[Illustration: A map of The Skirts of the Great City]
[Frontispiece: HAMPTON COURT PALACE]
THE SKIRTS OF
THE GREAT CITY
BY
MRS. ARTHUR G. BELL
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY
ARTHUR G. BELL
AND SEVENTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1907_
{v}
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. HAMPSTEAD AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS
II. HIGHGATE, HORNSEY, HENDON, AND HARROW
III. SOME INTERESTING VILLAGES NORTH OF LONDON,
WITH WALTHAM ABBEY AND EPPING FOREST
IV. HAINAULT FOREST, WOOLWICH, AND OTHER
EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON
V. GREENWICH AND OTHER SOUTH-EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON
VI. OUTLYING LONDON IN NORTH-EAST SURREY
VII. CROYDON, CARSHALTON, EPSOM, AND OTHER
SUBURBS IN NORTH-WEST SURREY
VIII. WANDSWORTH, PUTNEY, BARNES, AND OTHER SOUTHERN SUBURBS
IX. WIMBLEDON, MERTON, MITCHAM, AND THEIR MEMORIES
{vi}
X. RIVERSIDE SURVEY FROM MORTLAKE TO RICHMOND
XI. RICHMOND TOWN AND PARK, WITH PETERSHAM,
HAM HOUSE, AND KINGSTON
XII. RIVERSIDE MIDDLESEX FROM FULHAM TO HAMPTON COURT
INDEX
{vii}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
HAMPTON COURT PALACE . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
CHURCH ROW, HAMPSTEAD
A BIT OF OLD HIGHGATE
EPPING FOREST, NEAR LOUGHTON
GREENWICH HOSPITAL, WITH ST. ALPHEGE'S CHURCH
CHISLEHURST CHURCH AND COMMON
PUTNEY REACH
WIMBLEDON COMMON
THE SHIP INN, MORTLAKE
THE OLD PALACE, RICHMOND
RICHMOND FROM TWICKENHAM FERRY
RICHMOND PARK, WITH THE WHITE LODGE
STRAND ON THE GREEN, WITH KEW BRIDGE
THE CANAL, BRENTFORD
PERIVALE CHURCH
ISLEWORTH
IN MONOTONE
MAP. FROM A DRAWING BY B. C. BOULTER . . . . . . _Front Cover_
THE SPANIARDS, HAMPSTEAD HEATH
_from a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
{viii}
CONSTABLE'S FIRS
_From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate._
HARROW-ON-THE-HILL
_From a photograph by Messrs. Gale and Polden._
BYRON'S TOMB, HARROW
_From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
WALTHAM CROSS
_From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate._
THE THAMES AT WOOLWICH
_From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
THE PAINTED HALL, GREENWICH HOSPITAL
_From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._
RUINS OF ELTHAM PALACE
_From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate._
DULWICH COLLEGE
_From a photograph by Mr. Bartlett, Dulwich._
THE CRYSTAL PALACE
_From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._
THE OLD PALACE, CROYDON
_From a photograph by Messrs. Roffey and Clark, Croydon._
THE WANDLE, NEAR CARSHALTON
_From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
CARSHALTON POND
_From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
THE COCK INN, SUTTON
_From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate._
THAMES DITTON
_From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine, Dundee._
BUSHEY PARK
_From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate._
{1}
THE SKIRTS OF THE
GREAT CITY
CHAPTER I
HAMPSTEAD AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS
In his remarkable work _Les Récits de l'Infini_, the famous French
astronomer, Camille Flammarion, hit upon a somewhat original device to
bring vividly before his readers the fact that the heavenly bodies are
seen by the dwellers upon earth, not as they are now, but as they were
when the light revealing them left them countless ages ago. Having
endowed an imaginary observer with immortality, he takes him from star
to star, showing him all the kingdoms of the world at the various
stages of their development, and finally makes him a witness of the
Creation by the aid of the light that first shone upon the waters of
chaos. Unfortunately, the student of history cannot hope to share the
supernatural facilities of vision of Flammarion's hero, but for all
that he can lay to heart some of the lessons of the astronomer's story
by bringing to bear upon his task the sympathetic imagination which
alone can enable him to reconstruct the past, and by remembering that
that past should be judged not by the light of modern progress, but by
such illumination as was available {2} when it was still the present.
