerous in the bogs
and on the Heath as in the strictly preserved precincts of Caen Wood.
BENEFACTORS OF HAMPSTEAD AND THE CHARITIES.
One of the earliest benefactors of Hampstead was Elizabeth, Dowager
Viscountess Campden, widow of Sir Baptist Hicks, the donor of Hicks’s
Hall to the county of Middlesex, and Lord of the Manor of Hampstead
(whose town house, by the way, was Campden House, Kensington), ‘with
whom, in all peace and contentment, she lived, his dear consort and wife,
for the space of forty-five years.’
She bequeathed by will, dated February 14, 1643, the sum of £200 to
trustees for the purchase of land of the clear yearly value of £10, ‘in
trust to pay yearly for ever one moiety towards the better relief of
the most poor and needy people that be of good name and conversation,
inhabitants of the Parish of Hampstead; to be paid to them half yearly
at or in the Church porch. The other moiety to put forth annually one
poor boy, or more, of the said Parish to apprenticeship.’ To this gift
was joined the sum of £40, bequeathed by an unknown but eccentric
gentlewoman in the same year, for the purpose of distributing a halfpenny
loaf (probably a crossed bun) annually on Good Friday morning to the
inhabitants of Hampstead, rich and poor. Mad as a March hare! for what
did the rich inhabitants of Hampstead want of a halfpenny loaf on Good
Friday, or any other morning, even in the days when a crossed bun was a
panacea for almost every ailment? Yet the bequest proved as bread cast
upon the waters, and seen after many days; for being joined to Lady
Campden’s £200, the whole was laid out in the purchase of fourteen acres
of meadow-land at Child’s Hill, in the parish of Hendon, of the clear
value of 10s. per acre.
When Park wrote, this estate was rented at £84 per annum; at the present
day it must be worth much more, though on inquiry being made on the part
of the Vestry into the management of this charity in 1873, it was said
that it had not been developed.
Next on the list of Hampstead benefactions, in point of time, but far
beyond the Campden charity in its importance, is what is called the
Wells Charity, that gift of ‘six acres of waste land lying about and
encompassing the Well of Medicinal Water,’ which the Hon. Susanna Noel of
the one part, and the grantees of a piece of waste ground on the Heath of
the other (on behalf of Baptist, Earl of Gainsborough, her son, then an
infant), bestowed with all the improvements of the same in trust to the
sole use and benefit of the poor of Hampstead.
On this land stand the houses and chapel in Well Walk, which when Park
lived there produced £95 per annum, the trustees having at that period
£1,100 stock in the Three per Cents. In 1859 the estate was said to be
capable of producing from £2,000 to £3,000 per annum.
This charity is applied—or at least a portion of it—to apprenticing
poor children of both sexes. The parents of the children must have been
parishioners (not receiving parochial relief) for three years. The boys
must be fourteen, the girls twelve years of age; and in order to enter an
application it is necessary to obtain a recommendation from one of the
trustees.
Appertaining to this charity there is also a fund for charitable
distribution. Besides these gifts, certain poor widows and housekeepers
were to be maintained and assisted by the benefactions of Elizabeth
Shooter, spinster, the possible foundress of one or other of the four
almshouses formerly existing at Hampstead, and one of which, being
removed from a part of the Heath by Sir Francis Willes, and the site
taken into his grounds at North End, was rebuilt by him in the Vale
of Health. A Mrs. Mary Arnsted, of Hampstead, widow, assisted in this
charity.
Francis Marshall, Esq., of Hampstead, in 1772 left £100 in the Three
per Cents., to be distributed to poor housekeepers annually on Easter
Day. Besides these, there is another important bequest, known as Stock’s
Charity.
One would like to know the ancient whereabouts of the donor, John Stock,
Esq., paper-stainer, citizen, draper, and philanthropist, while resident
at Hampstead, who, having, as the white marble tablet in the north-east
corner of Christ Church, London, tells us, ‘acquired with the strictest
integrity considerable wealth, bequeathed the greater part of it at his
death, September 21, 1781, for the promotion of religion and virtue ...
the advancement of literature and art ... the relief of the decrepit
and comfort of the blind.’ He specially bequeathed £1,000 (which, with
the dividends that had accrued, and some donations from the trustees,
purchased £2,000 in the Three per Cents.) to the minister and gentlemen
parishioners of Hampstead for the purpose of clothing, educating, and
putting out apprentice ten poor fatherless children of the parish—viz.,
six boys and four girls, the former to receive £5 as an apprentice-fee,
the latter £2. Eight boys and seven girls received the benefit of this
fund in 1812, and as it increased a proportionate number have benefited
since then.
To these generous and useful charities many a poor widow has been
indebted for the training and suitable settling in life of her otherwise
destitute children; but for them many a household would have been broken
up and scattered, and decently-born children and respectable matrons
reduced to the dead-level of the poor-house. But the large compassion of
those ancient benefactors of the beautiful village, and the more recent
charities of honest John Stock,[302] have enlarged and widened, as it
were, with the years and the number of the necessitous, and continue to
strengthen the hands and comfort the hearts of the widows and fatherless
with timely and efficient aid.
The funds of the Wells Charity have grown out of all proportion to the
original intentions of the donor of them, and proposals have been made to
utilize them for the benefit of a class above those whom the foundress
desired to benefit. But the working classes themselves, or their
representatives, have suggested many ways of using them without wresting
them from their proper channel, by which not only they themselves, but
the whole community, will be advantaged. It has been suggested to build
baths and wash-houses, and a working men’s hall and institute; and who
can doubt the reciprocal blessings to rich and poor that must spring from
cleanliness, temperance, and those mental improvements which come of
intelligent association and rational means of amusement?
Other charities exist in the parish—various bequests of small sums, which
if amalgamated, like the Campden Fund with the £40 for annually bestowing
halfpenny loaves, would create useful stock, and go far to relieve the
ratepayers of the parish.
While these lines were being penned, we had the pleasure to see that a
memorial to the Attorney-General, with Mr. Gurney Hoare at its head, had
been signed to provide a working men’s club and institute at Hampstead
with a portion of the revenue of the Wells Charity.
It has also been suggested, in accordance with the necessities of the
times, that a larger premium be given with apprentices, to ensure
better masters and mistresses. Some persons have even advocated a plan
for improving the dwellings of the local poor, and others, again, a
middle-class school for poor tradesmen’s children; but, unless the
funds are capable of extension to cover the whole of these plans, the
middle-class school scarcely seems to come within the scope of the
Hon. Susanna Noel’s intentions. It appears the germ of a working men’s
unsectarian club has been for some little time in existence, and that the
want of class-rooms and other suitable premises has made the members, and
the projectors and encouragers of it, actively alive to the prospect so
appositely thrown open to them.
