Triggered by my birthday

I've just had my birthday and one of the kind presents I received was wrapped up in paper that is an early map of the London rail network - or London Electric Railways as it is described.

The interesting bit - beyond the fact that it's pre-Harry Beck (so it's prob about 1908 or so...) are in the station names.

Looking at the station names in Blue to the right - nothing very different there.

But the Metropolitan Railway (the dominant line in red) has a number of interesting features:

• Marlboro Road - no longer a station, although Marlborough Place and Marlborough Hill survive
• Finchley Road and South Hampstead is now just Finchley Road station
• Kilburn Brondesbury is now Kilburn Jubilee station
• Willesden Green and Cricklewood is now just Willesden Green - indeed I'm not sure Cricklewood would today see it as their local station...

But more faint and a bit more revealing is some of the other rail lines:

• Loudoun Road station is South Hampstead today onn the Euston Watford line
• Kilburn and Maida Vale is Kilburn High Road
• Queen's Park & West Hampstead is just Queen's Park

Moving up the map:

• Brondesbury (Edgware Road) is just Brondesbury on the Overground line
• West End Lane is just West Hampstead

What a great piece of wrapping paper!!

Some things don't change in West End...

It's incredibly easy to miss Emmanuel Church if you walk down Fortune Green Road today...

Everyone knows it is there, lots of people as a result of the school have heard of it, but the mansions lfats next and around mean that the attractive Victorian build just melds into the local scenescape...

But this postcard, posted in 1906 (when the church is just 9 years old), shows the building off as being much more imposing as there are no surrounding buildings in the way there are today.

But, bar that overshadow of the buildings, little has changed outwardly today. The architect in 1897 was JA Thomas of Charing Cross and the foundations were laid on 19th June 1897 - I wonder if the poster of this postcard realised that they were at the anniversary of the foundation when they sent this card. In fact given it is posted in Highbury it is quite possible that this person attends this 'new' church as they are a donor/supporter and went to the foundation service in 1906.

In fact, the church authorities ran out of money during the work and in fact the work was not completed until 29th June 1903 so this card is almost certainly produced as a new card just after the building work was completed and sold for the next three or four or more years...

You might even notice that the noticeboard is even in the same place 104 years later...! In fact anyone standing at Chomley Garden on Fortune Green Road would see little different today.


Of course, the Rev'd Jonathan Kester will be delighted to read that the sender of this postcard liked the service (18th June 1906) - not much has changed in that respect I suspect!

The only other side issues from this card is that there was a post in Highbury at 9.15pm and you can be pretty confident that that was not the only post dispatch of the day.

But then again postcards are not much used for short day-today communications like this - I guess this is the 1906 equivalent of an email or facebook message.

Here's the access we've been waiting for...

Usually I concentrate this blog on historical things that have hung around and survived or on things that happened and can stillbe traced back or seen today. A couple of times I have captured everyday scenes to find them changed the following week or month.

This is a scene (or three) that I passed and thought would be of interest. Already a few weeks later the site has moved on in development so here goes the pictures I got...

It's the construction of the lift and bridge at West Hampstead Thameslink station - this will give access to the station for those with physical disabilities and also direct from Iverson Road.

This should also have the effect of easing the pedestrian access along the incredibly tight bit of pavement along the bridge on West End Lane. It does of course come with the building of the flats along Iverson Road and thereby probably some tree felling... more of that in the local planning process.

But for most people the crucial element is enhancements to West Hampstead Thameslink - considering the crucial nature of the station for the City and Brighton and also to Luton Airport Parkway this should make it easier for those with cases.

I wonder if these enhancements will also see the end of the really trciky issue of the early morning trains saying they are coming in on one platform (on which you can be waiting) t find it comes in on a completely different one and you don't have time to cross the platforms and so miss your train... has happened to me once an several others a lot. Bit of an old carnard a frustrating example of 'it's early so it doesn't matter'.

Now it's West Hampstead that's moving...

Well, if you thought the pace of change was fast in Kilburn or South End Green, then here is the evidence that it's a pacey old world out there.

Here in West hampstead you really do need to watching and keeping a close eye on things.

It's goodbye The Vault, goodbye The Wash House and hello to The Alice House...

All three are on West End Lane but the point is a rather graphic illustration of how fast the business community moves.

West Hampstead has in recent years undergone a major rennaisance (depending on your likes and dislikes of course) but has developed a real cafe culture and a sense of evening bars into which you can easily drop in.

