HAMPSTEAD HAUNTS

High above the rest of London, Hampstead does not have its own Sacre Coeur, but in all other respects it easily rivals Paris's Montmartre both in its beauty and its history

Hampstead (which means ‘homestead’) was first mentioned in a document dated 975 AD, and then later in the Domesday Book (1086). Since then it has been the subject of many books and articles, so I will confine myself to describing my memories of Hampstead. But first, a little history. Before that, I must say that Hampstead offers much to intrigue and charm the visitor. It is London’s equivalent of Montmartre in Paris, both because of its setting and also because of its many associations with the artistic and cultural life of London. It may sound chauvinistic of me, but I believe that Hampstead outshines Montmartre in both beauty and interest.

Perched on the uppermost southern slopes of one of north London’s highest hills, Hampstead used to be a village separated from London by countryside.  18th century maps show that it was connected to London by a road that led north from Camden Town following the path taken now by the tracks of the Edgware branch of the Northern Line of the Underground. The road that now leads south from Hampstead to Swiss Cottage, the present Fitzjohns Avenue, did not exist in the early 18th century. What was then, and still is, the High Street (which becomes Rosslyn Hill) curved north to reach a bifurcation close to Whitestone Pond. From this parting of the ways, one road continued north to Golders Green and the other curved eastwards towards Highgate village.

In mediaeval times, there were houses in Hampstead. By the 15th century, wealthy Londoners were buying and building ‘country’ homes in the village. In the 17th century, there were many inns on the High Street. Hampstead is still famed for its good selection of pubs. At the end of the 17th century, Hampstead began to acquire the appearance of a small town, rather than a rustic village. After that, buildings sprung up at a rapid rate. Some of these 18th century buildings may still be seen in present-day Hampstead. In the mid-19th century, even as late as 1870, Hampstead was still separated from London by open country containing a few widely-spaced buildings. However, by 1900 London had coalesced with, and absorbed, Hampstead. Fortunately, Hampstead has not become totally engulfed by urbanisation. To its north, it remains separated from Golders Green and Highgate by semi-wild open spaces (Hampstead Heath and Kenwood), which are enjoyed by many locals and visitors.

Every Saturday morning, my parents took my sister and me to Hampstead from our home across Hampstead Heath in Hampstead Garden Suburb. My mother, the only driver in the family, drove us in our Fiat car to the car park, whose surface was totally uneven and partially covered with small stones, behind the now closed (since 2002) Jack Straws Castle pub, now a block of flats, located a few yards north of Whitestone Pond. According to Asa Briggs in his “Marx in London” (published 1982), Jack Straws Castle was a favourite drinking place for Karl Marx and his friends. This was quite appropriate because Jack Straw (died 1381) was a leader of the 1381 Peasants Revolt. It is said that Straw stood on a wagon filled with hay (Jack Straw’s ‘castle’), and gave a speech near where the pub was later built.

A few yards north of Jack Straw’s Castle, Inverforth Close - a small private road, open to pedestrians, leads off North End Way (which connects the Old Bull and Bush pub and Golders Green to Jack Straws Castle). At the end of it, there is a delightful garden, The Hill Garden, which is open to the public. This was once the gardens of Inverforth House, which still fronts North End Way.

The present Inverforth House was built in 1895 in a ‘neo Georgian’ style to the designs of the architectural practice of Grayson and Ould. Between 1896 and 1904, Ronald Fisher lived there as a child. Fisher (1890-1962) was one of the ‘fathers’ of modern biological statistics. Amongst his achievements was devising Analysis of Variance. The often used ‘F Test’, a statistical test, was named in his honour.

The house was owned by William Lever, Viscount Leverhulme (1851-1925), between 1904 to 1925. Lever was one of the first men to produce soap on an industrial scale (in 1884), and he was an enlightened industrialist. Port Sunlight near to Birkenhead was built by him to house his workers in pleasant surroundings. The house’s library was designed by built by William and Segar Owen of Warrington, who had also designed buildings at Port Sunlight. Incidentally, my great grandfather, Franz Ginsberg, followed in Lever’s footsteps by establishing one of the first soap factories in South Africa (in 1885).

In 1955, Inverforth House became a convalescent home of the (now non-existent) Manor House Hospital (see: https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/manorhouse.html), and that is how I remember it from my childhood. Inverforth House ceased being a hospital in 1999. The hospital was not part of the NHS. It was privately run by trade unions. Now, the house contains privately owned, luxury flats; it has become a ‘gated community’.