No matter what the subject of study, the accumulation of facts is of
little worth without the power of realising their interdependence, and
this is very specially the case with the complex theme of London, in
which an infinite variety of conflicting elements are welded into an
unwieldy and by no means homogeneous whole, for in spite of the
obliteration of landmarks and the levelling influences of modern times,
each of its component parts has a psychological atmosphere of its own.
Illusive, intangible, often almost indefinable, that atmosphere affects
everything that is seen in it, and is a factor that must be reckoned
with, if a trustworthy picture of the past or present is to be called
up. The truth of this is very forcibly illustrated in the outlying
suburbs of London, with which the present volume deals, for though
these suburbs now appear to the cursory observer to bear the relation
of branches to a parent stem, many indications prove that they were all
not so very long ago independent communities, which were gradually
absorbed by their aggressive neighbour, whose appetite grew with what
it fed upon, and is still unsatisfied. This is very notably the case
with Hampstead, which less than a century ago was still a mere village,
the history of which can be traced back for more than a thousand years,
and which, through all its vicissitudes, may justly be said to have
been true to itself, for its inhabitants have from first to last
resisted with more or less success every attempt to merge its
individuality in that of the metropolis.
{3}
The name of Hampstead, originally spelt Hamstede, signifies homestead,
and the first settlement on the site of the present suburb is supposed
to have been a farm, situated in the district now known as Frognal,
round about which a hamlet grew up that was until after the Reformation
included in the parish of Hendon. The earliest historical reference to
Hamstede occurs in a charter bearing date 978, in which Edward the
Peaceable granted the manor to his minister Mangoda, and many theories
have been hazarded to explain the difficulty arising from the fact that
the king died in 975, the most plausible of which is that the copyist
was guilty of a clerical error. In any case, a later charter, issued
by Ethelred II. in 986, gave the same manor to the monks of
Westminster, a gift confirmed by Edward the Confessor, and retained
until the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century.
A touch of romance is given to the laconic description in Doomsday Book
of the Hamstede Manor, by the mention of Ranulph Pevrel as holding one
hide of land under the abbot, for that villein married the Conqueror's
former mistress, the beautiful Ingelrica, and the fact that the lovers
were in fairly prosperous circumstances is proved by Ranulph having
owned nearly six times as much land as any other dweller on the estate.
Incidentally, too, the effect of the Conquest on the value of property
is reflected in the sudden decrease in that of the manor of Hamstede,
which was worth one hundred shillings under Edward the Confessor, and
only fifty under his successor.
{4}
Unfortunately, next to nothing is known of the history of the little
settlement on the hill in Norman and mediæval times, but at the
Reformation the manor was included in the newly formed see of
Westminster, whose first bishop, Thomas Thirlby, appears to have lost
no time in dissipating the episcopal revenues, for much of his
property, including that at Hampstead, soon reverted to the Crown. The
manor was given in 1550 by Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Wrothe, and after
changing hands many times in the succeeding centuries, it became the
property about 1780 of Sir Spencer Wilson, to whose great-nephew, Sir
Spencer Maryon Wilson, it now (1907) belongs.
The history of the neighbouring manor of Belsize greatly resembles that
of Hampstead, for it was given in the thirteenth century to the monks
of Westminster by means of a grant from Sir Roger Brabazon, chief
justice of the King's Bench. It remained the property of the abbey
until the time of Henry VIII., when it was transferred to the Dean and
Chapter of Westminster, who leased it to a member of the Wade or Waad
family, whose descendants held it until 1649. Since then it has been
sold many times, and the manor has been occupied by many celebrities,
including Lord Wotton and his half-brother the second Earl of
Chesterfield, but in 1720 it was converted into a place of amusement,
and gradually sank into what was known as a 'Folly House,' the resort
of gamblers and rakes. Closed in 1745, possibly on account of its evil
reputation, it was restored a few years later to the dignity of a {5}
private residence, and between 1798 and 1807 it was the home of the
famous but ill-fated Spencer Perceval, who became Chancellor of the
Exchequer at the latter date, and Prime Minister two years later. Some
sixty years ago, the ancient mansion with the grounds in which it stood
were sold for building, with the inevitable result that the rural
character of what had long been one of the most charming spots near
London, was quickly destroyed. Belsize and Hampstead are now for all
practical purposes one, though two hundred and forty acres of the
former still belong to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, whilst the
bounds of the latter as accepted by the Commission of 1885 remain
precisely what they were in Anglo-Saxon times before the cataclysm of
the Conquest that removed so many landmarks.
