A new definition of the school crossing - Salusbury Road and Winchester Avenue junction

It's interesting how things cluster - in China, for example, towns feel like they are organised by trades - all the butchers are in one street, all the tailors in another - so here in Queen's Park (an unlikely connection I grant you!) I noticed how Salusbury Road was quite a serious municipal heartland upon a time - now much much reduced (just a Police Station and a Library really)...

But the junction of Winchester Avenue, Salusbury Road has maintained the education links it was built with at the start of the last century. College Mansions (1900) - on the southside of Winchester Avenue with the Islamia school now just down the road, the old sixform block opposite on the North side (1901 if i recall correctly) and of course Winkworth Hall opposite (later but in the same tradition).

And the quality of the architecture just feels better - or is that too sentimental a response?

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/03/winkworth-hall-anyone.html

The Royal Free is in Hampstead - isn't it?

It's said that you learn something every day and that's the great thing about this history malarky - you actually do...

So I was dashing through Holborn and glanced up and there it was a plaque to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine (University of London).

I knew about the Eastman, off Gray's Inn Road, and of course the Royal Free Hospital itself of the 1972 construction up in Pond Street, Hampstead... but, of the School of Medicine.

In short the School of Medicine was established in 1874 by an "Act of Faith" and by 1898 was in a small house before moving very quickly to larger premises on the same site but using the Hunter Street entrance. After much fundraising and campaigning and dedication it was opened by Queen Mary on 2nd October 1916 and became one of the leading teaching hospitals in London.

This is straight off my bookshelves: The Illustrated History of the Royal Free Hospital by LA Amidon, Edited by A Northern, 1996, London, ISBN 0-9529009-0-4.

The book has sat on the shelves for a while - purchased at the urging of 'Friend of the Royal Free' councillor Janet Grauberg at one of the Friends Open Days I attended a while back, but has lain at home unread. I have now tucked into it and wow it is a great read and a great story.

Those Civil War trusts that are still going strong

The Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust is one of the longer serving features of the local landscape and it occurs in lots of forms in NW3 - street names, landmarks, geographical facets and of course good old plain history...

The Trust in its present form dates only from 1971, origins were in 1698 when the Earl of Gainsborough gave six acres of land for the perpetual benefit of the poor of the Parish of Hampstead.

This became known as the Wells Charity taking its name from the Chalybeate Well (still visible in Well Walk opposite Gainsborough Gardens) built by the Earl of Gainsborough to commemorate the bequest.

In 1880 the Wells and Campden Charity was established.

The origins of the Campden Charity date back to the early days of the English Civil War when Lady Campden (a member of the Gainsborough family) made a bequest of £200, which together with two further bequests totalled £250.

There was also the bath house that is still remembered in use by many local residents - I think it closed in the 60's and the local area has a range of street names associated.

http://www.hwct.org.uk/

The Trust is still active today (the plaque above is from the front door of their office on Hampstead High Street) and it's website details it's mission:

a) To help persons who are sick convalescent, disabled, handicapped or infirm;

b) To help either generally or individually persons who are in need, who suffer hardship or distress;

c) To assist organisations or institutions providing services or facilities which help relieve need or distress.

The vexed issue of flags... (great pun!)

Here are two flags I found flying locally - the first is the Green Flag awarded to Queen's Park and the second is the new Union Flag flying from Hampstead Police Station (the team in blue seem rather proud of the new one :-))

So I went back to when flags first came about and their purpose. It all starts in ancient china (don't most things innovative?) and then spread across the far and near east. However, our linguistics gives a clue in that the study of flags come from vexillum - Latin for flag - and the study of flags is vexillology.

The flippant situation is that the flag is just a piece of identifiable cloth - now for identification but of old for signalling.

In medieval and indeed until recent times they were key military identifiers especially on a confused battlefield or at sea where they are lightweight and can therefore be elevated quite high.

But there is also something about the flying of a flag that is quite emotional and raises the heart and emotions. I guess that's how the patriotic dilemna has then kicked in...

Swiss Cottage - formerly The Swiss Tavern

Swiss Cottage is one of the significant landmarks of London - not least because it is the traffic landmark for many people arriving in London. Certainly when travelling down to see aunts and grandparents as a young boy, we knew we were close when we got to Swiss Cottage.

Now the main landmark is the pub and the tube station - I was discussing yesterday with a friend whether anyone actually lives in 'swiss cottage'. It's also an administrative district for elections - Swiss Cottage Ward in Camden - but as a residential area...

In the Swiss Cottage ward many people consider themselves to live in West Hampstead, South Hampstead, Primrose Hill - the actually definition of Swiss Cottage as a geographic area is very small.

Now Swiss Cottage tube station is a London Underground station at Swiss Cottage. It is on the Jubilee Line, between Finchley Road and St. John's Wood. It is in Travelcard Zone 2.

This picture captures what I think is the great 20s/30s architecture of the tube station escalator... it's really stunning and has actually been well matched by the modern architecture of much of the rest of the jubilee line (esp. at Westminster Station).

Opened on November 20, 1939 on the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo Line, Swiss Cottage station was transferred to the Jubilee Line in 1979. The station was originally called The Swiss Tavern (after the pub which is early 19th century), but was soon changed to Swiss Cottage.

Swiss Cottage has always been a major transport hub and in the early 19th century saw a couple of parliamentary bills on the Finchley Road toll road (1835).

The Victoria County History records this in full:
"Omnibuses routes were pushed farther north with the spread of building and opening of suburban railway stations after 1855. By 1880 they not only stretched along Kilburn High Road to Brondesbury but also served Kilburn and West Hampstead by way of Abbey Road and the area north of Swiss Cottage by way of Finchley Road as far as Finchley Road station. Later omnibuses were extended along Finchley Road to meet others from Edgware Road along West End Lane, continuing north to Childs Hill in Hendon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Cottage_tube_station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cottage
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22632&strquery=swiss%20cottage

Thanks for all the ballots

Elections are funny things - huge amounts of effort, energy (esp. nervous energy) and resources - and yet the count is curiously odd.

The London elections being an electronic count are especially odd - the effect of a electronic count is to engender an atmosphere that feels almost anti-democratic.


The process is not open to scrutiny, when the machine jams (which happened quite a lot) and the papers get fed back in you worry that there is double counting... The whole atmosphere is that the bureaucrat knows best (and I like bureaucrats, but in this instance...).


So the count was Friday 2nd May - took literally all day - and felt amazingly lame. The counting was imperceptible, the box numbers didn't tally to anything I recognized and the only checking process that could be scrutinised was for spoilt or unclear papers.


http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/03/winning-is-very-very-good.html


But it is worth saying that Alexandra Palace was an amazing backdrop for an otherwise bizarre event!

So in the previous tradition, here are some shots from inside the count on Friday.

It's good weather now...

After the wet bank-holiday Sunday...

These two pics both reflect the weather we seem to be now enjoying - carpets of pink blossom and a field of blue bells - one in Russell Nurseries (Belsize tube/Haverstock Hill) and the other just behind the wharrie shelter on Rosslyn Hill by St Stephen's church.