Soon, therefore, we may hope that a handsome building will arise—an
ornament to the town and a monument to the memory of the foundress of the
Wells Charity.
We have already alluded to the practical services rendered by Mr.
Perceval and Mr. Montagu during their residence at Hampstead and in
its neighbourhood. It would not be difficult to trace the seeds of
the present anxiety for mental and social improvement on the part of
local working men, and the desire to aid them in their advance on
the part of their employers and friends, to the discussions of the
Philo-Investigists, and the Sunday and night schools on Rosslyn Hill.
Mr. Fearon’s philanthropy took a wider field: it belonged to no party,
or time, or class; his efforts were for the freedom of human intellect,
and the advancement through education of all. He belongs by right of
residence to Hampstead.
There is in the churchyard a monument to two children of the Hon. and
Rev. Edward John Tornour, a member of the noble family of that name,
the seventh and, at that time, the only child of the Right Hon. Edward
Garth Tornour, Earl of Winterton, Viscount Tornour, and Baron Winterton,
who had been resident at Green Hill, Hampstead, for several years.
Benevolence seems to have been a hereditary virtue of this noble family.
Mr. Tornour took Holy Orders for love of the sacred office, and not
for the emoluments of the Church; and previous to becoming a permanent
resident of London, whither he was obliged to move for the sake of his
health, he had accepted the offices of curate, afternoon preacher, and
evening lecturer at Hampstead, where he resided till he could no longer
bear the sharp air. While there he acted as a county magistrate and
guardian of the poor. It is impossible to look at the engraved portrait
of him, after a painting by Drummond, without feeling the fine nature
of the man; the broad, full, philanthropical forehead, the large,
sweet, compassionate eyes and kindly mouth, are full of benignity and
goodness, though we are not aware that he benefited the parish he served
pecuniarily. He was living there about, or shortly before, the date
of Park’s History. The tears and blessings of the poor do not follow
the unreal Christian minister, nor the unworthy magistrate, nor the
uncompassionate guardian, and from the character given of him on his
death, and which may be seen in the pages of the _European Magazine_, we
venture to regard him as one of the Hampstead worthies.
We find the following notice in the columns of the _Grub Street Journal_:
‘Yesterday [April 16, 1736], of the gout in his stomach, Mr. Andrew Pitt,
of Hampstead, one of the most eminent of the people called Quakers.’
After thirty years’ attention to business, he had, in the language of
Voltaire, who corresponded with him, ‘the wisdom to prescribe limits to
fortune and his desires, and settle in a little solitude at Hampstead.’
Ceasing from business, however, by no means prevented his active
occupations in other ways.
At the beginning of this year (1736) all the Nonconformists of England
were petitioning against the cruel Test Act, and Tithe Bill, and Mr.
Pitt, as the representative of his ‘people,’ waited upon the Prince of
Wales to solicit His Highness’s favour in support of the Quakers’ Tithe
Bill. Perhaps there is no greater proof of the charm of manner ascribed
to the Prince, and the tact with which he could soften even the refusal
of a request when so minded, than the fact that, though Mr. Pitt failed,
he came away greatly pleased with the Prince’s reply and his excellent
notions of liberty.
It is evident that Voltaire had personally known Mr. Pitt.[303] He
describes him as hale and ruddy, a perfect stranger to intemperance of
any kind, and as never having suffered from sickness.
Another inhabitant who deserves notice was Mr. Thomas Hayes, who as a
poor lad began life in the humble and unpromising capacity of a pot-boy
at a local public-house, from which post he raised himself, ‘entirely
by his own merit,’ to that of a surgeon. He received his knowledge of
pharmacy from Collins, whom Park calls ‘the glossarial stalking-horse
of Steevens.’ Mr. Hayes died May 7, 1787, beloved and regretted by his
friends and neighbours, respected and unenvied. He was laid in his native
churchyard in Maiden Lane.
Another inhabitant of Hampstead who has won the right to be remembered
in a description of it was Mr. Thomas Mitchell, for twenty of his
forty-eight years of life a schoolmaster in the town. He was the real
founder of the Sunday-school, ‘and, by great application and attention
to its interests, left it supported on a firm basis.’ He appears to have
carried out with great earnestness the spirit of his self-made motto,
‘Do all the good you can.’ The poor were special objects of his care,
and, without the aid of money, his practical good sense and actively
philanthropical nature enabled him to strike out permanent means of
assisting them. He was one of the Society of the Philo-Investigists,
a society which, as we have elsewhere said, aimed at intellectual
improvement, and suggested the benefit society afterwards known as the
Flock of the Philo-Investigists. He did not live to see his benevolent
scheme in action; but some years after his death, in 1799, it came into
effect under the name of the Parochial Benefit Society.
In 1802 Josiah Boydell appears to have taken a very keen interest and an
active part in the care of the poor inhabitants of Hampstead, and to have
materially aided in procuring better quarters than the old workhouse at
Frognal for the superannuants and ailing pensioners of the parish.
THE FATE OF A REFORMER.
I have had occasion to speak of Mr. Abrahams’ pamphlet[304] several times
in the course of these pages, a publication that fell like a bomb in
an unexpectant place, and aroused among the well-to-do inhabitants of
Hampstead anything but gratitude.
This gentleman, who had ‘a way,’ he tells us, ‘of looking into things for
himself,’ having become a parishioner of St. John’s, proceeded to act as
he had done when resident in St. Luke’s, London, where his scrutiny into
parochial transactions had resulted in a saving to Government of upwards
of £2,000, and a reduction of the poor rates from 4s. 8d. in the pound
to 3s., a result that led to an annual commemoration of the event at
Canonbury House.
But the people of Hampstead did not desire to be saved from themselves,
and resented this new inhabitant’s interference with indignation. There
is something very amusing in Mr. Abrahams’ account of the proceedings.
Provided with a list of the names of the inhabitants, he called on
the overseer of the parish and requested he would return it to him
with the figures at which they were rated to the poor. Whereupon the
irate overseer demanded to know if he came to disturb the harmony that
existed among the parishioners in a parish where everything was properly
conducted; they wanted no looking after, and therefore he should treat
his request and the list accompanying it with the contempt they deserved
by setting his pipe alight with the latter. Upon which Mr. Abrahams made
no more requests to the courteous official, but possessed himself by
other means of the amounts to which the inhabitants were assessed, and
drew public attention to the matter by the publication of his pamphlet.