It is difficult, indeed almost impossible, to determine when Hampstead
first became a separate parish, but there is no doubt that it was still
a part of Hendon in the early years of the sixteenth century, for it
can be proved that the rector of the mother church was then paying a
separate chaplain, whose duty it was to hold services in the chapel of
the Blessed Virgin that is supposed to have occupied the site of the
present Church of St. John. It is, however, equally certain that
before the end of the reign of Elizabeth, Hampstead had its own
church-wardens, for in 1598 they were summoned to attend the Bishop of
London's visitation.
At whatever date Hampstead seceded from Hendon, the chapelry of Kilburn
seems to have {6} been from the first included in the new parish, and
the history of this chapelry is so typical of ecclesiastical evolution
that it deserves relation here. The story goes that the first settler
in the wilds of Kilburn was a hermit named Godwin, who some time in the
reign of Edward I. built himself a cell on the banks of the little
stream, the name of which, signifying the cold brook, is very variously
spelt--the usual form being Keybourne, which rose on the west of the
Heath, flowed though the district now known as Bayswater, fed the
Serpentine, and finally made its way to the Thames, but has long since
been degraded into a covered-in sewer. Shut in by a dense forest, of
which Caen Wood is a relic, the lovely spot was an ideal retreat for
meditation and prayer, but the recluse soon tired of its seclusion. He
returned to the world, gave his little property to the all-absorbing
Abbey of Westminster, by whose abbot it was a little later bestowed
upon three highly born ladies named Christina, Emma, and Gunilda, who,
fired with enthusiasm by the example of the saintly Queen Matilda,
whose maids of honour they had been, had resolved to devote the rest of
their lives to the service of God. Leaving behind them all their
wealth, they took up their abode in the remote hut, but they were not
left entirely to their own devices, for small as was the community it
was raised to the dignity of a sisterhood of the Benedictine order, and
a chaplain was soon sent to hold services and superintend the daily
routine of the sisters' life. This chaplain was none other than the
ex-hermit Godwin, and it is impossible to help {7} wondering whether
there may not perhaps have been some secret attachment between him and
one of the fair maidens. His readiness to return to a place he had
intended to leave for ever is certainly suggestive, but his conduct
appears to have been in every way exemplary, and he remained at his
post till his death. Meanwhile the three original occupants of the
nunnery had been joined by several other ladies, a new chaplain was
appointed, the little oratory with which Christina, Emma, and Gunilda
had been content was enlarged into a chapel, and a considerable grant
of land was bestowed upon the community, which continued to grow until
what had been but an insignificant settlement had become an important
priory, owning much property in the neighbourhood and elsewhere.
Strange to say, however, this prosperity was presently succeeded by a
time of great distress, for in 1337 Edward III. granted a special
exemption from taxation to the nuns because of their inability to pay
their debts. It would, indeed, seem that the sisters had not after all
been able to manage their own temporal affairs successfully, but had
been too generous to the many pilgrims who claimed their hospitality as
a right, but very little is really known of the later history of the
priory, except that when under the name of the Nonnerie of Kilnbourne
it was surrendered to the commissioners of Henry VIII. its annual value
was assessed at £74, 7s. 11d. The nuns whose lives had been given up
to aiding the poor and distressed were now compelled to beg their daily
bread, the rapacious king exchanged their lands for certain {8} estates
owned by the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem. Later, the site of the
ancient priory was granted to the Earl of Warwick, and after changing
hands many times it became the property of the Upton family, one of
whom built the spacious church of St. Mary close to the spot where
Godwin's little oratory once stood. Near to it is the headquarters of
the hard-working sisters of St. Peter's, who carry on under the modern
conditions of densely populated Kilburn the traditions of their gentle
predecessors, the memory of whose old home is preserved in the names of
the Abbey and Priory Roads. Not far away, too, rises the stately spire
of the noble Church of St. Augustine, one of Pearson's finest Gothic
designs, so that the whole neighbourhood would seem, in spite of all
the changes that have taken place, to be still haunted by the spirits
of those who withdrew to it so many centuries ago to worship God in
solitude.
