of some importance, as it contained the old manor-house where the Courts
Leet were held. The demesne lands at Frognal occupied from four to five
hundred acres of the best land stretching from Child's Hill to Belsize.
The old manor-house, which stood at the north-east corner of West End
Lane, was a long, low farmhouse building which contained a big hall. Mr.
Pool, a lessee, pulled it down and built a brick house on the site, and,
later, built a small house on the south side of the lane, where he went
to live himself. The Courts followed him, and were held there. There are
now on the site of the ancient manor-house two buildings side by side;
the one to which the ancient title has descended appears the more
modern. The Ferns next door looks older, in spite of Howitt's assertion
that the manor-house built by Mr. Pool is the same now bearing the name,
and The Ferns occupies the site of the former manor-house. There are
numerous substantial and comfortable houses in the vicinity. Frognal
Hall, near the west end of the church, was the residence of Isaac Ware,
architect, and here Lord Alvanley died.
To the north-west are a row of new buildings, forming a crescent on the
hill called Oakhill Park, and to one of these Miss Florence Nightingale
is a frequent visitor during the summer months. At the top of Frognal
Gardens the Editor of this survey lived. Returning again to West End
Lane, we find the hand of the modern builder everywhere apparent. Until
recently a mock antique erection in the Gothic style known as Frognal
Priory formed a feature in the landscape; this has quite disappeared. It
was built by a dealer in curios known as "Memory" Thompson about the end
of the eighteenth century, and was full of curiosities. The owner was
pleased to have visitors to inspect his property, and it is said that
one of his freaks was to leave five-shilling pieces lying about for them
to pick up. Lower down the Frognal Road all is modern, and we come into
the part formerly known as Shepherd's or Conduit Fields. There was a
spring here which used to be the principal source of the Hampstead
water-supply. The water was carried in pails by persons who thus earned
a livelihood. An old woodcut of this well is still extant; it is
represented as a spring with an arch over it. The building of
Fitz-John's Avenue, cutting right through the fields, quite destroyed
their character, and they are now more or less covered with streets.
Rosslyn House, which stood between Wedderburn and Lyndhurst Roads,
deserves a word of mention as one of the latest of the famous old
Hampstead houses to be destroyed. It was originally called Shelford
House, but changed its name when it became the property of Alexander
Wedderburn, first Earl of Rosslyn, Lord High Chancellor of Great
Britain, 1793. It was noted for its magnificent avenue of Spanish
chestnuts said to have been planted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Elizabethan relics have been found in the vicinity. The grounds are now
cut up and let for building purposes. Woodlands, another fine large
house, is also shorn of its glory, roads having been driven through its
leafy gardens.
West End Ward embraces that portion of Hampstead which is limited by the
Hampstead junction railway on the south and the Finchley Road on the
east.
West End still preserves the character of a little hamlet, though
surrounded on all sides by new streets. The name arose from its being
the western terminus of the demesne lands. The small triangular bit of
green at the junction of Fortune Green and Mill Lanes preserves its
rural aspect, with two little tumbledown, creeper-covered cottages
overlooking it, though it will probably before long suffer from the
plague of red brick. To the south there is a line of buildings and
shops, with a few--a very few--of older date wedged in between the new
ones. West End Hall, a square red-brick house of respectable antiquity,
stands back behind a rather dilapidated wooden palisade, but a row of
magnificent elms lines the street before it. Beyond it are one or two
other houses in their own grounds. Here a fair was formerly held
annually on July 26 and two following days.
Mill Lane was formerly Shoot-up-Hill Lane, a name now absorbed by a
portion of the northern road into which it runs on the west. The present
name is derived from a mill which stood in the Edgware Road, and was
burnt in 1861, owing to the friction caused by the high velocity of the
sails in a gale of wind. A building called Kilburn Mill still marks the
western end of the lane, though it is in a dilapidated condition, with
the windows broken. Mill Lane was widened by the Vestry, and now runs
between rows of small houses, all of modern date. At the top of Aldred
Road is a big brick building, the Field Lane Boys' Industrial School. At
the corner of the same road stood an unpretentious little church, built
in 1871; it has been pulled down in the last few years. A little further
eastward in Mill Lane is a national school looking rather like a
chapel, and then we come to the Green again.
