Chapter 2
Hampstead Square is a square only in name; one or two delightful old brick houses are dotted about, but are chiefly detached, and can hardly be said to form a square. At New End is the workhouse originally built in 1845, but extended in 1870 and 1883. It is a solid and commodious building. Of the remainder of that part of Hampstead known as New End, it is almost impossible to give any detailed account. It is a curious medley of steeply tilted narrow streets, little passages, small cottages set down at any angle, with vine or Virginia creeper growing over them, and here and there a hideous row of little modern brick houses. The White Bear at New End is the oldest public-house in the parish, bearing date 1704. Willow Road lays claim to its name by the fringe of willows that lines its northern side.
The Flask Tavern in Flask Walk is on the site of one of the oldest beerhouses in Hampstead; the present structure is a hideous brick building of modern date. The Walk is reached from High Street under a covered entry, and the street is at first only wide enough for the passage of one vehicle. Being on the side of the hill it shows, further on, a picturesque irregularity with the footway at a different level from the road. Small rows of limes add a certain quaintness to its aspect, and it is easy to imagine the four days' fair, beginning on August 1, which used to be held here annually. The watch-house and public stocks stood at the upper end of this street when removed from Heath Street.
It is easy to imagine that the name Flask originated in the shape of the road, with its narrow neck and expanded end, but perhaps the Walk took its name from the public-house, in which case the suggested derivation would fail.
Well Walk is the most celebrated spot in Hampstead, for here flow the famous chalybeate waters, which rivalled those of Bath and Tunbridge Wells, and in their best days drew an amazing army of gay people to the spot. The earliest mention of the spring is in the time of Charles II., when a halfpenny token with the words "Dorothy Rippin at the well in Hampsted" on the obverse was issued. In 1698 Susanna Noel with her son Baptist, third Earl of Gainsborough, gave the well, encompassed by six acres of ground, to the poor of Hampstead. It was in the beginning of the eighteenth century that the waters first became famous. Howitt says they were carried fresh every day for sale to Holborn Bars, Charing Cross, and other central spots; but their palmy days did not last very long, for in 1734 there was an attempt to revive interest in them by a laudatory pamphlet. However, while they were at the height of their popularity many persons whose names are well known were attracted by them. It was at the Long Room, Hampstead, that Fanny Burney (afterwards Madame D'Arblay) came to stay, and here she made her heroine Evelina attend balls. Her book gained her such a circle of admirers that it is said her second work was expected as eagerly as a novel from Scott.
The chief building was the Pump Room, on the south side of the street, near where the entrance to Gainsborough Gardens now is. The first recorded entertainment here was on August 18, 1701, when a concert was given. Concerts and entertainments of various kinds were kept up during the season. There was a bowling-green near. This house dated from about the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1733 it was converted into an episcopal chapel, and was so used until 1849. There was another chapel called Sion Chapel in the vicinity, though its exact situation is unknown; here couples could be married for five shillings, provided they brought with them a license. The license was not always insisted on. The Pump Room was later used as a guard-room of the West Middlesex Volunteers, and was pulled down in 1880 to make way for the road above mentioned. It was then discovered by the intervening wall that the adjacent house was of still older date, and it is thus proved to be one of the oldest remaining in Hampstead. It has a graceful spindle porch and delightful old-world air, though the side adjoining Gainsborough Gardens has been refaced.
Just opposite is a solid drinking fountain of polished granite, with inscription to the effect that it is in memory of Susanna Noel's gift, and here the chalybeate waters may still be tasted. One or two old houses are on the northern side of the Walk, and one of these, a long, low, red-brick edifice called Weatherhall House, deserves special notice. It contained the Long Room where dances and assemblies were held, and even after the fame of the waters declined it still held its place. Perhaps this is the room referred to by Seymour as having been built in 1735. He describes it as "60 feet long and 30 feet wide, well adorned with chandeliers. The manner of being admitted into it is by a ticket, of which every gentleman who subscribes a guinea for the season has one for himself and two more for two ladies; all those who have not subscribers' tickets pay 2s. 6d. each at the entrance every night. And Sunday nights in the same room is an assembly where the gentlemen and ladies who lodge in the town are entertained with tea and coffee at sixpence per head, but no other amusements are allowed on these nights."