Although actual historical data relating to the bygone days of
Hampstead are few, it is possible, with the aid of a little
imagination, to call up various pictures of different stages in its
long life-story which, even if not strictly accurate in detail, may
serve to give a fairly true impression. When, for instance, Ranulph
Pevrel brought his bride to the homestead of which he was the chief
villein, the whole of the present Heath and the surrounding districts
were wild uncultivated lands, with here and there a little clearing
representing the sites of the future villages of Highgate, Hendon,
Hornsey, Willesden, and Kilburn; whilst deep in the recesses {9} of the
woods were many bubbling springs, the fountain-heads of the Holbourne,
the name of which is preserved in that of Holborn, also called the
river of Wells, because of the many rills that fed it, but generally
known as the Fleet, which gave its name to Fleet Road in Haverstock
Hill, and Fleet Ditch and Fleet Street in London; the Brent, which
joins the Thames at Brentford; the Tybourne, or double brook, so called
because its two arms encircle the Isle of Thorney; and the Westbourne,
of which the rivulet beside which Godwin built his cell was one of the
many tributaries.
On the banks of these picturesque streams groups of pilgrims no doubt
often halted to rest on their way from London _viâ_ the Roman Watling
Street, to worship at the tomb of England's first martyr at St. Albans,
or at the nearer forest shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, of
which there is known to have been one at Willesden, one at Muswell
Hill, where the Alexandra Palace now stands, and one at Gospel Oak,
which is supposed to owe its quaint name, of comparatively recent
origin, to the fact that portions of the Gospel used to be read beneath
a spreading oak at the ceremony of beating the bounds of the parish,
discontinued since 1896.
It is also certain that the Highgate and Hampstead forests were a
favourite hunting-ground of the civic authorities and wealthy citizens
of London, but this, of course, would check rather than promote the
opening out of the woodlands, and for more than a century and a half
after the Conquest there was little or no building on the northern
heights. {10} Gradually, however, as the population of the city
increased, attention was drawn to the many advantages enjoyed by
Hampstead, of which its plentiful water-supply was the chief. There
were many water-mills on the upper courses of the streams, whose
'clack,' according to a Norman writer of the twelfth century, was
delightful to the ear, and almost from time immemorial the Heath has
been looked upon as a paradise by the washerwomen of the neighbourhood,
who long enjoyed certain privileges, including that of washing the
linen of the royal family. What is now called Holly Hill used to be
called Cloth Hill, because it was the public drying-ground, and even
now it is sometimes used for that purpose.
It seems certain that the chalybeate wells of Hampstead were known to
the Romans, but they were practically forgotten until the sixteenth
century, when they were rediscovered, but little notice was taken of
them until the close of the seventeenth century, when the value of
their medicinal properties was recognised and the foundations were laid
for the conversion of Hampstead into a fashionable health resort. It
will be interesting to take a farewell look at the old-world hamlet on
the eve of its transformation, which can be done with the aid of a
Field Book in a manuscript volume now in the Hampstead Free Library,
describing a survey made in 1680, showing that waste lands stretched on
either side of the main road to London, and that there were but half a
dozen houses in what are now High and Heath Streets, of which one was
the King {11} of Bohemia Tavern, the site of which is occupied by one
bearing the same name, that keeps green the memory, dear to the people
of Protestant England, of the Elector Palatine Frederick V., who was
elected king of Bohemia in 1619. There was also an inn where Jack
Straw's Castle now stands, and one known as Mother Haugh's not far
away. The gibbet on which a murderer was hung in chains in 1693 rose
up on the west of the North End Road, and on the very summit of Mount
Vernon was the mill that gave its name to Windmill Hill. Such were
some of the features of Hampstead when in in 1698 the Countess of
Gainsborough, on behalf of her infant son the earl, then lord of the
manor, gave to the poor of the parish the six acres of land that are
now known as the Well's Charity Estate, the administration of which was
entrusted to fourteen trustees, who appear to have been aware from the
first of the exceptional value of the chalybeate wells on the property.
They were of course careful to safeguard to the people to whom they
were responsible the right to drink the waters on the spot, and to
carry them away for use at home at certain hours of the day, but
subject to various restrictions. They leased the well to a succession
of tenants, who exploited it with more or less success. The temporary
booths and shelters that at first sufficed for the visitors to the well
were soon supplemented by substantial buildings, and a brisk trade was
done at the Flask Tavern in Flask Walk, where the waters were bottled,
that was only pulled down a few years ago, {12} and has been replaced
by a new inn bearing the same name.