The gardens of Inverforth House were laid out from 1906 onwards by Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933), garden designer, landscape architect, and town planner. According to one source (see: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Hampstead-Pergola-Hill-Gardens/), Lord Leverhulme wanted the pergola:

“to be the setting for extravagant Edwardian garden parties, while at the same time being a place where his family and friends could spend long summer evenings enjoying the spectacular gardens.”

In 1960, the London County Council (‘LCC’) bought the Pergola and associated garden areas, which had by then become very dilapidated. In 1963, the gardens were opened to the public, and called the ‘Hill Garden’. In later years, successors to the LCC have repaired to woodwork and brickwork of the extensive terraces and pergolas, and maintained the gardens superbly.

In my late childhood, this garden used to be very much a ‘secret garden’, and quite run-down – the pergola being closed off, because it was structurally unsound. But, now it has been ‘discovered’, and many people come to enjoy its architecture, water feature, plants, trees, and flowers, all laid out upon the slopes below the western side of Inverforth House.

We used to walk with my parents from the car park next to the Jack Straws Castle, passing a flag-pole, which still exists. This flag pole stands close to the highest point in London (about 440 feet above sea level). In my childhood, there used to be donkeys for hire near the flagpole. Next, we used to stroll past Whitestone Pond to the top of Heath Street. The pond has been existence since before the 1740s. At either end of it, ramps lead from the street into the water to allow riders to water their horses in the pond. In my childhood, the pond was used mainly to sail toy boats. A few years ago, the pond, which used to look undistinguished, has been ‘remodelled’ and ‘landscaped’ with a bed of reeds, which never grew there before.

In the summer months, the wide pavement on the east side of the northern part of Heath Street used to be set up as an open-air art exhibition (until about 1985). We used to wander about looking at the paintings and sculptures produced by some of Hampstead’s many local amateur and professional artists. My late mother, herself an accomplished painter and sculptor, used to be very critical of what was on display. One man carved ‘objets’ from branches of trees. We always used to stop and say hello to him, even though my parents would never have dreamt of having anything he produced in our home.

Whatever the season, exhibition or no exhibition, we used to walk down Heath Street, passing the Friends Meeting House (built 1907) and the now long-since closed Turpins restaurant, to an Italian restaurant called the ‘Pimpernel’. This occupied a single-storied building, triangular in floor plan, on the southern corner of Elm Row. Although it was a restaurant, its friendly Italian staff were quite happy to serve my parents espresso coffees. When they had finished, my parents used to chat with the staff, who invariably gave my sister and I small boxes, the size of matchboxes, containing torone (Italian nougat). The Pimpernel closed many decades ago. However, its building has, over the years, housed quite a number of different, usually short-lived, restaurant businesses. It was located across the road from a double-front shop that once contained a wonderful gramophone records shop, Hampstead High Fidelity.

The old New End Hospital stood between the Pimpernel and the station. This began life as The Hampstead Union workhouse in 1800, and became a hospital by 1922, after it had served as an infirmary, and then as a military hospital in WW1.

In 1969, during my last year at school, I did voluntary work once a week in the hospital. I worked in a cellar that contained the department where patients were given radioactive iodine to diagnose and treat their thyroid disorders. I found it very interesting. I believe that working there was one of the factors that led me to choose to study physiology at university. Thinking back on it, the department would never have begun to get close to fulfilling even the most basic health and safety requirements of today, but the people and the work there were fun. The hospital; closed in the late 1980s, and has since been converted into private flats.

The New End Theatre opposite the former hospital used to be the mortuary until 2011. Now, it is used to house a synagogue, ‘The Village Shul’. This stands next to the Duke of Hamilton pub, which was first known as ‘The Duke of Hamilton’s Head’ back in 1721. It acquired its present name in 1762. The building housing the pub dates back to 1700.

The Horse and Groom pub stands on Heath Street between the former hospital and the Underground Station. This pub was already in existence in 1723 (see: https://pubshistory.com/Middlesex/Hampstead/HorseGroom.shtml). The gabled building that now bears its name dates from more recent times. When I was a teenager, I used to walk over Hampstead Heath with my friends, and then occasionally had a drink in this pub, to which we gave the nickname ‘The Whores and Gloom’. The pub no longer exists, but since its closure the building has been used as a restaurant from time to time.