It would have been well for parishes generally had they possessed a
representative as energetic as this new parishioner of St. John’s, for
the ignorance and dishonesty his pamphlet disclosed appears to have been
pretty general.
Six years later (1817) we find Sir Walter Scott writing to his friend
Mr. Moratt, who had himself written a pamphlet on the subject, ‘Pray let
me have your pamphlet on the poor-rates as soon as it is out. It is an
Augean stable; it is the very canker in the bosom of the country, and no
small claim will he have on the gratitude of England who can suggest a
practical remedy.’
But the people of Hampstead, until they had tasted the fruits of Mr.
Abrahams’ interference, thought otherwise. At that time they were paying
from the inequalities of the rates 4s. 8d. in the pound poor rates, and
1s. 9d. in the pound for lighting, watching, and repairing the roads.
In the happy days which preceded the appearance of this reformer, neither
the parson, vestry clerk, nor beadle paid rates, and, as has elsewhere
been said, the landlord of the Spaniards Inn enjoyed the same pleasant
immunity. The Lady of the Manor (Lady Wilson) was rated at £100 for the
Heath, to which the critical Abrahams objects that ‘when the rate was
made, and till within the last few years, when _so great an impetus had
been given to building_, sand, that now sold at 4s. 6d. a load, and
gravel[305] at 6s. per load, had sold for 2s. 6d. and 4s. 6d.;’ he rated
the Heath therefore at five times the sum, £500.
Lord Erskine’s house, garden, pleasure-grounds, stables, coach-house,
etc., were also rated at £100, and very few proprietors were rated higher.
The following are the places named in his report: Church Street,
Hampstead Hill, the Lower Flask Walk, New End, the Well Walk and
thereabouts, the Square, part of the Heath, the Terrace, Nag’s Head side,
Frognal, the Heath, and North End, the whole of which produced at that
time £21,078, but might, according to Mr. Abrahams’ rating, produce above
a fourth more, or £26,788, and reduce the poor rate by 1s. 2d. in the
pound. Amongst the land-owners mentioned at this period are the names
of Neave, Todd, Milligen, Holford, Hoare, Lord Mansfield; Everett (late
Perceval), Belsize House, Haverstock Hill; Lady Watson, Well Park—a list
not very different from Carey’s notes of the inhabitants a twelvemonth
later, in the fifth edition of his ‘Book of the Road,’ 1812.[306] He is
describing the Barnet road, which led up to and skirted Hampstead Heath:
‘On the left of the three-mile stone from St. Giles’s Pound, Pryor, Esq.’
(a name retained in the ‘Pryors,’ the present home of Walter Field,
Esq.), ‘whose family have been for some time resident at Hampstead.’ ‘A
little further on Belsize House, William Everett, Esq., and C. Todd,
Esq., nearly opposite to which is T. Cartright, Esq. Farther on the left
Roberts, Esq., and Coke, Esq. An eighth of a mile on the left, Rosslyn
House, Mrs. Milligen. On the top of Red Lion Hill, to the right, is T.
Gardner, Esq.; opposite is Pilgrim, Esq., adjoining to which is Mrs. Key.
On the entrance to the Heath, T. Sheppard, Esq., M.P. for Frome’ (who
resided in Steevens’ old house, now the home of the Misses Lister); and
‘across the Heath, S. Hoare, Esq., and a distant view of Caen Wood, with
the seats of Charles Bosanquet, Esq., and Lord Erskine.’
He does not mention Edward Coxe, the poet, who was their neighbour the
preceding year. ‘On the right is Caen Wood, Earl of Mansfield, and near
it Fitzroy Farm, Lord Southampton. Between the Castle (Jack Straw’s) and
North End, on the left, Kerney, Esq.; adjoining Ware, Esq., and opposite
S. Hoare junior, Esq., Hill House, and James Kesteven, Esq. On the right
Robert Ward, Esq., and opposite John Thompson, Esq., The Priory; and
beyond the Hoop on Golder’s Green are seats of Henry Woodthorpe, Esq.,
Beck, Esq., and Amand, Esq.’
Abrahams tells us that in 1811 Church Street (as he calls it) had 25
residences; Flask Walk, 58; New End, 59; the Well Walk and thereabouts,
39; the Square, 20; part of the Heath, 20; the Terrace, 58; Nag’s Head
side, 74; the Heath and North End, 38; Heath Street is not mentioned.
In this year it is stated in the _Lady’s Magazine_:
‘We hear that it is in contemplation to form a new Ranelagh and Vauxhall
near Chalk Farm, and a contract has been entered into for forty acres of
land to be appropriated to that purpose.’
New Georgia had long gone to increase Lord Mansfield’s demesne and the
acreage of Caen Wood. North End Hall and Well had proved a failure;
but the people of Hampstead and its neighbourhood still hankered after
the flesh-pots of Egypt, and regretted the affluent days of the Wells
fashion, and the bankruptcy of Belsize. Nothing, however, appears to have
come of the idea, and long years passed before the beautiful meadows in
the neighbourhood of Chalk Farm disappeared.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HEATH.
As early as 1829 we find the freeholders and copyholders of the Manor of
Hampstead meeting at the Assembly Rooms on Holly-bush Hill, to discuss
the best means to prevent further damage being done to the Heath, by
destruction of the herbage, and digging sand and gravel thereon, as well
as to inaugurate a subscription to try by law the right of the Lord of
the Manor to so disturb and destroy it, or to build on or enclose any
part of it.
Even prior to this date there seems to have subsisted an ill-feeling
between the inhabitants of Hampstead and Sir Thomas Wilson. The
copyholders claimed the right to improve their own copyholds by building
on them, or otherwise, as also to get materials for such purposes off
their own land, or from the waste. This matter had been tried between
Lady Wilson and Sir Francis Willes, and had gone against the latter,
because his removing the herbage had been detrimental to the rights of
the other copyholders, who on certain parts of the Heath had a right to
turn in their cattle, _levant et couchant_. Yet from the beginning of the
century, as we have seen, the digging of sand and gravel for the benefit
of Lady Wilson, and subsequently for the Lord of the Manor, had been
going on without stint, and with scarcely any intermission, though in
doing so (to quote the phrase of Professor Vaughan of Oxford, a resident
near the Heath) they were carting away the climate and the drainage, and
therefore the health of the neighbourhood, which depended on the sand and
gravel.