Advertisements in the London press, notably one in the _Postman_ for
20th April 1700, reflect the efforts made by the lessees of the well to
attract custom, and prove that the waters were sold in various parts of
the city at the rate of 3d. per flask, and that the messengers who
fetched it from the well were expected to return the flasks daily. The
public buildings which gathered about the famous chalybeate springs
included a long room in which balls and other entertainments were
given, a pump-room where the waters were dispensed, a public-house for
the supply of less innocuous drinks, a place of worship known as Sion
Chapel, which as time went on became a kind of Gretna Green, for any
one could be married in it for five shillings; raffling and other
shops, stables, and coach-houses. Gardens, with an extensive
bowling-green, were laid out, and in fine weather open-air concerts
were given; in a word, no pains were spared to attract the _beau monde_.
A new era now began for Hampstead, for it became the fashion for London
doctors to recommend the drinking of the waters on the spot.
Novelists, including Fanny Burney and Samuel Richardson, laid the
scenes of some of their most exciting episodes at the spa, and on every
side stately mansions, standing in their own grounds, rose up for the
wealthy patrons who elected to have private residences at Hampstead.
What is still known as Well Walk, and was then a beautiful grove, was
the favourite promenade of the patients {13} who came to take the
waters, and some of the later buildings of the spa are still standing,
including the long room, that is now a private residence, after going
through many vicissitudes, it having at one time served as a chapel,
and at another as a barrack.
The fame of the Hampstead spa seems to have been fully maintained
throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, and many are the
descriptions in the contemporary press of the gay and, alas, often
rowdy scenes that took place in it; but at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, though the entertainments were still attended by
middle-class crowds, who replaced the aristocratic gatherings of days
gone by, faith in the efficacy of the waters died out, and all that now
recalls their fame is a commemorative drinking-fountain in Well Walk.
To atone for this, however, a reputation of a nobler kind than that of
a mere pleasure or health resort was growing up for Hampstead, for by
this time it had become the favourite home of many men and women of
genius, culture, and refinement, who were able to appreciate its
intrinsic charm, and by their association with it have conferred upon
it a lasting glory. In some cases the actual houses, in others only
the sites of the houses occupied by them can be identified, and their
favourite open-air resorts have been again and again described. In
what is now the High Street, in a stately mansion, part of which alone
remains, the site of the remainder being occupied by the Soldiers'
Daughters' Home, lived the high-minded politician Sir Henry Vane, and
from it he was taken in 1662 to be beheaded on Tower Hill, in spite of
the fact {14} that he had opposed the execution of Charles I. and had
been pardoned by Charles II. Later, the same house was occupied by
Bishop Butler, and in the garden is still preserved the ancient
mulberry-tree beneath which he and his ill-fated predecessor loved to
sit. A little lower down the hill still stands Rosslyn House, much
changed, it is true, since it was the home of the famous lawyer
Alexander Wedderburn, who became Lord Chancellor in 1793, for the
beautiful grove of Spanish chestnuts that once surrounded it is
replaced by the houses of Lyndhurst Road.
The poet Gay was a constant frequenter of the spa at Hampstead, and
often visited his friend, the brilliant essayist Sir Richard Steele, in
his charming retreat on the site of the present Steele's Studios,
opposite to which was the ancient hostelry, the Load of Hay. Gay may
possibly often have met Addison and Pope, perhaps even have gone with
them to meetings of the famous Kit Cat Club at the Upper Flask Tavern,
now a private residence known as Heath House, to which Richardson's
heroine, Clarissa Harlowe, is said to have fled from her dissipated
suitor Lovelace, and in which lived for many years and died, the
learned annotator of Shakespeare, George Steevens, who bought the
tavern in 1771.