No doubt there are those who don't like the specifics, but I'm sure we can all join in being pleased that there is at least this level of vibrancy in the local economy.

So once again it's keep up at the back there... the world is a changing...

West Hampstead's night time economy

One of the dominant features of West Hampstead today is the social networks that percolate down West End Lane.

It feels like a veritable fortress of successful thiry-somethings (and fourty-plus things!) who like life and add a great youthful vigour to proceedings in this part of town.

One of the consequences, however, is that the night-time economy moves and almost literally changes very quickly.

Here on the corner of Inglewood Road (?) we have the forthcoming attraction of The West Hampstead Alice House Bar...

It's become quite a fashionable haunt being brilliantly located on West End Lane and close to the highly residential streets immediately behind it (Sumatra, Dennington Park Road etc.)

West Hampstead has really changed over time and now has actually few traditional watering holes - the Lion has spruced up, but with this exception there are very few old style boozers - leaving just The Alliance and The Railway really.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2009/01/grand-alliance.html

It is effectively just opposite my favourite haunt - the Wet Fish Cafe which still trumps most places for quality, charm and atmosphere...

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/06/wet-fish-cafe-is-just-best.html

Cycle surgery being treated for burns

It's never good news when you have a fire but our sympathies and best wishes go out to Cycle Surgery here in West End Lane.

It's a great lcoal shop, much used by the increased number of local cyclists.

Come on back to full operational Health Cycle Surgery - we need and want you.

Cock and Hoop here in West Hampstead

The BAM Estate is one of the more interesting features of West Hampstead - indeed the whole mansion blocks of London are themselves pretty fascinating.

But here in West Hampstead we have the Buckingham, Alexandra and Marlborough Mansion blocks.

They were built on the Cock and Hoop field (named after the pub that stood on the site of the current Alexandra Mansions - demolished around 1900/01).

The story of the development is not unsurprisingly more complex and whilst they might now look like the scheme that made someone very rich in fact it is predictably less straightforward. the Centenary official Guide to the BAM Estate reads:

"The plan was to build four blocks of Avenue Mansions, Marlborough Mansions East and the first three blocks of Buckingham Mansions (1-25)...

"The conveyance was completed on 25th March 1897 and building began. (If you look up at the brickwork on the side of 25-34 Avenue Mansions you will see the date 1897.) By 1898 Cave [Edward Jarvis Cave] had successfully acquired enough land to build on the western side of Marlborough mansions. In 1899 Cave bought the Cock and Hoop and planned to extend Marlborough mansions round the corner of Cannon Hill down to the Green, but he appears to have finally overextended himself and was declared bankrupt in May 1900. The Cock and Hoop site was sold to another developer who build Alexandra Mansions in 1902."

READER CORRECTION: a helpful email from a resident points out that the "A" of BAM is in fact Avenue - in my enthusiasm I just assumed that Alexandra was the A and as I knew it was Buckingham and Marlborough etc etc - you see the error. Happy to stand corrected! :-)
So BAM is Buckingham, Avenue and Marlborough - Alexandra is just close by but separate.

When Marc Bolan and David Bowie were in West Hampstead

We're in Broadhurst Gardens and looking west from the bus stop, up towards West End Lane and immediately on the left is an interesting stark red brick building.

Currently it is Lillian Baylis House, home of the English National Opera (ENO).

It began life in 1884 for the Falcon Works - I'm unclear what this would have been - and was built by Thomas Bate. It was he who put the crest plaque at the top in the pediment - but in fact it's not a falcon at all it's an eagle and a castle and is the crest of the Borough of Bedford! The story goes that Mr Bate just mistook the eagle for a falcon!

Whatever the Falcon Works were they were not successful and within three years the building was purchased by a butcher, licensed as a church and then turned into a entertainment venue.

It was in this later form that it became established as West Hampstead Town Hall.

Yet by 1933 the venue had become the recording studio of Crystalate Gramaphone Recording Company and four years later was the recording studios in London for Decca Company.

It was in this later life that the venue gained notopriety and indeed is the place the beatles fdailed their audition for Decca (The tapes of this were later released in 1982?). The briefest internet search reveals a host of others who recorded here - David Bowie, Billy Fury, The Larry Page Orchestra, The Zombies, Dean Martinon, Marc Bolan, Leo Birnbaum and many others...

The grand old country houses in NW6... now extinct?