There is little in Fortune Green Lane that calls for comment. On the
west side it is completely lined with small new houses. The Green at the
top still remains open for the geese to hiss and cackle over at their
will. The Hampstead cemetery lies on the north. This consists of about
20 acres of land, and two-thirds of it was consecrated by the Bishop of
London in 1876, the remainder being left unconsecrated. A smooth drive
runs down between close-shaven turf, and is lined by rows of singularly
uniform monuments, of which two-thirds are in the form of marble
crosses. The chapel, with its two wings for Church of England and
Nonconformists, connected by a pointed spire and tower, stands across
the central drive as an archway. There is a different kind of
fascination in this well-kept, quiet spot from that derived from the
irregularity of sloping Highgate or the monstrous tombs and overpowering
vaults at Kensal Town. There are many persons buried here whose names
are known to those of their own country and time, but none of any
world-wide note. Maas the singer is perhaps the most important among
them. We have now commented on the principal parts of the ward, except
the great eastern and western roads by which it is bounded.
Finchley Road bounds the borough on the west. Beginning at Swiss
Cottage, we recall the fact that Hood died in a house near the present
railway-station which is now pulled down. The first building that
strikes the eye is New College, for Nonconformists, a big stone edifice
standing on a green lawn behind a row of small trees. On the opposite
side, further northward, building operations are taking place on a large
scale. On the west side again is Trinity Church, date 1872, a small
church of ragstone with red-tiled roof. We travel much further on before
arriving at any other feature of interest, passing Finchley Road Station
and the shops gathered in the vicinity, also the Hampstead Public
Library, a big building at the corner of Arkwright Road. Hampstead was
comparatively slow in adopting the Public Library Act. The site for its
library was acquired from Sir Maryon Wilson, and the stone was laid by
Sir Henry Harben, who had given L5,000 for the erection of the building.
Five branch libraries are established in connection, and the main one is
chiefly for reference. This was opened in 1897. Further on, we pass on
the east numerous rows of red-brick houses, and on the west the fields
and meadow-lands still open.
Then we come to a huge red brick building with terra-cotta facings; this
was founded in 1866, and is intended both as a college and seminary. It
belongs to the Congregationalists, and their chapel attached is of the
same materials, and was founded in 1894. Another well-known institution
is Westfield College for ladies, which stands in Kidderpore Avenue on
the rising ground to the west of Finchley Road. The front of the house,
in which the entrance is, is an old building called Kidderpore Hall, and
to this the large modern wing inhabited by the students was added in
1890. The work is for the London Degrees in Arts and Sciences. There are
forty-five students, and each one has two rooms, a larger allowance than
is made at Girton. Through the fields, beyond the cemetery, a winding
footpath takes us over the railway into the Edgware Road.
The part of the road which goes by the name of Shuttup Hill or
Shoot-up-Hill deserves some comment. The Knights Templars anciently held
an estate here of which the origin is obscure. At the Dissolution King
Henry seized it, and handed it over to the Hospitallers of St. John of
Jerusalem. But their turn was to come also. In 1540 the King despoiled
them, and gave Shoot-up-Hill to Sir Roger Cholmeley. At a later date we
find that this and the estate at Kilburn were vested in the same holder,
Sir Arthur Atye and Judith his wife.
There is very little to remark on in this hill. A few of the houses on
the west are not aggressively modern, but those on the east are all
startlingly new. St. Cuthbert's Church, built in 1887, stands at the
end of St. Cuthbert's Road.
Howitt derives the name of Kilburn from Kule-bourne or Coal-brook. The
earliest mention of this locality is when one Godwyn, a hermit, retired
here in the reign of Henry I., and "built a cell near a little rivulet,
called in different records Cuneburne, Keelebourne, Coldbourne, and
Kilbourne, on a site surrounded with wood." This stream is the same
which passed southward to the Serpentine, and empties itself into the
Thames at Chelsea, called in its lower course the Westbourne.