[Illustration: THE SPANIARDS, HAMPSTEAD HEATH]
To the Bull and Bush Inn, still standing in the Hendon Road, the great
painter Hogarth often repaired, and in its garden is a fine tree
planted by him, whilst later Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds used
frequently to visit it. The actor {15} Colley Cibber, the more famous
David Garrick, and the poet Dr. Akenside, were fond of strolling on the
Heath, and to lodgings near the church came Dr. Johnson, who when there
sometimes received a call from Fanny Burney, who was often at the spa,
as is proved by her vivid description of it in _Evelina_. At North End
House, now known as Wildwoods, not far from the Bull and Bush Inn,
lived the elder Pitt, Lord Chatham, during his temporary insanity, shut
up in a little room, with an oriel window looking out towards Finchley,
and the opening in the wall still remains through which his food and
letters were handed to him. Caen Wood, or Kenwood House, was the
country seat of the great advocate, Lord Mansfield, whose London house
was burned by the Gordon rioters in 1780, and a short distance from it
is the famous hostelry of the 'Spaniards,' described by Dickens in
_Barnaby Rudge_ and alluded to in the _Pickwick Papers_, that is said
to have derived its name from its having been at one time occupied by
the Spanish ambassador to the court of James I. To the 'Spaniards' the
followers of Lord George Gordon marched after their mad proceedings in
the City, and it was thanks to the courage and promptitude of its
landlord, Giles Thomas, that it and Caen House were saved from
destruction.
No less famous than the 'Spaniards' is the ancient inn known as 'Jack
Straw's Castle,' now transformed into a modern hotel, the name of which
has never been satisfactorily explained, for it is really impossible to
connect it with the devoted follower of Wat Tyler, with whom it was
long supposed to have been {16} associated. To it the _beau monde_
used to repair after the races that were held on the Heath, before
Epsom and Ascot rivalled it in public favour. Dickens and his friends
were fond of going to supper at Jack Straw's Castle in summer evenings,
and of late years it has been a favourite meeting-place of authors and
artists, Lord Leighton, amongst many others, having been a frequent
guest.
Within easy reach of the 'Spaniards' and Jack Straw's Castle, in a
house still named after him, dwelt the great lawyer Lord Erskine, who
defended Lord George Gordon at the latter's trial for high treason,
securing his acquittal; and the broad holly hedge dividing the garden
from the Heath, as well as the wood of laurel and bay trees, on what is
known as Evergreen Hill, are said to have been planted by his own
hands. At Heath House, on the highest point of the Heath, lived Samuel
Hoare, the enlightened lover of literature and defender of the
oppressed, who was the first to advocate the cause of the negro in
England, and amongst his many distinguished guests were the poets
Samuel Rogers, Wordsworth, Crabbe, Campbell, and Coleridge, the noted
writer John James Park, the first historian of Hampstead, whose work,
on its Topography and Natural History, published in 1814, is still the
chief authority on the subject up to that date; the philanthropist
William Wilberforce, and the not less devoted Sir Samuel Buxton, who
succeeded him in 1824 as leader of the anti-slavery party.
Bolton House, on Windmill Hill, was long the home of the cultivated
sisters Joanna and Agnes {17} Baillie, with whom Sir David Wilkie
sometimes stayed, and Mrs. Barbauld, whose husband was minister of the
Presbyterian chapel on Rosslyn Hill, lived first in a house near to
them, and later in one in Church Row. Mrs. Siddons, after her
retirement from the stage, occupied for several years the house known
as Capo di Monte, overlooking the beautiful Judges' Walk, beneath the
elms of which assizes are said to have been held in 1663, when the
Great Plague of London was raging. The poet-painter William Blake
sometimes stayed at a farm at North End, the same later frequented by
John Linnell; and the Vale of Health, in which stood the picturesque
cottage owned by Leigh Hunt, will be for ever associated with the
memory of that eloquent writer and of the greater John Keats, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, all of whom are known to have visited
him there. Keats was with him for some days in 1816, and in 1817 took
rooms in what is now No. 1 Well Walk, where he wrote the greater part
of _Endymion_. Later he went to board with his friend Charles Armitage
Brown in a house at the bottom of John Street, known as Lawn Bank, and
marked by a tablet, next door to which lived Charles Wentworth Dilke,
later editor of the _Athenæum_, by whom the poet was introduced to
Fanny Brawne, with whom he fell in love at first sight. _Hyperion_,
the _Eve of St. Agnes_, and five of the six celebrated sonnets were
written at Lawn Bank, and Keats was looking forward to his marriage
with his beloved Fanny when the illness which was to prove fatal began.