There was time when the density of population on West End Lane and Kilburn High Road was very different - and not that long ago. Indeed most of both of these roads were lined by large almost county houses...

Maps of the late 19th century show both West End Lane and Kilburn High Road with a series of large detatched houses in garden settings.

So to find the remnants of this still highly visible last weekend was a real treat...

If you're in Kilburn Grange Park looking towards the Kilburn High Road there is a stunning modernist house with a view over the park and then from that house to the main entrance of the park (ie. behind the Black Lion) is a long brick wall with brick built pillars surmounted by large concrete balls.

It clearly isn't part of the park boundary wall and hasn't really been altered since the main High Road was changed into a series of commercial opportunities and rented above the shop blocks. I think this is the old garden wall of Grange House.

As the Kilburn High Road developed so the number of houses dwindled - this was a pretty fast period from the 1860's when the railway boom was underway through to the 1900's as the massive building work of most of the surviving architecture dates from... As I understand the local developments The Grange House, which was a large many bedroomed house, with most of the current Grange Park and more as it's grounds, was one of the last houses to survive.

The economic reality was that such large houses in such high demand development areas gave them high maintenance costs and made them expensive and unfashionable and so over this 50 year period of the second half of the 19th century they were sold, demolished and the arrival of retail and rent...

The Grange House was put up for sale in 1910 and the house was sold almost immediately - the demand to preserve the park was vocal and in 1911 Hampstead and Willesden Council's jointly stepped in and bought the park for preservation.

So that's the context and if you want to see the surviving evidence of the old house - walk into the park and the boundary back wall is there for all to enjoy...

The days of a look out tower.

It is said that Hampstead tube station is the deepest tube station in London - it may or may not be true, but one of the reasons for the depth is that it runs under the top of the hill.

And just over the road, literally, is the corner of Holly Hill and Heath Street at the top of hampstead High Street and on that junction is the old Fire Station.

When you look at it it's hard to realise that it was the fire station and in the relatively recent past - but sure as eggs is eggs, it was. The idea of having a look-out on top of the building seems such an odd concept but when you look at the architecture it's obvious really.

Now it's just flats and the nationwide Building Society and of course a clock tower that doesn;t keep accurrate time!

The building was designed by one George Vulliamy and was opened in 1874. The site had been previously used for the police station.

However, the world of Fire Station locations had to move to keep up with the fast expanding population centres and the need for watch towers subsided.

So it was that in 1901 West Hampstead Station on West End Lane was opened, in 1915 the Belsize Station in Lancaster Grove opened and by 1923 Hampstead Station was closed.

West End is here in NW6 - not theatreland

Back to the joys of West End - and more specifically the Green at West End on the junction of West End Lane, Fortune Green Road and Mill Lane.

It's one of the best spaces and increasingly complemented by coffee bars and outdoor seating to appreciate - all we need now is pedestrianisation (a pipe dream in this instance!).

The plaque reads:

Borough of Hampstead

This tree was planted by the Mayor

Mr Alderman G E Pritchard

20th December 1902

In commemoration of the Coronation of

His Majesty King Edward VII

On this patch of space it's also got the fountain, thousands of pidgeons and is overlooked by the slightly stately Alexandra Mansions.

So whose up for a refurb effort - it's in the sightline of the Friends of Fortune Green who are pushing forward on cleaning up and taking active ownership of their space...

Community activism - for me it's the best way forward and the only way of achieving long standing change and enhancement in a local area... there's one to ponder.

Shop local - no really, you should and must!

I've gushed about how good specific shops and traders are on West End Lane and yep, here's another.

Farrants the fruitiers and greengrocers.
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/06/wet-fish-cafe-is-just-best.html

Fresh, open, like a market stall and full of the charm and simplicity that isn't a supermarket chain. My preference every time is for the little, independent local shop - and West Hampstead holds that secret by the spadefull.

Now of course Tesco is on the way, and the reality is that most people use these chains - despite preferring not to. But I increasingly find that I consciously don't buy fruit and vegetables from supermarket chains.

When I lived up in Hampstead I had a range of bread shops, which was a very special treat, here in West Hampstead we have a series of local indies.

Come on friends, get out there, shop in them, build some loyalty - our communities are all the better for them and we're the wiser for using them...

Quality, choice, price and community - do you need more reasons?

The Wet Fish cafe is just the best!