Between 1128 and 1134 Godwyn granted his hermitage to the conventual
church of St. Peter, Westminster. The Abbot, with the consent of the
convent, gave it to three pious maidens, Emma, Gunhilda, and Cristina,
who are said to have been maids of honour to Queen Matilda. They were to
live here, and Godwyn was to be master warden, and on his death they
were to choose some staid and senior person to fill his place. It is to
be gathered that the maidens were bound to celibacy, though no
particular monastic rule seems to have been enjoined. In the ensuing
years there were jealousies between the Bishop of London and the Abbot
of Westminster, who both claimed jurisdiction over the Priory. The Pope,
in 1224, who arbitrated, gave the award in the Abbot's favour, but the
Bishop appealed to the Bishops of Rochester and Prior of Dunstable,
and, as they were on his side, he calmly assumed authority. The Priory
was enriched by various grants and privileges, and its devotees
increased in number. At the dissolution of the monasteries the King gave
it to the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem in exchange for some lands he
wanted. But in 1540 he wrested it from him, and regranted it to Robert,
Earl of Sussex. As has been mentioned above, Kilburn eventually came
into the same holding as Shoot-up-Hill.
A sketch of the Priory as it remained in 1772 is still extant, and shows
a little barn-like building with exterior buttresses and gable-ends.
Needless to say that no trace of it now remains, though its memory is
perpetuated in the names of Priory, Abbots, and Abbey Roads.
When the foundations for the London and North-Western Railway were dug
in 1850 various relics were found--tessellated tiles, human bones, and a
bunch of old-fashioned keys, etc.--which pointed to the fact that the
Priory had stood on that site. This spot is still pointed out not far
from Kilburn Station, close by the place where Priory Road goes over the
railway. It is a most uninteresting spot at present, with dull
respectable middle-class shops leading up to it.
A legend of Kilburn given in Timbs' "Romance of London" may be alluded
to here. It states that at "a place called St. John's Wood, near
Kilburn," there was a stone stained dark-red with the blood of Sir
Gervase de Mertoun, who was slain by his brother, who had become
enamoured of his wife. Gervase, with his dying breath, exclaimed: "This
stone shall be my deathbed!" The brother Stephen suffered remorse for
his crime, and ordered a handsome mausoleum to be erected to his
victim's memory, which was to be built of stone taken from the quarry
where the murder was committed. As the eye of the murderer rested on a
certain stone, blood was seen to issue from it. This completed the
murderer's horror and remorse; he confessed his fault and died shortly
after, leaving his property to Kilburn Priory.
Kilburn Wells became famous about the middle of the eighteenth century,
and soon rivalled those of Hampstead as a place of entertainment. Even
so late as 1818 they were a favourite resort for Londoners.
The High Road at Kilburn, continuing in a straight line into Maida Vale
and the Edgware Road, is the old Watling Street of the Romans.
As a street it possesses little interest. Lines of modern red-brick
buildings with shops on the ground-floor form the main part of it, and
further south the shops are smaller, the buildings more irregular.
In the remainder of the ward pleasant rows of moderate-sized houses with
small trees growing before them form the majority of the streets.
In Priory Road is St. Mary's Church, a fine stone edifice in the Gothic
style, dating from 1857. Behind this are open fields, rapidly being
encroached upon by the builder.
In Quex Road there is a large Wesleyan chapel with a big portico, close
by a Roman Catholic church with high-pitched roof, which instantly
recalls the Carmelite Church at Kensington; the architect was the same,
Pugin. It was built in 1878, and inside is lofty and light, with
polished gray granite pillars supporting the roof.
A slight account of the Manor of Belsize has been given above (see p.
2). The manor-house stood about the site of the present church, St.
Peter's, and Rocque's map of 1745 shows it in the middle of very
extensive grounds surrounded by fields. In the beginning of the
eighteenth century the house was a place of public entertainment. In
some newspaper cuttings from the _Daily Post_, date 1720, we read that
the "ancient and noble house" had been fitted up for the entertainment
of ladies and gentlemen during the whole summer season, and was to be
opened with "uncommon Solemnity of Dancing and Music." Among the
entertainments mentioned are the Park, Bowling Green, and Fish Ponds.
The latter were stored with the "best of Carp and other Fish," and the
company might amuse themselves by angling or catching them with nets,
when they should be "dressed to perfection." We hear also that the Park
was well stocked with deer, and in August, 1721, a notice was issued.
"Besides the usual Diversions, there is to be a wild Fox Hunted To
Morrow, the 1st inst., to begin at four a clock." One hundred coaches
could stand in the square of the house, if we may trust the advertiser,
and "Twelve men will continue to guard the Road every night till the
last of the Company are gone." There was a satirical poem called
"Belsize House," published in 1722, showing that the house had earned a
bad reputation. Belsize Avenue, Park Gardens, and Buckland Crescent are
all built over the property. There is a tradition that the house was the
private residence of the Right Hon. Sir Spencer Perceval, when it ceased
to be a place of amusement in 1745. In 1841 the place was demolished,
and the site transformed as we now see it.
