Just who was Jack Straw?

Jack Straw’s Castle is situated at the highest point of the heath (highest point above sea level in London?) and commands amazing views across London. It has been a coaching inn, a pub, recently and briefly a family and children’s restaurant and now has been converted into apartments.

In World War II the pub was very badly damaged after being bombed by a landmine, and the present mock-castle style in fact just dates from 1962 or 1964. It is grade two listed however, the coaching inn dating from at least 1721 (when the old watering hole was re-built). Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackerary and Wilkie Collins were all known to have drunk here in the 19th century.

However, the name and crucially it’s location derives from the Peasants Revolt of 1381. Now dryly described as being 12 North End Way, Hampstead, London, NW3, this address hides the historical story of this meeting point and of Jack Straw.

Jack Straw was one of the leaders of the Peasants Revolt of 1381 – a rebellion against poll tax and restrictions on labour and wages. Wat Tyler, Jon Ball and jack Straw were the main leaders and they were incredibly successful – claims put their petition as being supported by 60,000 names.

The mass gathering of people supporting the rebellion in 1381 was of course against the young monarch Richard II just 14 years old himself.

The petition called for the abolition of serfdom, tithes and the game laws as well as the right to freely use the forests. They also called that the poll tax be abolished.

The rallying cry of the peasants was a rhyme which spread dissension across the South of England:"When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the Gentleman?"

Jack Straw is credited with addressing the massed gathering of rebels from a Hay cart on Hampstead Heath – hence the name and indeed the location. There is little to doubt the story and it has historical confirmation.

Not unsurprisingly the rebellion ended in failure in that Tyler, Straw and Ball were all captured and executed, but the Poll tax was abolished… But he also has a pub named after him – not much compensation but a story worth telling.

Are old music schools listed anywhere?

A regular reader of this blog and contributor to www.cityneighbours.com has emailed me and asked if I can identify the portraits/busts on this building in Kilburn.

You can see the four roundels on the building here on the busy Kilburn High Road - it's the junction of West End Lane.

I think I'm there on identifying the roundel portraits but want to just check one more bit to see if I'm correct before posting.

Hang in there friend, I'm nearly there I think.

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." :-)

Hampstead Brewery - bring it back?!

Not the most obvious local fact, but yes, there was a Hampstead Brewery just off the High Street.

Established in 1720 by the owner of Jack Straw's Castle (a coaching inn) and on a location on the High Street which could access the recently piped water that flowed through Hampstead. The Brewery serviced amongst other places the old Hampstead pub, The King of Bohemia.

This frontage of the brewery was re-built in 1869 and is a great feature of the High Street - the houses behind in the building itself are now Old Brewery Mews.

Landlords/owners of the Brewery
John Vincent 1720
Robert Vincent and Richard Vincent 1755
Robert Vincent 1776
Elizabeth Vincent 1787
Messrs. Shepheard and Buckland and Elizabeth Vincent in 1797
Messrs. Shepheard and Buckland and James Buckland in 1812
John Buckland 1827
Thomas Buckland 1834 and 1854
John Tanner Hawkins 1859 (who named it The Hampstead Brewery and rebuilt the building with the current entrance)
Edward Harris 1870 and 1875
Mure and Company c.1880
Closed in 1932

Memories from the Second World War

I carry my camera with me almost all the time now with hope of catching sight of just slightly unusual things: this is one of the better ones.

Just inside the main block of Hampstead School, Westbere Road, is this plaque rembering the second world war.

"THIS WING WAS DESTROYED
BY ENEMY ACTION
7TH OCTOBER 1940

REBUILT 1948"

It would seem that this part of London received pretty heavy bombing during the war - thought to be because of the high number of railway lines and junctions - and this plaque is one of the remnants of that history. I have passed this quite a few times (as a Governor at the School) but not paid too much attention to it really.

I think I'm right in saying that this was when the School was still occupied by Haberdasher Askes http://www.oldhabs.com/. I don't think they moved out until 1961.

Anyone out there have any memories of this night of bombing?

One of the best wall adverts yet?

Staring me straight in the face in my own stomping ground of Hampstead - there was one of the best wall mural adverts surviving.

It's on Heath Street, just the junction of Church Row, and is a superb example of the type.

There's not really much else to say, but to admire and appreciate.

Estblished 1746
Chas B
king
Estate
Agent
Decorator
Gas
Hot Water
and
Sanitary
Engineer

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-advertising-walls-by-popular.html

Keep the aspidistra flying

One of the gems of living in north west London is the accidental scatter of famous who have passed through and are variously commemorated or remembered. And this is one of my favourites: George Orwell.

The house he lodged in from 1934-35 is rewarded with a plaque by the Heath and Hampstead Society - but less well known is the plaque on the building in which he worked at South End Green.

The shop was Booklover's Corner, a second hand bookshop, which gave him access and company of other writers, artists and young people - as well as the access to the cheap bedsits of Parliament Hill. It was whilst staying here that he wrote most of "Keep The Aspidistra Flying".

My own favourite take on this is from a couple of years ago - I'm meeting a friend in South End Green and paused on the corner and there's a couple taking photographs of each other outside the building, then she pauses, turns to him and says (and this is totally true) "Do you think George Orwell worked in this burger store!?"!