But the then Lord of the Manor was not living for posterity, but for
himself. In the May previous to the meeting we have mentioned, without
even the courtesy of giving the usual notice to the copyholders, Sir
Thomas Wilson had brought his Estate Bill before Parliament, by which he
sought to abrogate the privileges of the copyholders, and appropriate
to himself the power of granting licenses to improve their customary
estates, and licenses to get materials for that purpose from their own
copyholds, upon payment of 40s. fine to the Lord of the Manor, and £3 3s.
fee to the steward for every such license. The Bill also sought power to
grant building leases of the Heath, or other wastes of the manor, and to
extend the power of granting building leases over certain lands formerly
part of the waste, which were granted by the Lord of the Manor to
himself, in the name of a trustee, with the consent of the homage, upon
the express condition _that no buildings should at any time be erected on
them_.
It was by mere accident, it is said, that the people of Hampstead heard
of this Bill being before the House, and only just in time to oppose its
being carried through surreptitiously.
No wonder that there were meetings in hot haste, and resolutions passed
to defend the rights and privileges of the freeholders and copyholders,
and at the same time those of the inhabitants and visitors. The
sympathy of the public, as well as of the principal residents in the
neighbourhood, was with them. Lord Clifton favoured the opposition. Lord
Mansfield headed the subscription, as we have elsewhere said, with a
donation of £50.
The inhabitants, well aware how much of their prosperity was due to the
natural beauty of the Heath and its surroundings, gave with no niggard
hands towards the fund for its protection. But, as we subsequently learn,
the £3,000 raised by voluntary contributions was expended with no other
result than the prospect of endless litigation.
It was impossible for this state of things to exist without a certain
degree of personal ill-feeling being imported into it. Sir Thomas was
rich and resolute, but the copyholders had their rights, and determined
to hold by them. The years ran on without any radical adjustment of the
questions at issue.
Every now and again, not Hampstead only, but the heart of Nature-loving
London, was shaken by reports that the Heath was forthwith to be built
on, and then would come appeals for further subscriptions, with the hope
of purchasing it, appeals headed grandiloquently, but earnestly, ‘Awake!
arise! or lose the Heath for ever!’ and thenceforth other meetings would
ensue, fresh resolutions be declared, but to little apparent purpose,
so far as the assurance of the preservation of the Heath was concerned.
Happily, in the meantime, Government had taken up the question of public
parks and recreation-grounds for the people, and measures were being
adopted for the preservation of the commons at Wandsworth, Wimbledon,
Clapham, Tooting, and Putney.
The Hampstead Heath Committee put themselves into communication with the
Board of Works, and authorized it to negotiate the purchase of the Heath
with the Lord of the Manor of Hampstead.
But though propositions had been made for its purchase in 1856, it
was not till the latter end of 1866 that, from information received,
the Board imagined that the time had arrived when Sir Thomas Wilson
might be willing to negotiate for the sale of his rights in the Heath.
Accordingly an interview was arranged between the then Chairman of the
Board of Works, Sir John Thwaites, and the Lord of the Manor, upon what
proved to be wholly delusive premises. Instead of being willing to listen
to overtures on the subject, Sir Thomas was altogether indisposed to
entertain any such proposition, or to acquiesce with the Board in any
application for the necessary powers to deal with the Heath.
Though himself having only a life-interest in the estate, he insisted
on regarding it as building land, and modestly estimated the value of
the property at from £5,000 to £10,000 per acre, a prohibitory price, of
course, to those who sought the purchase of the Heath.
At the commencement of 1870 there stepped in an unexpected arbitrator,
or, as one of the vestrymen expressed it, ‘the hopes of Hampstead people
were brightened by the death of Sir Thomas Wilson.’ His brother succeeded
to the estate, and once more, and with reason in this instance, it was
said that if an offer of £50,000 was made by the Board to the new Lord
of the Manor, Sir John Maryon Wilson would be disposed to accept of
that sum, and surrender all his rights and interest in the property,
comprising an area of about 240 acres.
In consequence of this belief, negotiations were renewed at the
suggestion of Mr. Le Breton, the representative of Hampstead at the
Metropolitan Board, an honoured name in the neighbourhood from its
associations with that of the Aikins family, Mrs. Barbauld’s grand-niece
being the wife of Mr. Le Breton.
This gentleman, in conjunction with Mr. Gurney Hoare, and a committee of
the influential lease and copy holders, reopened the overtures for the
purchase of the Heath, which had so signally fallen through with the late
Lord of the Manor (Sir Thomas Wilson), and happily with success.
Sir John Maryon Wilson and his son, Mr. Spencer Wilson, agreed to give up
all the rights of the Lord of the Manor of Hampstead in the Heath for the
sum of £45,000—costs to solicitors, surveyors, etc., not to exceed £2,000.
The Lord only reserved certain defined portions for the making new roads,
which will not affect the enjoyment of the public.
Thus the struggle between the Lord of the Manor and the people of
Hampstead—we may say, the people of the Metropolis—came to a final
close. The Bill for the Preservation of the Heath passed the Houses of
Parliament in the next spring, and the Act by which the ownership of
Hampstead Heath was transferred to the Metropolitan Board of Works in
trust to maintain it for ever as an unenclosed space for the purpose of
health and recreation received the Royal Assent June 29, 1871, a day to
be long remembered in the annals of Hampstead.
Very general pleasure and gratification was felt on the occasion by
all who knew the lovely suburb, and regarded it as a pleasure spot
of the Metropolis; and when the fears which the name of the Board of
Works evoked, of straight lines, gravel-paths, and frigid plantations,
had spent themselves in deprecating any attempt to make it other than
itself, a wild heath, disfigured by turf and gravel-digging, scarred in
all directions, and naked in parts, but with sufficient recuperative
strength, if let alone, to renew its greensward and gorse and heather,
and to restore the vigour of trees and undergrowth, a formal taking
possession of it, and dedicating it to the use of the public for ever,
was resolved on.
The circuit of its extent was marked out with flags. The officers of
the Board of Works and local authorities were to perambulate it. But
the free atmosphere of the vagrant Heath seemed to resent the intended
formalities, and a downpour of rain put an end to the whole programme.
Flags and bands and festive company were out of the question, and the
ceremony consisted of a few officials and other gentlemen in close
carriages making the partial circuit of the Heath, pausing at certain
points where alterations and amendments were to be made, but eventually
taking the shortest road to the Flagstaff and Jack Straw’s Castle, where
the Vestry were about to entertain the officers of the Board of Works,
the local authorities, and other guests at a handsome déjeûner. At the
Flagstaff Colonel Hogg, in a brief but graceful speech, proclaimed the
fact that Hampstead Heath was dedicated to the free use and recreation
of the people for ever, and expressed a hope that it would prove
that blessing which had been so long and fondly desired by the great
Metropolitan community, the spirit of which speech, no doubt, the hearts
of all present echoed.