Belsize Lane is very old, being marked between hedges in Rocque's 1745
map, and shown as leading to the grounds of the manor-house. Baines says
that about 1839 "Belsize Lane was long, narrow, and lonesome; midway in
it was a very small farm, and near thereto the owner of Belsize House
erected a turnpike gate to demonstrate his rights of possession."
The lane at present boasts a few shops and modern red-brick houses, but
it is greatly bounded by high garden walls, and the gardens reaching
from the backs of the houses in Belsize Avenue.
Belsize Avenue is a park-like road, from which on the south side stretch
the meadows of Belsize Park. Large elm-trees of great age throw shade
across the road, and seats afford rest to those climbing the ascent to
Haverstock Hill. Up to 1835 a five-barred gate closed the east-end and
made the road private.
In Belsize Square stands the Church of St. Peter, with a square
pinnacled tower. This was consecrated in 1859, and the chancel added
some seventeen years later. It is in the decorated style of Gothic, and
has a row of picturesque gable-ends lining the north-east side.
Belsize and Buckland Crescents and Belsize Park Gardens are all in the
same pleasant villa-like style, with trees and bushes growing beside the
roadway, but their chief claim to interest lies in their association
with the old manor-house.
The southern part of this ward is still more modern than the above, the
greater part having been built over since 1851. Eton Avenue is lined by
prettily-built, moderate-sized houses of bright red brick alternating
with open spaces yet unbuilt on.
The north-eastern corner of the ward, including Eton Road, Provost Road,
Oppidans Road, College Road, and Fellows Road, is made up of medium
houses, many covered with rough stucco, and with a profusion of
flowering trees and bushes in the small gardens. This section of the
parish might well be part of some fashionable and fresh watering-place.
At No. 6, Eton Road lived Robertson, author of "Caste" and other plays.
St. Saviour's Church, built of ragstone, is at the corner of Eton and
Provost Roads; it is in Early English style, consecrated 1856.
Fellows Road runs into Steele Road, near the end of which, on Haverstock
Hill, is the Sir Richard Steele public-house. These names commemorate a
real fact. Sir Richard Steele had a cottage on Haverstock Hill, of which
prints are still extant. They show a funny little square, barn-like
building with pent house-roof, set in the middle of fields and
surrounded by trees. With a vividness of detail that does more credit to
his imagination than his eye the artist has depicted St. Paul's
Cathedral in the not very far distance!
England's Lane in 1839 was bounded on the south side by palings and a
wall, and on the north side by low palings and a ditch full of water.
Three houses there were in it, Chalcots, North Hall, and Wychcomb. In a
view of the lane in 1864 we see a leafy country road with fine timber
growing over it. The lane at present is chiefly lined by shops, though
there are a few private houses.
In the Upper Avenue Road stands a large brick building with stuccoed
facings; it is the institution of the Society for Teaching the Blind,
founded in 1838. In 1840 certain industrial occupations were added to
the tuition in reading, which had been the primary object of the
foundation. After moving to several localities in succession, in 1847
the present site was obtained. In 1864 the building was enlarged, and
external workshops have since been added. The institution is entirely
supported by voluntary contributions, though a few paying pupils are
admitted. The pupils are taught any industrial trade which may support
them in after-life, such as piano-tuning, knitting, chair-caning,
basket-making, as well as the usual branches of a useful education. They
are admitted at any age under eight, and leave at twenty-one if men, and
twenty-four if women. There are day-scholars in attendance as well as
those resident in the house.
In Winchester Road are a few shops and St. Paul's parochial schools.
Where Eton Avenue and Adamson Road join there is the Hampstead
conservatoire of music, a large brick building.
Professor Hales suggests that the word Haverstock in Haverstock Hill may
come from "aver," the Low Latin _averia_ meaning cattle. He says that,
as in Rocque's map Pond is Pound Street, perhaps a cattle pound stood
here. The hill is at present a toilsome ascent, but most picturesque;
masses of shady trees in the grounds of Woodlands and Hillfield hang
over the seats placed for wayfarers, and on the east side, in spring,
bushes of flowering lilac or laburnum soften the picturesque red tiles
and bricks of the well-built modern houses. Here and there a small row
of shops forms a straight line, but between them the villa houses are
dotted about at any angle.