Here Mrs. Johnson came, and Mark Akenside, poet and physician of the eighteenth century; Dr. Arbuthnot, friend of Swift, a man ranked high among the wits of his day, and holding the appointment of physician to Queen Anne; Fanny Burney, and many others. The house is now a private residence. Standing further back from the road behind a quadrangle is Burgh House, also old. This was at one time used as a militia barracks, at which time (1863) the two solid wings adjoining the road were erected.
Burgh House is now a private residence, and the cells where insubordinate soldiers were confined are converted into the drying and mangling rooms of a laundry.
The Wells Tavern is on the site of the Green Man, of ancient date. In 1879 the Vestry proposed to sweep away the groves of the Well Walk and make it into a modern thoroughfare, a New Wells Street, which drew forth indignant protest from the parishioners and a pamphlet from Sir Gilbert Scott.
The renovations, accordingly, were confined to the opening of one or two new streets on the south side, and the erection of the fountain. But even this involved the destruction of part of the old Pump Room. On the site of the Pump Room is a new red-brick house called Wellside, built in 1892, which has an inscription to that effect. Besides the Pump Room, Well Walk has many associations. The famous painter Constable lived in a house which was then numbered 6. He took this house as an extra one in 1826, though still retaining the studio and a few rooms in his London house, near Fitzroy Square; he was then fifty, and was just beginning to feel the small measure of success which was all that was granted him in his lifetime. John Keats and his brothers lodged in Well Walk, next to the Wells Tavern, in 1817-18; and the seat on which Keats loved to sit under a grove of trees at the most easterly end is still called by his name. Here Hone found him "sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief."
East Heath and South End Roads are traversed annually by millions of people, for they lead from the station and the tramway terminus to the Heath, passing some nicely laid-out ground suggestive of a watering-place, and a curious octagonal tower connected with the water companies.
To the north-east are the Hampstead ponds, which are supposed to have been made in Henry VIII.'s reign. They are certainly larger now than they were in the seventeenth century, and have probably been enlarged artificially. They are now in possession of the New River Waterworks Company. The streets on the hill beyond the ponds are all modern.
Gayton Road is composed entirely of modern villas in a continuous straight line. Many of the streets in the vicinity are in the same style, and were built over open meadows at a comparatively recent date. On Downshire Hill is an episcopal chapel with white porch and small cupola; this is dedicated to St. John.
John Street, like Downshire Hill, has detached residences on either side. Large brick flats are rising on the ground once covered by Lawn Bank and Wentworth House. In the former Keats was a welcome visitor from 1818 to 1820, and here he wrote many of his famous poems. Fanny Brawne, with her mother, occupied the adjacent house.
Rosslyn Hill was formerly called Red Lion Hill, from a public-house which stood on the site of the present police-station. On the north side are a Unitarian chapel and schools approached by handsome iron gates. The chapel is approached from Pilgrim Lane and Kemplay Road, and the schools from Willoughby Road. There stood near by until within the last twenty years an old building known as the Chicken House. This is supposed to have been once a hunting lodge of King James I., though there is little basis for the tradition. It became later a mean hovel, the rendezvous for the scum and riffraff of the neighbourhood. It stood a little back from the road just at the spot where Pilgrim Place now is, and contained some very curious stained glass in its windows. There was in one section a portrait of King James I., with an inscription on a tablet below in French to the effect that the King slept here on August 25, 1619. In another section was a corresponding portrait of the favourite, Buckingham. Further north there existed another old house known as Carlisle House. Perhaps this is the one mentioned by Park as a red-brick Elizabethan house with rubbed quoins, which had been let in tenements, and was in a ruinous state in 1777.