Having thus far traced the story of this loveliest of London suburbs, we,
too, rejoice that its wide views on three sides can never be impeded,
but that, as in the days of Defoe, visitors to the Heath may on a clear
day distinguish in the north-west Hanslip steeple, which is only eight
miles distant from Northampton, and see the Langden Hills in Essex to the
east—objects which lie at least sixty-six miles apart. Then there is the
prospect of London, and beyond to Banstead Downs, Shooter’s Hill, and
Redhill; while on the west the view is uninterrupted to Windsor Castle.
But to the north topographers tell us we can see no further than Barnet,
which is only six miles distant.
But, unfortunately, there were other troubles to be encountered. The
Board of Works were privileged to make grants of some portions of the
Heath, a privilege that resolved itself into helping certain influential
individuals to enclose some of the loveliest and most interesting
portions of it into their own premises. The angle of ground on which
stood the famous group of trees, the Nine Elms, was made over to the
late Lord Mansfield, with what result we all know. Another gentleman,
before a voice could be raised against it, was allowed to enclose the
loveliest bit of North End, known for generations as the Lovers’ Walk,
in his demesne. And just when a third claimant was bargaining for
the historic grove of trees called the Judge’s Walk, the remnant of
which recalls a memorable fact, not only in the history of Hampstead,
but of England,[307] Mr. Le Breton, who had fortunately heard of the
transaction, was enabled to interfere and frustrate it.
A similar piece of good fortune helped the inhabitants to preserve the
remains of the Old Avenue at North End from being enclosed in an adjacent
demesne. The committee of the Hampstead Heath Protection Society, who now
charge themselves with looking after the Heath and maintaining it intact
for the people, are resolved on getting back as many of its original
acres as possible. When, therefore in the summer of the year 1898 the
beautiful estate of Golder’s Hill, the residence of the late Sir Spencer
Wells, was to be sold, the inhabitants of Hampstead were naturally
disturbed by the report that a syndicate of builders were plotting its
purchase, with the intention of covering the charming grounds with
streets of houses.
Part of these grounds impinge upon the Heath, and it was said included
the Flagstaff Hill, the very crowning point of view upon it, the
threatened loss of which affected all the inhabitants, and roused, says
my authority, a collective spirit of resistance. A letter from Mrs. Hart,
widow of the artist, who had left a sum of money for such contingencies,
appeared in some of the London papers, and called popular notice to the
threatened vandalism. A committee was formed, and subscriptions were
raised, to which the local and London County Councils, as well as many of
the inhabitants of Hampstead, generously contributed, till the whole of
the purchase-money, £40,500, was in a very short time happily provided.
It is intended to let the house, but the picturesque grounds are to be
kept in their integrity and added to the Heath, from which, the new ride
now divides them. The cost of the ground purchased averages about £1,000
per acre. This was the price paid to Lord Mansfield for 209 acres of the
Heath, while Sir Spencer Wilson received £100,000 for sixty-one acres,
making together, with all extra expenses in the purchase of the Heath,
£302,000.
Everyone who knows the pleasant suburb must rejoice that a neighbourhood
which has delighted the people of successive ages, as well as our own,
is reserved to give enjoyment to those who shall come after us, and that
henceforth, from generation to generation, each being, we may hope, more
able to appreciate its natural beauty than the last, Hampstead will
continue to be the scene of unnumbered holidays; the Heath,
‘Where sweet air stirs
Blue harebells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold,’[308]
with its wide margin of hundreds of added acres, under the wise
supervision of skilled conservators, growing year by year into fuller
beauty of Nature-planted wild-flowers and indigenous furze and ferns.
Long may the people of the close courts and alleys of London come hither
in their tens of thousands on the gold-letter days of their sparse
holidays, to revel in the winnowing freshness of its breezy height, and
pleasant groves and lanes and grassy nooks, and take back with them to
their crowded homes a measure of the health that ‘floats upon the genial
atmosphere.’ So shall Hampstead still (as in old Drayton’s time) ‘remain
the noblest hill.’
The old Heath covered 220 acres, so that 261 acres acquired by recent
purchase up to 1889, have more than doubled the expanse of the old Heath
(1899).
FOOTNOTES
[1] One find I specially remember in connection with this neighbourhood
of peculiar interest with reference to the great forest that once covered
the site: When making the railway through Gospel Oak Fields, a hillock
had to be cut through; some gigantic roots of trees, hard as ebony
and black as bog-oak, were unearthed, bearing witness to the ancient
woodlands that had covered it.
[2] Written 1855-60.
[3] Built in 1845-46.
[4] Quoted by Park.
[5] No cause is mentioned for the great increase of deaths.
[6] ‘Pomander’: a round, perforated box, filled with musk, ambergris,
civet, or other sweet-scented ingredients. It was used to perfume
apartments, and was frequently made of some precious material. Doctors
used them for the head of the cane they usually carried as a prophylactic.
[7] Park’s ‘History of Hampstead.’
[8] The present sign, the copy of an older one, represents her in a red
conical hat, with a glass of ale in her hand. Her modern memorialist says:
‘She was an old camp-follower through the campaignes of the Duke of
Marlborough, and set up a hedge alehouse after the Peace of Utrecht, with
her own portrait as a sign.’—_Ante_ ‘The Anecdote Library.’
[9] Blake.
[10] Mr. Rhodes died at a house on Muswell Hill. Rhodes of Rhodesia is
said to be a near descendant.
[11] This house appears in Hogarth’s ‘March to Finchley.’
[12] For some years Portland Place was used as a fashionable promenade by
the rank and fashion of the town.
[13] Gray’s ‘Letters.’
[14] Romilly’s childhood’s home was in the High Street, Marylebone, then
a small village about a mile and a half from London, with the cheerful
country close to it. Sir Samuel was born 1757; he died 1818.
[15] At the present time it is said to contain 2,245 acres.
[16] The charter of Ethelred II. (who began to reign 979) to St. Peters,
Westminster, A.D. 986: ‘Starting from Sandgate east to Bedgar’s “Stywei”
(? lea); then south to Dermod’s house; from Dermod’s house to middle
Hamstead: so forward along the hedge to the rushes; from the rushes west
by the side of the marsh to the _barrow west_ along the boundary to the
stone pit; from the stone pit to Watling Street, so north along Watling
Street to the boundary brook, back east by the boundary to Sandgate.’