On our Saturday morning excursions, we never walked as far as the station. Instead, we turned off into Back Lane that went downhill towards Flask Walk. Where this steep cobbled lane meets with Flask walk, there is a restaurant, ‘The Cage Imaginaire’, which has been in existence since the 1980s. I have not eaten there for many years, but my father and I used to patronise it during the 1980s after my mother died.

When I used to visit Hampstead with my parents, we used to turn right at the bottom of Back Lane, and then proceeded along the short, and the narrowest, stretch of Flask Walk leading to Hampstead High Street.

Let us take a detour by turning left, and heading north-east along the rest of Flask Walk. This street is lined by beautiful old houses interspersed with the occasional contemporary building. The road dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, if not before. A few ‘workers’ cottages, dating back to about 1811, stand a few yards away from Rose Mount House, which was built in 1812. This is where Emily, the sister of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, lived. Emily was married to the naval officer Richard Jesse. In a letter dated 25th October 1858, the poet wrote:

“My mother and my sister Matilda have made their home with the Jesses at Rose Mount, Hampstead…”

Before reaching Rose Mount, House Flask walk widens to become a lozenge shaped open space with a grassy area enclosed within it. On the north side of this area, there stands a red brick building with the date 1888, which proclaims itself to be: ‘The Wells and Camden Baths and Wash Houses’. Its existence reflects the fact that when it was built many of the workers’ homes in 19th century Hampstead had no running water. D Bohm and I Lorrie (owner of the former High Hill Bookshop – see later) wrote in their excellent “Hampstead: London Hill Town” that:

“…it was built for the use of the natives as an encouragement to them to wash themselves and their garments.”

The building was converted for housing use in about 1985.

Flask Walk ends just beyond Rose Mount, and continues as Well Walk. Across the road (New End Square) from this house is the large and impressive Burgh House. This was built in 1704 close to the Hampstead Well Spa (see below). According to Bohm and Norrie, the House is named after its 10th owner, The Reverend Allatson Burgh, who was the vicar of St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London. Burgh, who was keener on music than looking after his parishioners, neglected both them and his house. Between 1858 and 1884, Burgh House became the headquarters of the Royal East Middlesex Militia. After having been put to a variety of uses, the house became used as a cultural centre and museum in 1979. The Reverend Burgh would have been pleased to know that today his former home hosts many fine concerts of classical music.

From the bottom of the garden of Burgh House, the ‘Wells Tavern’ pub can be seen dominating the view along Well Walk. Known as ‘The Green Man’ until 1850, when it was rebuilt and renamed the ‘Wells Tavern’, a pub has stood on his spot since at least 1762. The pub’s name reflects one of the reasons that Hampstead became popular in the 17th century. Apart from enjoying clean air, people were attracted to the mineral water springs that were beginning to be exploited at that time. These springs issued ‘chalybeate’ water, that is water rich in iron salts. In 1698, the Wells Charity was formed, and soon after this the waters were commercially exploited.

“A Long Room was erected on the south side of Well Walk. This comprised a Pump Room where the chalybeate water could be drunk and an Assembly Room for dancing, concerts and other forms of entertainment. Nearby was a tavern and various raffling shops.” (see: https://www.lagaffe.co.uk/hampstead-history.php)

These extensive premises were demolished in the late 19th century to make way for an estate of residential buildings. The former Pump Room and Assembly Room occupied a plot that is bounded by Well Walk, East Heath Road, and Gainsborough Gardens. Present day Gainsborough Gardens runs around an oval open space, which is shown as a water feature in the gardens of the Pump Rooms on an 1866 map. At the corner of Gainsborough Gardens and Well Walk, there is a tall building with attractive neo gothic windows. This was built in about 1704. Neighbouring this house, but across Gainsborough Gardens, stands Wellside, a house built in 1892 on the site of the Pump Room which was demolished in 1882. Opposite the 1704 house, a small ornate drinking fountain stands on Well Walk. Labelled ‘Chalybeate Well’, this elegantly designed public well was donated to the people of Hampstead by the mother of the third Earl of Gainsborough in 1698. Nowadays, the ‘Chalybeate Well’ is dried up.

Apart from one relatively modern building, all the buildings between Gainsborough Gardens and The Wells Tavern are 18th century. One of them was once the home of the painter John Constable (1770-1837), who made several paintings of Hampstead and Hampstead Heath. Constable had rented various houses in Hampstead as summer retreats, and lived in Well Walk during the last few years of his life. He was buried in Hampstead Parish Church.