On the south or western side of Rosslyn Hill there is the police-station before mentioned, and adjacent an interesting Tudor house, which, though not old, is well built; this contains the Soldiers' Daughters' Home. Old Vane House previously stood here, and was the residence of Sir Harry Vane of the Commonwealth, and later of Bishop Butler, who wrote the "Analogy." The Home is on the site of the south wing of this building, and includes no part of it. Belmont House, now a private residence, was the northern wing. Baines speaks of a date, 1789, and the initials I.R.W. scored on the leads of the latter, but this gives no clue to the age of the building. He says: "The antiquity of the house is abundantly shown by the arrangement of the basements, by the thickness of the main walls, and by a curious subterranean passage from the brewhouse to the stable-yard."
The institution of the Soldiers' Daughters' Home was the outcome of the patriotic feeling aroused by the Crimean War. The house was built for the reception of the girls, who entered into possession in 1867. The Tudor feeling has been well carried out, from the deep porch which overlooks the ivy-surrounded courtyard in front to the stone staircases within. The result is delightful; instead of the hideous dreariness of an institution, we have a real home. At the back a large extent of grass playground stretches out westward, and at the end of this there is a grove of trees. On one side of the grass is a large playroom built in 1880 by means of an opportune legacy, and on the other a covered cloister which leads to the school, standing detached from the house at the other end of the playground. An old pier burdened with a mass of ivy stands up in the centre, the only remnant of this part of old Vane House. Some years ago a portion of the ground was profitably sold for the frontage to Fitz John's Avenue.
The girls are received between the ages of six and eleven years, and remain until sixteen. They are trained in every requisite for domestic service, and make all their own clothes except hats and boots. As a badge of the army, they are always dressed in scarlet.
High Street has been greatly changed within recent years, and it is within the memory of living persons that there were trees on each side. The opening of the two new roads, Prince Arthur Road and Gayton Road, affected its appearance. At the corner of Prince Arthur Road is a large Wesleyan chapel in many coloured bricks. Opposite is the King of Bohemia, a public-house which dates back to Jacobean times, and contains some good Jacobean woodwork; also Stanfield House, once the residence of Clarkson Stanfield the artist, now used as a subscription library. The Free Library reading-room is under the same roof. The house is of brick with ivy climbing over it. About the end of old Church Lane cluster a few old red-brick houses, which preserve a certain flavour of picturesqueness in the street. Opposite the Wesleyan chapel a few more peep over more modern additions. The north-east side is almost entirely modern. The Bird in Hand public-house, where the London omnibuses complete their journey, inherits the name and site of an old tavern. A Presbyterian church at the corner of Willoughby Road dates from 1862, but replaces a much older one removed 1736. In the earlier one Mr. Barbauld, chiefly known on account of his famous wife, ministered for many years. After his death Mrs. Barbauld continued to live at Rosslyn Hill.
Heath Street cuts diagonally across the top of High Street. Below the junction it is all modern, immense red-brick buildings of similar type, with large shops on the ground-floors. At the junction is an imposing fire-station, built by Vulliamy in 1874 on the site of the old police-station. The street higher up is narrow and irregular, with a row of elms above the level of the roadway on the west side. A conspicuous Baptist chapel in white stone with two western spires was built in 1862, but the origin of the congregation here dates from the preaching of Whitfield on the Heath in 1739. The watch-house and stocks were formerly situated at the foot of Heath Street, and later removed to Flask Walk. About Golden Square there are many little irregular entwined streets and passages, with here and there a cottage, here and there the flat sashed windows of a house of a bygone generation, all intricate, entangled, but very quaint and charming.
The Grove is a long shady avenue, with one or two fine old houses on either side of the road and a few cottages. At the top is a big boys' school. On the east in one building are Old and New Grove Houses, and opposite is Fenton House, which was long known as the Clock House. New Grove House was the residence of Du Maurier. At the north end is the Hampstead Waterworks reservoir.