Of public buildings or institutions on the hill there are not many. The
Borough Hall, a red-brick building in the Italian style, stands at the
corner of Belsize Avenue. It was built in 1876, and first used for the
Cambridge Local Examination for Women.
Further up on the other side is St. Stephen's Church, which differs very
much from the ordinary church of the last half-century. It stands well,
surrounded by an enclosure of green grass, on a spot formerly called
Hampstead Green. The best view is obtained from Lyndhurst Road. Just
below it is the entrance to the immense buildings of the North-Western
Hospital. The brick wall encloses a house and front-garden at one time
belonging to Sir Rowland Hill. This site was acquired by the
Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1868, and was destined to be used for
cases of infectious disease, a plan which provoked the greatest
agitation in the parish. In 1870 a severe epidemic of small-pox broke
out, and some wards were hastily built in addition to those which had
already been used for fever patients. As this was followed by an
outbreak of small-pox in the parish, the parishioners very naturally
wished the hospital to be removed, but without result. In 1876 another
outbreak and a further congregation of patients had the same result, and
after a long and protracted fight the inhabitants of Hampstead obtained
a verdict preventing the Asylums Board from using the hospital for
small-pox, though fever cases were not prohibited. In 1882 a Royal
Commission inquired into the facts regarding the spread of disease from
hospitals, and gave as their decision that thirty or forty patients
might safely be treated when a larger number would be injurious to the
neighbourhood. The Asylums Board eventually came to terms, agreeing to
restrict the hospital cases of small-pox to the number mentioned, to pay
the plaintiffs' costs, and an additional L1,000 by way of damages; but
they demanded that Sir Rowland's property should be sold to them.
The terms were accepted, and the hospital henceforth was known as the
North-Western Hospital. In 1884 another epidemic of small-pox caused
them to fill the limited number of beds agreed upon, but as this also
was followed by an outbreak of the disease in Hampstead, a fresh appeal
was made by the local authorities, and ended in victory, no more
small-pox patients being received. The hospital was in full use during
the scarlet fever epidemic of 1888.
Close by the entrance to the hospital is an ancient inn, The George. It
has been repaired and renovated, but still shows its picturesquely
ancient lines. In front of the inn there used to be tea-gardens. A
convent of the Sisters of Providence is not far south. Looking up
Haverstock Hill from Chalk Farm there is an almost unbroken line of
greenery. Moderate-sized houses stand back on either side in their
gardens.
The Load of Hay was originally a very old inn, but has been rebuilt
recently, and is now a hideous yellow-brick public-house, with date
1863. Just opposite the Load of Hay lived Sir Richard Steele, in a
picturesque two-storied cottage, already mentioned. The cottage was
later divided into two, and in 1867 was pulled down.
Park Road is a long thoroughfare of no particular interest. At the north
end a range of red-brick, wide-windowed buildings attract attention.
These are studios, occupied by some of the artists for which Hampstead
is famous; among the names perhaps that of W. Q. Orchardson, R.A., is
the best known. Beyond are the London Street Tramway Companies stables,
and to the north and east we get into a district very poor and slummy
for such a fresh, pleasant suburb as Hampstead.
The Fleet Road recalls the Fleet River, which had origin among the hills
of Hampstead and flowed down over this course. The hospital wall lines
one side of this dreary street. At the upper end, where two or three
roads meet, there is a fountain and pump, and this open space is known
as the Green and Pond Street. Pond Street seems to have alternately
encroached upon and receded from the Green, houses being named in one or
the other according to fancy. The street is steep and irregularly built.
It was about this site that some of the first houses in Hampstead were
built.
On the south-east side of the lane which leads to the hospital Sir
Sydney Godolphin Osborne resided. Sir Rowland Hill has been already
mentioned. Prince Talleyrand stayed in a house afterwards occupied by
Sir Francis Palgrave, and later by Teulon the architect. In the
adjoining house was Edward Irving, founder of the sect of that name, and
next to him the sculptor Bacon. Collins the artist also lived in Pond
Street. In No. 21 there is at present an Industrial Home for Girls.