This last document has only lately become accessible. It is one of the
Stowe MSS. recently secured by the British Museum. This charter has,
I believe, never before been printed, except in Mr. Maude Thompson’s
catalogue of the Stowe MSS. It is No. 10 in that catalogue.—Article by
Professor J. W. Hales, M.A., F.S.A., in Baines’ ‘Records of Hampstead.’
[17] ‘The Common-place Book’ of the late Miss Catherine Fry.
[18] ‘Planché, who has gone deeper into the subject of the Peverels
than either Eyton, the Shropshire historian, or Mr. E. Freeman (who
rejects this supposition with contempt and indignation), puts it in this
wise: “During all the battles and commotions in Normandy preceding the
Conquest, we hear nothing of the Peverels. No land is called by their
name, nor do we hear of it till that of Ranulph, in Domesday Book, when
he figures as the lord of sixty-four manors. Planché suggests what Mr.
Eyton has overlooked that the Saxon lady of rank might have visited
Normandy before 1051, a circumstance that would remove the only serious
difficulty in the story. The latter Ranulph Peverel was the founder
of Hatfield Peverel, in Essex, as shown by Camden, Glover, Dugdale,
Sandford, Weever and others.”’ The author of the ‘Roman de la Rose’ makes
no mention of Peverel.
[19] Norden.
[20] London was a city long before the Romans entered it. Ammianus
Marcellinus says that 1200 years before his time it was a city, _i.e._,
about 900 B.C., which, if correct, would make it 200 years older than
Rome itself.—C. A. W.
[21] Unfortunately, when copying this account, having no idea of using
it, I neglected to note the date or number of the magazine, but I believe
it was during Mr. Ainsworth’s editorship.
[22] Where was Roman Lane, which Dr. Hughson must have known?
[23] ‘Bordarii,’ I think, Park scarcely understood for a Domesday Book
word. These would not be bordarii before, but Saxon churls; and ‘hame
stead’ is ‘home station,’ _i.e._, the outhouses or cots to the big lord’s
residence.—C. A. W.
[24] Hughson thinks that it possibly referred, by way of pre-eminence, to
the residence of the Lord of the Manor.
[25] Sanctus Albanus Verolamiensis.
[26] Park’s ‘History of Hampstead.’
[27] In the reign of Henry VI., in the fifteenth century.
[28] See Park’s ‘History of Hampstead,’ pp. 100, 101.
[29] ‘Eccles. Hist.,’ ii. 324, quoted by Park, ‘History of Hampstead,’ p.
21.
[30] Lysons.
[31] The Heath was generally so called. Lord Erskine speaks of his house
on Hampstead Hill, The Evergreens, near the Spaniards.
[32] Park.
[33] _Daily Advertiser_, July 19, 1748: ‘To-morrow, the 20th inst., will
be run for on Hampstead Course, a considerable sum, between two poneys,
at the Castle on Hampstead Heath. There are great bets depending. The
poneys will be rubbed down at the Castle aforesaid.’ In reference to this
race we read: ‘On Wednesday a race was run on Hampstead Heath between a
bay poney belonging to Lord Blessington, and a gray poney of Mr. Woods,
of Jack Straw’s Castle, for a considerable sum of money, which was won by
the former.’
[34] Horace Walpole’s Letters.
[35] Hampstead, July, 1810. It is stated in the _Morning Post_ that the
Hampstead Volunteers, who had been practising firing at a large target on
the Heath, ‘had fired many excellent shots, some of which nearly entered
the bull’s eye.’ They have improved upon this since then, as have also
their firearms.
[36] Howitt’s ‘Northern Heights of London.’
[37] Morden’s Map of Middlesex, 1593, shows this road, which skirts the
Fleet for a short distance in the neighbourhood of old St. Pancras, and
runs up Tottenhall or Tottenham Court Road, passing by Lower Chalcot and
Upper Chalcot to Pond Street.
[38] Burnet’s ‘History of his own Times.’
[39] See Macaulay’s ‘Essays.’
[40] Steele had his office at the Cockpit, in Whitehall. He held the post
of Gazetteer and Commissioner of Stamps.
[41] There has been a question as to the burial-place of Steele, which
the following note, kindly forwarded me through a friend, sets at rest:
‘Sir R. Steele was buried in the church at Carmarthen, and only in
August, 1876, was there a memorial tablet placed over his remains by a
gentleman of the name of Davies. It bears the inscription:
‘“SIR RICHD. STEELE, KNIGHT,
Author, Essayist, and first chief promoter of the periodical press
of England.
Born in Dublin, March 12, 1671.
Buried in this church, and below this tablet.”’
[42] ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors.’
[43] ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors.’
[44] A contributor to Baines’ ‘Records of Hampstead’ states: ‘Under an
old thorn-tree, near the house, on the north side of the avenue, there
was within the memory of living people a dipping-well for public use.’ Is
this, I wonder, the small fountain of delicious water, the footpath to
which from the High Street Lord Rosslyn tried to stop? But, though on the
Woolsack, he failed to do so. The case appeared in a _Times_ newspaper of
1878.
[45] At the present (1899), only one of the beautiful trees is standing.
[46] Subsequently Sir Rowland Hill resided at Bartrum Park, a little to
the east of the green, on the same side of the way.
[47] Where the small-pox sheds stood, the Hampstead Hospital for Fever
and Small-pox stands now (1899).
[48] There is an engraving of this house in Mr. Gardener’s collection,
copied in Mr. Howitt’s ‘Northern Heights of London.’
[49] An engraving of this picture appeared in the _European Magazine_.
[50] See Appendix.
[51] The father of this gentleman, the second Thomas Norton Longman,
resided here. He was unfortunately killed by a fall from his horse about
1842. Soon after his daughters came to live at Frognal Rise.
[52] ‘The Presbyterian Chapel on Rosslyn Hill was built by Isaac
Honeywood, Esq., who inhabited the adjoining mansion, and died there,
November 8, 1740. He was cousin-german to Sir Edward Honeywood, the first
baronet. Frazer Honeywood and Sir John Honeywood, of the same family,
were subsequently resident at Hampstead.’—Baines, ‘Records of Hampstead.’
[53] ‘Worthies of Middlesex.’
[54] James I., in his speech to Parliament, 1609, says that on his
entrance to England he made knights by hundreds and barons in great
numbers.
[55] This was called Hicks’s Hall; many of the milestones were reckoned
from it.
[56] Stowe.
[57] This family held the Manor of Hampstead for nearly a century.
[58] See _Notes and Queries_, s.s. viii. 511.
[59] Park, 1813.