Retracing our steps along Well Walk and then Flask Walk, we can see the Georgian shop front of the Well Walk Pottery, which has occupied this building as long as I can remember. It was started by the potter Christopher Magarshack in 1959.  According to Bohm and Norrie, writing in 1980, Elsie the widow of the Russian Jewish translator and writer David Magarshack (1899-1977: he left his birthplace Riga, then in Russia, in 1918) lived above the shop. Elsie died in 199, aged 100 (see: https://russiandinosaur.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/when-magarshack-met-penguin-guest-post.html) In addition to selling pottery there, the pottery also holds classes for ceramicists, some of whom now have good reputations. David’s daughter Stella, a fine artist, was the Head Art Teacher at King Alfred’s, a ‘progressive’ school between Hampstead and Golders Green. In 2016, aged 87, she was brutally attacked in the street close to her home.

Between Back Lane and Hampstead High Street, there is a short stretch of Flask Walk, which is narrower than the rest of it and, also, pedestrianised. The Flask Tavern (now ‘the Flask’) stands closest to Back Lane. It was formerly known as ‘The Lower Flask’ to distinguish it from another similarly named pub in Hampstead, and has been in existence since at least 1762. Its present premises were built in 1874. A few doors away from it, there used to be a small second-hand bookshop, one of about eight such establishments in the Hampstead of my youth. This has long gone, but opposite where it used to be stands Keith Fawkes, which, apart from a relatively new Oxfam Bookshop close to the Underground Station, is the last of the Hampstead second-hand bookshops that I remember from my childhood still in business. If I remember correctly, Keith Fawkes was a relative newcomer to the flourishing Hampstead second-hand book scene as it was during the 1960s.

The tree-lined Hampstead High Street, which one reaches at the end of Flask Walk, has a widened stretch just as so many High Streets do in country towns all over England. The street is lined with shops and eateries, which are housed in buildings whose construction dates from the early days of Hampstead until quite recently. I will point out several of them that interest me personally. Above number 28a, there is an old (Victorian or earlier) sculpture of a coy, sexually suggestive, young woman holding up her dress and with her head looking towards her right and slightly downwards. Her left shoulder is naked, the left shoulder strap of her dress having slipped down her left arm. I have no idea why she is where she is, or for how long she has been there.

The furthest point (from the car park at Jack Straws Castle) that my parents used to take us in Hampstead was close to the point where the High Street meets Willoughby Road. It was near this corner that the High Hill Bookshop used to occupy three adjoining, interconnected shops, each one on a different level because of the steepness of the hill. This was a marvellous, well-stocked, bookshop. Each week, my sister and I were encouraged to choose one book each. The choice was bewildering. Visiting this bookshop in my early childhood instilled in me a habit that I would find very difficult even to contemplate abandoning: book buying. Between 1957 and 1988, the bookshop was run by Ian Norrie (1927-2009). High Hill Bookshop went out of business in the late 1980s, following the opening of a branch of the highly competitive Waterstones chain in the High Street. I do not hold anything against Waterstones, but feel saddened that its presence is able to threaten the continued existence of idiosyncratic independent bookshops such as the one run by Norrie.

Further down the hill, beyond where the bookshop used to stand, there is an ornate archway, which is all that remains of the Hampstead Brewery Co. Ltd. Founded in 1720 by John Vincent, who owned Jack Straws Castle (see above), it was purchased by Harrison & Co., who ran it until 1921. The current ornate entrance is dated 1869. It was made to access the brewery which had been refurbished by its owner John Tanner Hawkins, who took over its ownership in 1859 (see: https://474towin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/hampstead-brewery-bring-it-back.html).

The Coffee Cup is located across the High Street, almost opposite the former High Hill Bookshop. It first opened in the early 1950s. Both externally and internally, this has not changed in appearance since my early childhood. When I was at school in the 1960s, this was the place to ‘hang out’. Oddly, I never did. In those days, the café had an exciting reputation. Maybe, I was not exciting enough to pay it a visit. Recently, I entered, and enjoyed a good espresso in its quaint interior, which looks as if it retains the original decor that it had when it first opened. I did not eat anything there, but I watched delicious looking pastries and English Breakfasts being served to other customers.

Perrins Lane connects the High Street with the lower, southernmost part of Heath Street. Where the two streets meet, there used to be a photographic shop, called ‘Photocraft’, on the corner. This was in business until a few years ago, and was present in my childhood in the 1960s. The shop opened in 1965, closed 50 years later, but still trades on-line. Now, there is a new business in its premises.

