Heath Street cuts diagonally across the top of High Street. Below the
junction it is all modern, immense red-brick buildings of similar type,
with large shops on the ground-floors. At the junction is an imposing
fire-station, built by Vulliamy in 1874 on the site of the old
police-station. The street higher up is narrow and irregular, with a
row of elms above the level of the roadway on the west side. A
conspicuous Baptist chapel in white stone with two western spires was
built in 1862, but the origin of the congregation here dates from the
preaching of Whitfield on the Heath in 1739. The watch-house and stocks
were formerly situated at the foot of Heath Street, and later removed to
Flask Walk. About Golden Square there are many little irregular entwined
streets and passages, with here and there a cottage, here and there the
flat sashed windows of a house of a bygone generation, all intricate,
entangled, but very quaint and charming.
The Grove is a long shady avenue, with one or two fine old houses on
either side of the road and a few cottages. At the top is a big boys'
school. On the east in one building are Old and New Grove Houses, and
opposite is Fenton House, which was long known as the Clock House. New
Grove House was the residence of Du Maurier. At the north end is the
Hampstead Waterworks reservoir.
A tree-shaded eminence, crowned with pleasant seats and commanding a
magnificent view of the Heath, leads to Branch Hill. This, marked in
Park's map Prospect Walk, is now called the Judge's Walk. This name is
derived from a tradition that the judges came here and held their courts
under canvas while the plague was raging in 1665. But derivations of
this sort are very easy to make up and entirely unreliable.
Lower and Upper Terraces just behind are full of charming residences. In
the former Constable lived at intervals (No. 2) during 1821, and to the
latter Mrs. Siddons came in the autumn of 1804. In Montague House Sir G.
Scott lived.
Branch Hill runs down into Frognal Rise, and on the west there are one
or two big houses scattered about.
Branch Hill Lodge belonged to Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls in
1745, who presented it to Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. It was for a
period the residence of the Earl of Rosslyn, and tradition connects Lord
Byron's name with it. It stands in beautiful and extensive grounds.
Further along Branch Hill Road there are many new terraces and one or
two big houses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account