[60] Spencer Perceval, who was shot by Bellingham, and is buried at
Charlton in Kent, had married the youngest of the three daughters of Sir
Thomas Spencer Wilson.
[61] Howitt.
[62] W. Howitt.
[63] ‘There are periods in which the human mind seems to slumber, but
this is not one of them. A keen spirit of research is abroad, and demands
reform. Perhaps in none of the nations of Europe will their articles
of faith, or their Church establishments, or their models of worship,
maintain their ground for many years in exactly the same position in
which they stand at present. Religion and manners act upon one another.
As religion, well understood, is a most powerful agent in ameliorating
and softening our manners; so, on the other hand, manners, as they
advance in cultivation, tend to correct and refine our religion. Thus,
to a nation in any degree acquainted with the social feelings, human
sacrifices and sanguinary rites could never long appear obligatory. The
mild spirit of Christianity has, no doubt, had its influence in softening
the ferocity of the Gothic times; and the _increasing humanity of the
present period_ will, in its turn, produce juster ideas of Christianity,
and diffuse through the solemnities of our worship, the celebrations of
our Sabbaths, and every observance connected with religion, that air
of amenity and sweetness which is the offspring of literature and the
peaceful intercourse of society. The age which has demolished dungeons,
rejected torture, and given so fair a prospect of abolishing the iniquity
of the slave-trade, cannot long retain among its articles of belief the
gloomy perplexities of Calvinism, and the heart-withering perspective of
cruel and never-ending punishment.’ This is very clever writing for her,
but how absurdly wrong she is in the total!
[64] Miss Aikin published her ‘Life of Queen Elizabeth,’ 1813.
[65] A great man, and student of Swedenborg.
[66] In 1461 we find the Abbot and Convent of Westminster instituting
John Barton to the Rectory of Hendon _cum capella de Hamsted_ eidum
annexa.—PARK.
In the time of Edward VI., the curacy of Hampstead was valued at £10
per annum; but up till that time the inhabitants chiefly consisted of
laundresses and their families.
[67] Park’s ‘History.’
[68] He built St. Giles’s Church.
[69] For a portrait of Harrison, see the _European Magazine_, October,
1789.
[70] I regret that on my recent visit to the churchyard I found this
description no longer true. An air of neglect, very painful to one who
remembers its appearance thirty years ago, pervades it now; and all the
neatness and care seems to be transferred to the newer portion of the
graveyard on the opposite side of the church.
[71] On the last occasion of my visiting the graveyard (1896), I could
not find this tomb.
[72] Copied for me by Mrs. Godfrey Turner.
[73] The toll is still exacted. Several attempts have been made by the
parish authorities to extinguish the right, but they have never come to
terms with the successor of Miss Sullivan (1899).—G. W. P.
[74] The church now St. John’s. Rebuilt in 1745.
[75] Lysons, ‘Environs of London.’
[76] The Rev. Samuel White, at that time resident at Frognal.
[77] ‘At the above date Hampstead, with many other parishes, took
advantage of a statute passed in the reign of George I., which, with
the consent of the major part of the parishioners, empowered the
churchwardens and overseers of parishes to purchase or hire any house
in the parish, or to contract with any person to lodge and keep and
employ the poor ... hiring them, in fact, to contractors. The system,
for a while, appeared to work well, but after a time ceased to be
useful.’—HOWITT, ‘Northern Heights.’
[78] It was he who built the magnificent Chesterfield House, Mayfair.
[79] Park, p. 342.
[80] Obituary, _European Magazine_, 1804. Haydn says 1805, which is wrong.
[81] Howitt, ‘Northern Heights of London.’
[82] Every ticket was sold before the drawing took place.
[83] Obituary, _European Magazine_, of this month and year. Haydn says
1805.
[84] Fenton House has had many tenants in modern times, amongst them the
Honourable Miss Murrays and the Baroness Grey. It has been called the
Clock House, a resident, some thirty years ago, having placed a sham
dial-plate on the front of the entrance porch.
[85] Park, the historian of Hampstead, so often referred to in these
pages.—C. W.
[86] I have a clinging impression that much of the ‘Vanity of Human
Wishes’ was composed in Greenwich Park without being committed to paper,
but I cannot refer now.—Note by C. A. Ward, Esq.
[87] Mrs. Desmoulins had lived with Mrs. Johnson for some before her
marriage with the Doctor.
[88] Mr. G. W. Potter reminds me that a very interesting discussion
and much correspondence has recently (May, 1899) taken place as to the
house inhabited by Dr. Johnson, the result being that Park’s account is
believed to be quite correct, viz., that it was the last house south in
Frognal. Park’s father had lived for years in Hampstead, and at the same
time as Dr. Johnson; he must, therefore, have given his son accurate
information on the point. The house in question is now called Priory
Lodge, and the difficulty arose from its being a large house with a very
large garden and stabling. ‘I was enabled,’ continues my correspondent,
‘to point out that the large garden and stables were taken from Frognal
Hall only some thirty-five years since, and that at the same time large
additions were made to the house itself. A Mr. Watson, whose father I
well remember, saw my letter in the _Hampstead Express_, and corroborated
it, saying that his father, who had lived in it—_i.e._, Priory Lodge—some
fifty years ago, had also enlarged it. An inspection of the house shows
that it has grown from a very moderate-sized house to a much larger
building.’
[89] Howitt.
[90] In 1868 Frognal House was used as the Sailors’ Daughters Orphan
School, and continued for some twelve years to be so used, till the house
on Green Hill was ready for their occupation.
[91] The original house was known as North Court, and a public well which
existed on Branch Hill, Park tells us, was known as North Hole.
[92] Lord Burlington was the friend of Handel, who lived in his house
for three years. ‘He used to drive down to the Foundling Hospital with
Gay in his coach-and-four, to hear Leveridge sing there—“Leveridge, with
his voice of thunder.”’ Lord Burlington patronized music, literature,
painting, and architecture.
[93] Exactly opposite Montagu House is the modern North London
Consumption Hospital, on Mount Vernon.
[94] Park, ‘History of Hampstead.’
[95] The first charity school was established in St. Margaret’s,
Westminster, 1688.
[96] Henry James, _Harper’s Magazine_, September, 1897.
[97] At one period Miss Jane Porter occupied Grove House.
[98] Constable painted it, and subsequently exhibited his picture, ‘A
Romantic House, Hampstead.’
[99] Hone, of the ‘Table-Book,’ has given an account of Thompson.
[100] It was said that Soho Square and many streets in its neighbourhood
belonged to him.
[101] A Jacobean porch said to have belonged to an old Shropshire
manor-house.
