Hampstead and Marylebone

Lysons says that the Manor of Hampstead was given in 986 a.d. by King Ethelred to the church at Westminster, and that this gift was confirmed by Edward the Confessor; but there is an earlier charter of King Edgar of uncertain date, probably between 963 and 978. It granted the land at Hamstede to one Mangoda, and the limits of the grant are thus stated: "From Sandgate along the road to Foxhanger; from the Hanger west to Watling Street north along the street to the Cucking Pool; from the Cucking Pool east to Sandgate."

Professor Hales, who thinks, whether genuine or not, this charter is certainly of value, interprets Sandgate as North End, Foxhanger as Haverstock Hill, Watling Street as Edgeware Road, and the Cucking Pool he concludes was in the marshy ground at the north-west corner of the parish.

This earlier charter is only interesting because it carries the history one point further back; the gift to the monks by King Ethelred was in its consequences far more important. The Bishop of Westminster, who held the land after the dissolution of the monastery, surrendered it to the King in 1550, by whom it was given to Sir Thomas Wroth. It remained in the Wroth family until 1620, when it was acquired by Sir Baptist Hickes, afterwards Viscount Campden. Hickes' daughter and coheir married Lord Noel, ancestor of the Earls of Gainsborough, and it was held by the Gainsboroughs until 1707. In that year it was bought by Sir William Langhorne, who left it to his nephew. It then went to a Mrs. Margaret Maryon, later to Mrs. Weller, and about 1780 to Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, in right of his wife. Her son, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, succeeded her, and in this line it has remained since 1818.

Besides the Manor of Hampstead there is included in the borough the ancient Manor of Belsize, or Belses. Sir Roger de Brabazon in 1317 gave an estate to Westminster Abbey to found a chantry for himself, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and Blanche his wife. After many changes it was occupied by Lord Wotton, who had been created a Baron by Charles II. His half-brother, Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, succeeded him, and the family held the Belsize estate until 1807. The house was afterwards turned into a popular place of amusement.

Hampstead as a whole has grown very rapidly. In a map of the beginning of the nineteenth century there are comparatively few houses; these nestle in the shape of a spear-head and haft about the High Street. At West End and Fortune Green are a few more, a few straggle up the southern end of the Kilburn Road, and Rosslyn House and Belsize House are detached, out in the open country.

Seymour, writing in 1735, gives a quaint description of Hampstead as follows: "This Village ... is much more frequented by good company than can well be expected considering its vicinity to London, but such care has been taken to discourage the meaner sort from making it a place of residence that it is now become, after Scarborough and Bath and Tunbridge, one of the Politest Public Places in England, and to add to the Entertainment of the Company there is, besides the long room in which the Company meet publicly on a Monday evening to play at cards, etc., a new Dancing Room built this year."

Hampstead itself, now a town of 80,000 people, is almost entirely modern; the old village has been gradually destroyed until there is next to nothing left. But the Heath remains, the only wild piece of ground within easy reach of the Londoner. It remains to be seen whether the authorities will continue to observe the difference between a park and a heath.

No suburb of London can point to so many distinguished residents as this, the most favoured and the most favourite. Among them may be mentioned Sir Henry Vane, Dr. Butler (author of the "Analogy"), Lord Alvanley, Lord Chatham, Lord Erskine, Crabbe, Dr. Johnson, Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Barbauld, Constable, Romney, Sir James Mackintosh, Steele, Gay, Arbuthnot, Akenside, Thomas Day, Leigh Hunt, Keats, William Blake, John Linnell, Wilkie, Stanfield, Du Maurier, and many others.

Directly you get within the boundaries of Hampstead you are aware that the borough has an atmosphere of its own—an atmosphere in two senses, for the great height of part of the borough and its distance from London combine to give it as wholesome and pure an air as may be found in any place in England, and an atmosphere in the metaphorical sense—a peculiar feeling of brightness and lightness which proclaims a favoured suburb. Hampstead has always been celebrated for its trees, and in spite of the great annual increase in the number of its houses these have not been wiped out of existence. Nearly every house possesses one or more, and some are very fine specimens. The long sinuous backbone of the borough, beginning as Haverstock Hill, continuing as Rosslyn Hill, and running through High Street and Heath Street to the Heath, is tree-shaded almost all its length. The streets on either side show vistas of irregular red brick, softened and toned down by the greenery of trees; every road is an avenue. The main artery, indicated above, is all uphill, not all equally steep, but collar-work throughout its length; at the top it bifurcates, and the winding of Heath Street reminds one of a Continental town. The steep little streets or alleys running down into it are furnished with steps like the Edinburgh wynds. The way is long, but the toil is forgotten at the summit in the splendid view from the flagstaff. Here the rolling blue outlines of distant hills are emphasized by the beautiful foreground of the West Heath. There is none of what painters call the "middle distance"; everything is near or far, and the near is extraordinarily beautiful, especially if it be seen in springtime when the spray of blossom is like the spray of deep water breaking upon rocks, and the gorse twinkles like the twinkling of ripples in the golden sunlight. The immediate foreground is bare and worn, but a little further away the miniature heights and hollows, the scrubby bush and little winding paths, add that mystery which so greatly increases delight. The pond by the Flagstaff is frequently very gay; there are carriages and horses, children with flotillas of white-sailed craft, and horses splashing knee-deep from end to end of the pond, an advantage much appreciated in the hot and thirsty summer. Away to the east stretches of rolling green form a joyous playground for all at holiday times, but are bare and arid compared with the West Heath.