She and her mother nursed him with the {18} utmost devotion, but
nothing could save him, and he was already doomed when he left them to
go to Rome in 1821. His memory is still held in great honour in
Hampstead, but it was reserved to an American lady, Miss Anne Whitney,
who presented his bust to the Parish Church in 1895, to give practical
proof of a desire to do him honour in the district he loved so well.
The Arctic explorer, Sir Edward Parry, is said to have had his
headquarters at Hampstead; Prince Talleyrand lived in Pond Street
during his exile from France; and Edward Irving, founder of the
Irvingite sect, is said to have had a house there for a short time.
The historian Sir Thomas Palgrave resided on the Green from 1834 to
1861; the poet William Allingham died in Lyndhurst Road in 1889; the
novelist Diana Muloch, and the less celebrated Elizabeth Meteyard, were
often in the neighbourhood. The mother of Lord Tennyson shared
Rosemount, in Flask Walk, with her daughter, and was often visited
there by her illustrious son. Sir Rowland Hill, the famous
Postmaster-General, resided for thirty years and died at Bertram House,
near St. Stephen's Church, and Hampstead was long the home of the
novelist Sir Walter Besant and the well-known bibliophile Dr. Garnett.
What may perhaps be called the art era of Hampstead, when it became
associated with the names of the most distinguished painters of
England, was inaugurated at the end of the eighteenth century by the
arrival there of George Romney, who took a house on the hill long
supposed to have been that {19} now known as the Mount, in Heath
Street, though the recent discovery of a deed of tenancy seems to prove
it to have been Prospect House on Cloth Hill, now the Constitutional
Club. However that may be, the artist soon found his new quarters too
small, and built on to them a large studio for the painting of historic
pictures, which Flaxman, who visited him in it, called a fantastic
structure, and in which, later, when it had become the Holly Bush
Assembly Rooms, Constable gave lectures on landscape painting to the
members of the Literary and Scientific Society of Hampstead. Romney
did little or no work in Hampstead, for his health was already
undermined when he embarked on his new enterprise, and his sojourn left
no permanent impress on the neighbourhood, when he fled to Kendal to
die in the arms of his long-neglected wife.
Far otherwise was it with Constable, who has done more than any one man
to interpret for future generations what Hampstead was in the first
half of the nineteenth century, for the Heath and the grand views from
its summit inspired some of his finest landscapes, and many of his most
charming drawings give details of its scenery. Even before his
marriage in 1816 Constable used constantly to go up to Hampstead from
his London lodgings to paint, and in 1821 he took a small cottage, No.
2 Lower Terrace, still very much what it was then, for his wife and
their three little children. There they lived until 1826, when they
removed to the present No. 25 Downshire Hill, but in 1827 Constable
gave up his London studio, and settled down permanently {20} with his
family in Well Walk, at which house is uncertain, some saying it was
No. 40, others No. 46. There his wife, to whom he was devotedly
attached, died, and her loss made him cling to Hampstead more closely
than ever. She was buried in the churchyard of St. John, where later
her husband was laid to rest beside her.
[Illustration: CONSTABLE'S FIRS, HAMPSTEAD HEATH]
Though the fame of no one of them is quite equal to that of Constable,
many other resident artists have aided in maintaining the æsthetic
traditions of Hampstead. Some of the best works of William Collins
were produced in a house on the Green, and his friend Edward Irving
often visited him there. Sir Thomas Beechey retired to Hampstead after
his long career of activity; Edward Duncan, Edward Dighton, and Thomas
Davis, all resided for some time and died there. Paul Falconer Poole
was looked upon as a Hampstead artist _par excellence_, for he worked
in the neighbourhood for some twenty-five years. William Clarkson
Stanfield was devoted to the old town, and lived in what is now the
Public Library, in Prince Arthur Road, from 1847 to 1865, when he
removed to Belsize Park Gardens, then St. Margaret's Road, dying in his
new home in 1869. Alfred Stevens, who lived for some time in
Hampstead, and died there in 1875, executed the beautiful monument to
the Duke of Wellington for St. Paul's, in the temporary church of St.
Stephen's, which he rented for the purpose. The sculptor John Foley
passed away at the Priory, Upper Terrace, in 1874, and in 1888 Frank
Holl died in the house he had built for himself in Fitz-John's Avenue.