Yep, West Hampstead is pretty hot and impressive, but in addition to being cool, great fun and an amazing place to live it also boasts the Wet Fish Cafe

http://www.thewetfishcafe.co.uk/

Yep, you guessed it - it used to be a wet fish shop and these two pictures that I took the other day show the original tiling counter height to ceiling and also the original old name plate from above the shop front.

It is also now a great restaurant and one of the places where the food actually has taste and flavour - it really is to be recommended...

There is a real pride in the catering and the service and when it was restored in 1989 and turned into a cafe (becoming the Wet Fish in June 2003) they have sought to retain the charm and atmosphere that came with the relics of the fish shop.

Amazingly the shop front board (now inside) is still legible from the last fishmonger R Rowe and Son (1957-1989).

The previous fishmongers are lovingly recounted on the menu and this all helps add to the atmosphere:
Cecil Jones Fishmongers (1917-1929)
Johnny Jones Fishmongers (1929-1935)
A Jones Fishmongers (1935-1957) before handing onto to Rowe's.

And for those not certain, the term 'wet fish' refers to fish that have not been frozen to distinguish it from the loose term 'fresh' fish!

So if you haven't been then get down there - just a Jubilee ride, Thameslink or Overground and it's sitting there on West End Lane... go go go!

And don't forget that Kilburn still boasts it's own fishmongers:
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/05/long-live-fresh-fishmongers-shop.html

Ed Fordham

When Hampstead Borough was bombed in WWII

For the London Borough of Hampstead the war was pretty eventful and some of the consequences can still be seen in gaps in lines of terraces, new blocks (relatively) amongst older ones..

When I pass Sidney Boyd Court on West End Lane now I now understand that it was a matching terrace but was bombed out and so later re-built.

But some numbers to think on:

From September 3rd 1939 to May 11th 1941
560 alerts were sounded

During the period August 15th 1940 to end of June 1941
569 alerts lasting 1427 hours 13 minutes
The alert in this period sounded in 237 days
During 80 of those alerts 466 incidents of damage or injury occurred in the Borough

From August 30th 1940 to May 11th 1941
310 high explosive bombs (34 unexploded)
8 parachute mines (3 unexploded)
41 oil bombs
53 anti-aircraft shells (34 unexploded)
approx 4,000 incendiary bombs were reported

The first casualty was on September 9th 1940.
Between then and April 17th 1941, 141 persosn were killed or died in hospital, 161 received hospital treatment and 259 attended first-aid posts

330 houses were destroyed or so damaged that they had to be destroyed
474 houses and flats had to be evacuated
10,611 houses were recorded as receiving some damage

This was just phase one of the bombing!

Yep, I'm reading Hampstead at War, Hampstead 1939-1945 by Camden History Society, first published in 1946 and re-printed in 1977, 1979 and 1995.

Where does the river flow?

It's not the most obvious shot of a river but that's exactly what it is - the location of the river in Kilburn.

I remains slightly unclear as to the definition of river versus tributary and whether it is the Kilbourne river, the Westbourne or a feeder from or to the Fleet.

What I do know however, if that if you stand above this set of drains at the bottom of West End Lane but the old Bird in Hand Pub you can hear the river flowing beneath you.

I'm told that this is the river that feeds the Serpentine eventually and that in fact you can later 'see' the river as it crosses a major tube station in a metal pipe south of here in Kilburn. But is opening up our waterways something we should be considering - it's certainly been a thread brought up in sustainability discussions and it sounds an attractive notion but is it in any way possible now they have lain underground for so long?

Origins of Platt's and Kidderpore...

By nature of the local government boundaries areas that exist, communities that in fact are part of a whole appear to be split in two by nature of one road - so it is with Platt's Lane.

Platt's Lane sounds really idylic (and it is) - is one of the most attractive street names around - and yet at the far northern border of the London Borough of Camden - or even on the far south of the London Borough of Barnet is slightly isolated from appreciation.

I remember speaking with Peter Cadogan when he blamed a cleric (bishop?) of St Alban's who had the chance to re-unite Kilburn in the 1300's and who didn't, thus sundering the commujnity of Kilburn into two.
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2007/11/part-of-kilburn-has-passed-away.html
Now of course, Kilburn is a commercial shopping area - in a way that Platt's Lane isn't, but it led me to consider the name origin of 'Platt's'.

Perhaps it was predictable: Thomas Platt owned the area and in about 1810 he bought a farmhouse (with the attendant out-buildings) and enlarged it - then on the border of the heath - it was in an area much more woooded than now, and built what was regarded as a very fashionable and pleasant house.