[102] I believe Thompson did bequeath to the Queen a beautiful bedstead
of ivory or some costly material.—C. A. Ward.
[103] _Vide_ Howitt’s ‘Northern Heights.’
[104] T. Norton Longman, who died at Hampstead, February 5, 1797, aged
sixty-six, and was buried at Barnet. Nichols gives an account of him in
‘Literary Anecdotes,’ vi. 439. _Vide_ Park.
[105] The sketch referred to is now in the collection of Landseer’s early
drawings in the South Kensington Museum. It is said to be wonderfully
lifelike.
[106] Park.
[107] I am informed by Mr. G. W. Potter, who was a member of the court
for thirty years, that the manorial courts are still held at Manor Lodge,
which is in the lane near Frognal, and which is said to stand on the site
of the old manor-house.
[108] It now stands an empty and desolate building. The tenant, for some
breach of the law, forfeited his license about three years ago, and the
disreputable old inn is now (1899) advertised for sale as a building
site.—G. W. P.
[109] This year (1896) it is said that this is to make room for a new
road.
[110] Mr. Joseph Hoare died at Child’s Hill House in 1886.
[111] This house is now let as a school for young gentlemen.
[112] Her real name was Mrs. Hemet, Lessingham being the name she adopted
for the stage.
[113] In January, 1773, Mrs. Lessingham was playing Lucy in ‘The Rivals,’
at Covent Garden.
[114] This gentleman died some twenty years ago, and the house is now
occupied by its owner, Mr. Gross.
[115] Mrs. Miles, widow of John Miles, Esq., was buried in the family
vault in Hampstead Parish Church, which was specially opened for the
purpose.
[116] Neither Park nor Abrahams mentions Heath Street, though many of the
houses look very old.
[117] This is now the middle of Heath Street, and divides old or Upper
Heath Street from Lower Heath Street, leading to Fitzjohn’s Avenue.
[118] It has been suggested to me that it was so called from Kit’s cates.
[119] Cunningham says _circa_ 1700.
[120] ‘Dunciad.’
[121] ‘Mirror.’
[122] It was Dr. Garth who, being present on an occasion when the Duchess
of Marlborough was pressing the Duke to take a medicine, and, with her
accustomed warmth, added, ‘I’ll be hanged, Duke, if it do not prove
serviceable!’ exclaimed, ‘Do take it, my Lord Duke, for it must be of
service in one way or the other!’
[123] Lately blown down and destroyed (1895).
[124] Park.
[125] Edward Coxe.
[126] Mr. Steevens left the greater part of his property to his niece,
Miss Steevens, who died at Hampstead.
[127] Locally memorable as the last person who wore a pigtail at
Hampstead.
[128] Park.
[129] C. Deane was another artist who loved and painted Hampstead Heath.
He exhibited a scene from Hampstead at the British Gallery in 1823—a most
perfect representation of local scenery. I owe this note to an odd number
of the _Literary Gazette_.
[130] Alfred Edward Chalon proposed to give, in 1859, to the inhabitants
of Hampstead his own large collection of sketches, and his brother’s
unsold works, and some endowment to uphold the collection, if they would
provide suitable premises; but it fell through by their default, and he
died on October 3, 1860.
[131] Varley was very chary of drawing horoscopes. He was often
terrifically right.
[132] ‘A copy of the ancient customs used in the Manor of Hampstead was
made, February 14, 1753, from a paper found by Mr. Tims at Jack Straw’s
Castle, where several of the bailiffs of the manor had lived, and, from
the style of the writing, appeared to have been written eighty or ninety
years before.’—Baines, ‘Records of Hampstead.’
[133] ‘Pickwick Papers.’
[134] There is a quaint detached tea-room at the Spaniards, approached by
an outside flight of wooden steps. Until about thirty years ago there was
inscribed on one of the panes of glass in the end window the autograph of
the late Emperor of the French. He is said to have cut this inscription
with a diamond ring, about 1845-46, when in exile here as Prince Louis
Napoleon. The window has been altered, and the pane has disappeared.—G.
W. P.
[135] When Gibson wrote his additions to Camden, 1695, Mother Huffs was
a house of entertainment on Hampstead Heath. I have recently learned
that in an old map of 1630 a small house near the Elms is marked ‘Mother
Houghs.’
[136] ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors.’
[137] It was Martin who inaugurated the idea.
[138] This house was occupied for many years by Captain Sir Edward
Parry, the Arctic explorer, who was connected by marriage with the Hoare
family.—G. W. P.
[139] ‘Sylvan Sketches,’ by the author of ‘Flora Domestica,’ 1825.
[140] ‘Collins’ and Tooly’s Farm were two adjoining but separate
grass-farms; now they are one, in the occupation of the late Mr. Tooly’s
son. Mr. Collins was the occupant of the other, and lived in the
farmhouse, or cottage, where Dickens and so many other famous men have
lived. This cottage is now occupied by Mr. Arthur Wilson, the son of the
late Rev. Daniel Wilson. He has added to the cottage without in any way
spoiling it.’—G. W. P.
[141] The new paling at the end of the holly hedge shows the place where
the nine elms and the old seat stood.
[142] Said by some writers to have been married in 1776—a statement
disproved by the magazines of the day, and by the fact of Mrs. Crewe’s
magnificent masquerade in 1775. There is a portrait of Mrs. Crewe painted
by Reynolds.
[143] The members of this celebrated club included the Dukes of Roxburghe
and Portland, the Earl of Strathmore (whose encounter with the highwaymen
on Finchley Common I have alluded to), Mr. Crewe, Fox, Sheridan, Lord
Carlisle, and others. The club was established in Pall Mall in 1764,
and the proprietor in 1775 founded the present Brooks’s, in St. James’s
Street.
[144] Mirabeau, in one of his letters, tells of two ladies just arrived
from Paris with tall feathers in their hats, who, as he was conducting
them from the Bell Inn, Holborn, to Hatton Garden, were surrounded by
a mob, from whom they were only rescued by some English gentlemen on
horseback, who used their whips on the crowd, and thus dispersed it.
[145] Sir Aston Lever, who had just made a present of his collection to
the British Museum.
[146] Fox’s verses to Mrs. Crewe were printed at Strawberry Hill.
[147] On his death-bed Fox observed: ‘There are two things I wish
heartily to see accomplished—peace with Europe, and the abolition of the
slave-trade; but of the two, I wish the latter.’
[148] While rewriting this chapter, a sale of Romney’s engravings took
place at Christie’s, when Lady Hamilton as ‘Nature,’ engraved in colours
by Meyer, sold for 100 guineas (May, 1894).