Right next to the old Photocraft shop, at number 25 Perrins Lane, there is what looks like a small, typical late 18th/early 19th century terraced house. This was the home and shop of the second-hand book seller Mr Francis Norman. John Fowles, author of “The Collector”, “The Magus”, and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, wrote in his “The Journals (Volume 1)” that Norman was:

“… a bluff, awkward, friendly second-hand bookseller with a mind like a jackdaw’s nest and a shop which must rank as one of the dirtiest, most disorganised and lovable in North London. … Prices vary according to Norman’s mood.”

That was in 1956. Ten years later, Norman’s bookshop had become a regular haunt for me and my friends the Jacobs brothers. By then, Mr Norman, whose name I only discovered recently, seemed to us to be a very old man. We used to call his, un-named shop, ‘the old man’s shop’. It was just as Fowles described.

In “Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion”, M Stern and L Rosenberg wrote of Mr Norman:

“When he moved from his Gower Street basement to Hampstead Heath, he had moved not only his books but all the dust and grime and debris …”

Mr Norman did not mind us spending hours rummaging through his totally un-organised heaps of books. I believe that he enjoyed our company. Every now and then, he would read something out of a book, often in Latin, and began to guffaw. We had no idea what he had found so humorous. I found all kinds of wonderful books in his shop, including a number of beautiful world atlases dating from between the two World Wars. Mr Norman never charged us much for whatever we managed to dig up in his ground floor shop. He kept the really valuable old books on an upper floor in his personal quarters. Occasionally, on Sunday mornings, we would visit Mr Norman’s shop when it was closed. We used to knock on his front door, and he would open up the shop for us, still dressed in his pyjamas.

During my years as a student at University College London (from 1970 onwards), I used to see Mr Norman on the Underground train, carrying bundles of antiquarian books, which, I suppose, he was either buying or selling. Sadly, he has long since died, as has one of my book-buying friend Michael Jacobs, the author (of many books relating to Spanish and South American culture).

Whilst researching this essay, I discovered that by the time I knew Mr Norman, he was a very sad man. Fowles writes in his “The Journals (Volume 2)” that in November 1968, he visited the ‘Old Man’s shop’ and learnt that not only had Mr Norman recently lost his fifteen-year-old daughter Janey, when she slipped off the roof of his shop whilst trying to rescue her cat. Also, his wife had been so seriously schizophrenic, and he had not seen her for years. Mr Norman had had to be both father and mother to Janey. In addition to all of these misfortunes, Mr Norman had lost his first wife and family when they were all killed by a V (‘flying’) bomb in WW2. It is no wonder that Norman told Fowles:

“Money does not mean anything to me now … The shop keeps me alive, that’s all I keep it on for.”

There are a number of picturesque short thoroughfares connecting Heath Street with the High Street in addition to Perrins Lane. One of these is Perrins Court, which has been pedestrianised. Just before it enters the High Street, there stands an Italian restaurant called ‘Villa Bianca’. This opened in the 1980s after my mother died. My father and I often ate Sunday lunch there together. The food and service was very good, and the place, which is quite costly, still has a good reputation. The restaurant’s owners also own the Coffee Cup (see above).

If you bypass Perrins Court and continue along Heath Street towards the Underground Station, you will pass Louis (Hungarian) Patisserie. This ‘continental’ café opened in 1963, and from, its appearance, not much has been done to its ‘precious’ décor since then. When it opened, it was one of the few places in Hampstead offering high quality central European style patisserie. It was a breath of fresh air amongst the then mostly old-fashioned places offering teas and coffees, but now it has become a somewhat melancholic relic, yet it remains popular. In 1971, I took my first ever ‘date’ to have tea and cakes at Louis. At the time, I believed that the establishment was the perfect place to begin a romantic relationship. Now, many years later, the lady whom I entertained at Louis is my wife.

My reminiscences of Hampstead end at Hampstead Underground Station. Opened in 1907, it is the deepest in London at almost 200 feet below ground level. It stands where Heath Street meets Hampstead High Street. Ever since I can remember, the station had a pair of high speed lifts. As you travelled in them, you felt as if your stomach was taking off either upwards or downwards depending on whether the lift was descending or ascending. In the sixties, and no doubt still today, young people used to hang around the entrance to the station on Saturday evenings, meeting friends or in the hope of making new ones.

Hampstead today is very vibrant, and a place that many people enjoy visiting. I am one of those who derive pleasure from wandering about the area, its streets and alleyways, but my enjoyment is enhanced by the wealth of wonderful memories that its streets evoke for me. For more illustrations, click on the picture below!