Before this the landowners were thought to be part of the old Templar estate of North West London (sic. Templar House, West Hampstead)

There is then (post 1830's) pretty fast local development:

• T Howard built Kidderpore Hall, for John Teil, an East India merchant which gives the origin of the name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidderpore. (now Kidderpore Avenue and Kidderpore Gardens)

"One of the oldest parts of Calcutta, Kidderpore has a legend as far as its name is concerned. It is said that the British couldn't pronounce bengali. So when they asked for the directions to the port where ships were harboured, their broken hindi sounded somewhat like 'kidder-port' and hence the name Kidderpore came into existence."

• Two lodges were added, one in 1849 on Finchley road, another in 1867 on Platt's Lane.
• Four houses facing Finchley Road were built in the 1840s in the district called New West End (West End of Hampstead).
• By 1870 the farm buildings at Platt's Lane had been replaced by a house.
• Two cottages were built in Platt's Lane by P. Bell of West End in 1875.
• 13 houses, build/designed by George Pritchard, between 1884 and 1886.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/03/changing-of-street-names.html
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/02/one-of-most-frequent-asks-is-where-does.html

Kilburn music mystery solved...

So the music mystery is finally solved - thank you Janet Grauberg.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/02/kilburns-musical-past.html

The building at the bottom of West End Lane, where it meets Kilburn High Road, has four musical 'medallions' - details on the links above. I have reproduced the picture of the building here.

I suggested that it might of been a music school, but in fact (and of course lessons might have taken place there) it was Philip's Music Shop - opposite what was Parr's Bank.

Philip's moved here in 1891 and the shop closed in the 1930's. Amongst other services they hired out piano's, but are now captured by the medallions on the wall...

Mystery solved... :-)

There is a picture of the Kilburn High Road when the music shop was there in Kilburn and Cricklewood, by Marinanne Colloms and Dick Weindling.

Back to the fountains and public water...

My post a while back about fountains and getting them reconnected has prompted a flurry of emails and I'm now getting one resident sending me occasional notes of where they have found fountains round and about (often outside the remit of this little blog!).

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/01/where-is-metropolitan-drinking-fountain.html

This one at Fortune Green (the Green rather than just the ward) - just off Fortune Green Road and the Greek streets - is small and pretty and lies slightly off-set to the main of the green - it has just had new paving around it and in fact is incredibly well-placed on the geographic perspective of the green itself.

I'm gradually cacthing up with where there are others and whether they are working or not...

A brief pause on West End Green confirmed what Cllr. Flick Rea had told me - that the West End fountain was indeed working - and great too the water tasted!

I realised after taking this picture (right) of this small fountain that I failed to make a note of the inscription - more to follow when I go pass next...

Kilburn's musical past?

It might be that there is a history that we have missed, but I'm not aware of a Kilburn School of Music, and I've read most of the history texts on the local area.

But this building on the corner of West End Lane and Kilburn High Road has had some busts that I thought interesting. A few snaps (albeit poor quality ones) and the mystery has come to an end.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-old-music-schools-listed-anywhere.html

In fact this building boasts four busts of music greats:

Mozart, Handel, Beethoven and Vivaldi.

Once one was identified it seemed pretty straightforward, but it leaves the question why and what was the building... answers on a e-postcard please

The building boom of the late 19th Century

In my love of local architecture, features, and what I see around me I now carry my camera all the time. Today was quite a little crop of pictures and will take me a few days to get them all sorted and up on here - but here's a start.

This is on the corner of Dennington Park Road and West End Lane and is on the building above Lupa. It's a relatively straightforward date plaque, but it is topped by a really attractive gargoyle esq feature. Now I'm sure it's slightly sentimental but these sort of features really add to an area, to the building and to the locality. Here in NW6/NW3 we are especially laden with such features.

In the context of this and seeing that the public library opposite and the fire station a few hundred yards down the road opened in 1901. It made me reflect that West End Lane between the arrival of the railways (1870's) and 1901 when the public facilities went in the local area must have seen amazing level of change.

At this time 1892 it must have been something of a building site on West End Lane and the scale of building work going on must have been huge - in fact the development of the whole area would have been from open fields to close serried streets.

I can almost hear the discussion on the 19th century equivalent of local chat rooms (pubs/bars?) - "oh, stop the development, stop it now. Let's protest." :-)