A tree-shaded eminence, crowned with pleasant seats and commanding a magnificent view of the Heath, leads to Branch Hill. This, marked in Park's map Prospect Walk, is now called the Judge's Walk. This name is derived from a tradition that the judges came here and held their courts under canvas while the plague was raging in 1665. But derivations of this sort are very easy to make up and entirely unreliable.
Lower and Upper Terraces just behind are full of charming residences. In the former Constable lived at intervals (No. 2) during 1821, and to the latter Mrs. Siddons came in the autumn of 1804. In Montague House Sir G. Scott lived.
Branch Hill runs down into Frognal Rise, and on the west there are one or two big houses scattered about.
Branch Hill Lodge belonged to Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls in 1745, who presented it to Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. It was for a period the residence of the Earl of Rosslyn, and tradition connects Lord Byron's name with it. It stands in beautiful and extensive grounds. Further along Branch Hill Road there are many new terraces and one or two big houses.
Hollybush Hill is in a straight line with High Street, and between it and Heath Street there are curious little steep passages and alleys, which resemble those found in some Continental towns. Hollybush Hill is associated with the name of Romney the artist, who lived here and built a studio in 1796. He was then sixty-two, the zenith of his career was past, he suffered from ill-health and was morbid and irritable. The studio was converted into Assembly Rooms after his death, and is now incorporated into the Constitutional Club building which adjoins. This club is social and Conservative. The exterior is of rusticated woodwork, and a flagstaff stands before it. In the curious little side-street known as Holly Mount is the front of the Hollybush Tavern, a stuccoed building with a somewhat fantastic wooden porch or veranda. Three houses in a row face the open space at the top of Hollybush Hill. The most easterly possesses a charming old ironwork gate supported by old brick piers and the inevitable stone balls. This is protected by an outer modern gate. All three houses stand back behind gardens, so that only glimpses of them can be seen from the road.
In Bolton House, the most westerly of the three, Joanna Baillie, dramatic writer, and her sister Agnes lived. Mr. Shaw, writing in the "Dictionary of National Biography," says: "Geniality and hospitality were the characteristics of the two sisters during their residence at Hampstead, and even when one became an octogenarian and the other a nonagenarian they could enter keenly into the various literary and scientific controversies of the day." This is next door to the house known as Windmill Hill, which is also the name given to the locality. Opposite is Mount Vernon, where the Hospital for Consumption stands, a pleasant red-brick building which contains accommodation for eighty in-patients; the out-patient department is in Fitzroy Square. A new wing was opened by Princess Christian in 1893. On the sloping ground near the old workhouse used to stand; before it was a workhouse, Colley Cibber used to meet Booth and Wilkes to arrange his dramatic campaigns in this building.
Behind the hospital is a Roman Catholic chapel, in which Mary Anderson was married. This was built in 1816, and the founder was the Abbé Morel. The front is stuccoed, and in a niche there is a group of Virgin and Child. Close by a stone slab bears the name "Holly Place, 1816."
St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Orphanage occupies No.'s 1, 2, 3, Holly Place. To the west are big National schools and playgrounds, and a curving hill called Hollybush Vale runs into the modern part of Heath Street. On the west of Heath Street are Oriel Place and Church Lane. At the corner of the latter is the Sailors' Orphan Girls' Home. This is a big formal building, with none of the architectural beauty which marks the sister establishment on Rosslyn Hill. The institution, however, claims an older date, having been founded in 1829. The present building was opened in 1869 by the Duke of Edinburgh. The girls are kept from six to sixteen years of age and trained for domestic service. Their uniform is the naval colour, dark blue. This road, running past the building formerly called Greenhill, is now merged into Fitz John's Avenue.
Church Row is almost entirely old, one of the most lovable and quiet parts of the parish--houses of brick with flat-sashed windows, projecting porches with carved brackets, here and there red tiles, here and there a bower of jasmine and ivy. One house covered with rusticated woodwork projects above the ground-floor in a bay carried up to the roof.
