The chief building was the Pump Room, on the south side of the street,
near where the entrance to Gainsborough Gardens now is. The first
recorded entertainment here was on August 18, 1701, when a concert was
given. Concerts and entertainments of various kinds were kept up during
the season. There was a bowling-green near. This house dated from about
the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1733 it was converted into
an episcopal chapel, and was so used until 1849. There was another
chapel called Sion Chapel in the vicinity, though its exact situation is
unknown; here couples could be married for five shillings, provided they
brought with them a license. The license was not always insisted on. The
Pump Room was later used as a guard-room of the West Middlesex
Volunteers, and was pulled down in 1880 to make way for the road above
mentioned. It was then discovered by the intervening wall that the
adjacent house was of still older date, and it is thus proved to be one
of the oldest remaining in Hampstead. It has a graceful spindle porch
and delightful old-world air, though the side adjoining Gainsborough
Gardens has been refaced.
Just opposite is a solid drinking fountain of polished granite, with
inscription to the effect that it is in memory of Susanna Noel's gift,
and here the chalybeate waters may still be tasted. One or two old
houses are on the northern side of the Walk, and one of these, a long,
low, red-brick edifice called Weatherhall House, deserves special
notice. It contained the Long Room where dances and assemblies were
held, and even after the fame of the waters declined it still held its
place. Perhaps this is the room referred to by Seymour as having been
built in 1735. He describes it as "60 feet long and 30 feet wide, well
adorned with chandeliers. The manner of being admitted into it is by a
ticket, of which every gentleman who subscribes a guinea for the season
has one for himself and two more for two ladies; all those who have not
subscribers' tickets pay 2s. 6d. each at the entrance every night. And
Sunday nights in the same room is an assembly where the gentlemen and
ladies who lodge in the town are entertained with tea and coffee at
sixpence per head, but no other amusements are allowed on these nights."
Here Mrs. Johnson came, and Mark Akenside, poet and physician of the
eighteenth century; Dr. Arbuthnot, friend of Swift, a man ranked high
among the wits of his day, and holding the appointment of physician to
Queen Anne; Fanny Burney, and many others. The house is now a private
residence. Standing further back from the road behind a quadrangle is
Burgh House, also old. This was at one time used as a militia barracks,
at which time (1863) the two solid wings adjoining the road were
erected.
Burgh House is now a private residence, and the cells where
insubordinate soldiers were confined are converted into the drying and
mangling rooms of a laundry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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