The last {21} twenty years of the long life of Miss Margaret Gillies,
one of the first Englishwomen to adopt art as a profession, were spent
at No. 25 Church Row, and Mrs. Mary Harrison, one of the first members
of what is now the Old Water-Colour Society, resided for sixteen years
and died at Chestnut Lodge. Even more intimately associated with
Hampstead than any of these was George du Maurier, for he turned its
scenery and the familiar incidents of its Heath to account in many of
his clever drawings for _Punch_. 'It was,' says his friend Canon
Ainger, writing in the _Hampstead Annual_ for 1897, 'by the Whitestone
Pond that the endless round of galloping donkeys suggested to him the
famous caricature of the "Ponds Asinorum," and it was near a familiar
row of cottages at North End that he saw the little creature of eight
years old who told her drunken father "to 'it mother again if he
dared."'
[Illustration: CHURCH ROW, HAMPSTEAD]
Du Maurier brought home his bride in 1862 to a house in Church Row, and
it was there, and in New Grove House on the Upper Heath, to which he
removed later, that his best work was done. He lived at Hampstead
through the exciting time of the boom in his famous novel _Trilby_,
which is said to have hastened his end, and on his death in 1896 he was
buried in the churchyard of St. John.
The Parish Church of Hampstead replaces, as already stated, a much
earlier chapel that was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It was
completed in 1745, and successfully enlarged in 1747 under the auspices
of the beloved Canon Ainger, who was {22} vicar from 1876 to 1895. It
is a typical example of the style of the period of its foundation, and
the ivy-clad tower that rises from the eastern end composes well with
its surroundings, the eighteenth-century houses of Church Row forming a
kind of avenue leading up to the main entrance.
The next oldest church in Hampstead is the Roman Catholic chapel of St.
Mary in Holly Place, built in 1816, whose first minister was the French
Abbé Morel, who was banished from France during the Revolution, and was
visited in his retreat by many famous exiles, including the Duchesse
d'Angoulême. He became so attached to his English home that he refused
to return to his native land when he was recalled, and he died at
Hampstead in 1852, leaving behind him a great reputation for sanctity.
The year of his death was completed the Protestant church of Christ
Church--the lofty spire of which is a notable landmark--associated with
the memory of the Rev. Dr. Bickersteth, who, after ministering in it
for thirty years, became Bishop of Exeter; and later were erected the
churches of St. Saviour and St. Stephen's, that have been supplemented
by many other places of worship of different denominations, so that the
parish presents indeed a remarkable contrast to the time when the
little sanctuary on the hill met the needs of the whole district.
To a certain Mrs. Lessingham belongs the unenviable distinction of
having been the first to alienate public land on the Heath by
enclosing, in 1775, the grounds of what is still known as Heath {23}
House. Her right to do so was contested, but at the trial which ensued
she came off victorious, and an example was set which has been all too
often followed. The jury actually decided that the land in dispute was
of no value, and the vital question at issue, of the power of the lord
of the manor to grant permissions for enclosure, was left undecided.
Not until 1870 were any really efficient steps taken to preserve for
the people the use of the beautiful Heath, but at that date the nucleus
of the present extensive estate was secured in perpetuity. Two hundred
acres of land were then bought by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and
to them were later added the 265 acres of Parliament Hill, the name of
which is said by some to commemorate the fact that the conspirators of
the Gunpowder Plot watched from it for the blowing up of the Houses of
Parliament, whilst others associate it with Cromwell's having placed
cannon on it to defend the capital. In 1898 the property of the nation
on the northern heights was still further augmented, through the
combined efforts of many public societies and private individuals, by
the acquisition of the celebrated and beautifully laid out Golder's
Hill estate, with the house that once belonged to David Garrick, and
was used as a convalescent home for soldiers after the South African
war.
Hampstead Heath, with its dependencies, is now universally acknowledged
to be one of the most beautiful of the many beautiful open spaces near
London, and is the resort on Sundays and Bank {24} holidays of
thousands of pleasure-seekers. The views from it, especially from
Parliament Hill, are magnificent, embracing London with the dome of St.
Paul's, the Tower, and the Houses of Parliament, the Surrey Hills,
Harrow, Highgate, Hendon, and Barnet, differing but little, if at all,
from what they were when Leigh Hunt and John Keats enjoyed them, and
Constable painted his famous landscapes.
{25}