Dr. Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul's, and a great theological and controversial writer in the reigns of William III. and Anne, and Dr. Arbuthnot were former residents in the Row, and the great Dr. Johnson stayed at Frognal Park in the vicinity. Mrs. Barbauld (see p. 25) and Miss Aikin are also to be numbered among the residents. There is an industrial school for girls, and at the western end of the Row the parish church (St. John the Evangelist) rears its tower beyond a line of small lime-trees. The place has, however, recently been disfigured by high mansions.
The parish of Hampstead was originally included in that of Hendon. The churchwardens of Hampstead first appeared at the Bishop's visitation in 1598, which therefore marks the beginning of an actual parochial settlement, though the register commences in 1560, nearly forty years earlier. Until 1561 it was considered as a donative or free chapel, and after that date it became a perpetual curacy, subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop and the Archdeacon.
The first church or chapel, which stood on the same site as the present one, must have been a curious little structure, if one may judge from the illustrations still extant--a low-pitched Gothic building with wooden belfry. This was dedicated to St. Mary, and the date of its origin is unknown. In 1745 it was taken down, and services were held in the chapel in Well Walk for two years, while the new church was being built. The building itself is of a kind of dingy earth-brick, which, in spite of the conspicuous date, 1745, at the east end, looks as fresh and sharp-edged as if it were of yesterday. The body of the church is mercifully clothed in ivy, but the square tower, with its abnormal battlements and stone courses and facings, rises up nakedly. The peculiarity of the church is that the tower is at the east end. The conical copper spire was added in 1784. An old clock-dial of stone faces eastward.
To raise funds for the building of the church a plan was formed by which those who gave £50 were to have first choice of seats, and to have the additional privilege of handing on such seats to their heirs. This arrangement continued until 1827. Besides many minor alterations and improvements, a thorough rearrangement of the interior took place in 1878. Then a chancel was added at the west end, and thus we have beneath it the open-arched vaults which form its support. The old pews were done away with, and the interior redecorated. The reredos is of mosaic work. The font is of Siena marble "with moulded bases and carved Ionic capitals of white statuary." The general scheme of decoration is of a free Renaissance colour. The restoration cost £14,000. The ceiling is very elaborately decorated, and in a side chapel is a large fresco painting. The choir is ornamented by beautiful inlaid wood, in the same style as the font cover. There is an excellent bust of Keats, presented by American admirers in 1894.
The churchyard is a peculiarly peaceful spot, surrounded by trees, beeches, acacia, and evergreens. There are no abnormal monstrosities such as are found among the tombstones of our big cemeteries, but plain altar-tombs, crosses, and upright slabs of stone. The main entrance is by flagged walks between neatly-trimmed hedges, and from this foreground even the church looks almost picturesque.
The tomb of John Constable the artist, his wife, and some of his children, is in a shaded corner in the south-east. Joanna Baillie is buried here, and Lucy Aikin, also Lord Erskine, and many minor artists. The churchyard was enlarged in 1738, and in 1811 an additional ground was formed on the north side of the road. Here, though it is very peaceful, there is not the same charm as there is about the older ground. Mrs. Rundle Charles, author of "The Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family," rests here, with a plain Iona marble cross bearing date 1896, as her memorial.
The more important of the parish charities are:
The Wells and Campden Charity, originating in the Gainsborough bequest of the well and six acres of land in Well Walk. In 1642 Lady Campden bequeathed £200 to trustees to purchase land for the poor of the parish, and to this other legacies were added. Freehold land was purchased at Child's Hill, and in 1855 the distribution of the money was reorganized.
The oldest parish benefactor was Thomas Charles, who in 1617 left money to buy bread for the poor of the parish. The bread is still bought and distributed. Various other bequests of small amounts were made from time to time. About 1723 the then Bishop of London, John Robinson, left £169 odd for the poor.