Swiss Cottage
Post to the west West Hampstead
Post to the north Hampstead
Post to the east Primrose Hill
Adelaide Road
Named after Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV.
4a Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre. This is now managed by Better. The current centre dates from 2006 by Farrell’s. It was a Public Private Partnership between the Council, Barratt Homes and Dawnay Day. It has a fitness suite, a four-court sports hall; two squash courts; a climbing wall; two exercise studios and a café. There is a competition swimming pool and a teaching pool. A landscaped park was designed by Gustafson Porter with an all-weather football pitch and a doctors’ surgery. The previous centre was built 1963-4 by Basil Spence and intended as the part of a new Civic Centre. It was built on the site of a previous congregational church.
The UCL Academy. This is a secondary school, which opened in 2012 and sponsored by University College London .It is in a new purpose-built structure with rooms for cross-curricular general learning called Superstudios; science laboratories, and a science demonstration theatre, an engineering science suite, including workshops and labs.
Avenue Road
Swiss Cottage station. The current station lies between Finchley Road and St.John’s Wood stations on the Jubilee Line. There were two stations here, the original opened in 1868 and Built by the Metropolitan and St.John's Wood Railway. It opened between Baker Street and Swiss Cottage and was thus the northern terminus, extended to West Hampstead in 1879. In the 1920s the Metropolitan Railway demolished the street-level station building on the west side of Finchley Road, and replaced it with a shopping arcade. By the mid-1930s to ease this congestion, a new deep-level tunnel was built between Finchley Road station and the Bakerloo line tunnels at Baker Street and from 1939 some trains then transferred to the Bakerloo line. A new Bakerloo line station was then opened here, In 1940 Metropolitan line station closed. The station building was demolished in the 1960s and the current station is effectively the one built fir the Bakerloo trains now running as the Jubilee Line
School for the Blind. This was the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read and for Training Them in Industrial Occupations. 1876-1930. it was on the corner with Eton Avenue, It originated in 1838 with Thomas Lucas established whose Lucas Type was a form of embossed text. In 1847 a purpose-built school in Swiss Cottage was completed. In the Second World War the evacuated to Buckinghamshire and in 1954 moved to Seal.
Sunnyside. Large mansion which became St. Columba’s Hospital. The house was later demolished and it became the site of the Hampstead Theatre. The site is now an open space next to Swiss Cottage Library.
St Columba's Hospital. This was Friedensheim Islington, in 1885. It was to provide for dying men. In 1892 they moved to Sunnyside at a large mansion house and it was turned into a Home Hospital. In 1915its name was changed to St Columba's Hospital (Home of Peace for the Dying). Terminally ill women were also admitted. In the Second World War the Hospital reserved a ward for casualties. It joined the NHS in 1948 and in 1954 moved to Spaniards Road.
Ye Olde Swiss Cottage. This is a chalet-style building, painted French mustard colour, with balconies, shutters and an Alpine look. There's a beer garden outside. It was built in 1840, known as the Swiss Tavern and was a coaching inn. When Finchley and Avenue Roads were built in 1926 they went around the pub. It’s a Sam Smiths house. It is said to have originated as a toll keeper’s cottage for toll-gate which to nearby
88 Swiss Cottage Library. This had been remodelled by John McAslan & Partner on the basis of the Grade II building originally designed by Sir Basil Spence in 1962-64
Congregational church. This was on the site of the library and called New College chapel. It was Founded 1853 and designed by J. T. Emmett, it had stained glass, by Alfred East. It closed in 1941 and its stained glass is in a church at Hendon.
80 Swiss Cottage School. This is a maintained special school for learners with complex layered needs - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties, Severe Learning Difficulties, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Communication Disorders, Sensory Needs, Physical Needs, and/or Social, Emotional Mental Health Needs. It is also a Teaching School and a research centre. Current building opened in 2012 is by Penoyre & Prasad.
Hampstead Theatre Club. This was a small studio used as a theatre from 1963 to 2002 when it became the Hampstead Theatre in Eton Avenue.
John Keats and Franklin D. Roosevelt Schools. Built 1959 and 1955-7 by the LCC job architects A. J. Lynne and W. Kretchmer for handicapped and delicate children, The Roosevelt School closed in 1993. And seems to have been replaced by Swiss Cottage School.
The Hampstead Figure by F.E. McWilliam, 1964. Abstract sculpture commissioned by Basil Spence for the green space near the library. May since have been moved.
St Paul’s church. This was a parish church standing opposite Swiss Cottage School and dating from 1860 It. was closed and united with the parish of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill in 1956. The site is now housing.
Baynes Mews
Grand street with garages behind. 1871, also by Willett, street front of three storeys with arched windows, coloured brickwork, and a still genuine cobbled area
Belsize Avenue
This was the carriage way leading to Belsize House from the Great Road to Hampstead – now Haverstock Hill.
Belsize Lane
Winding character indicates that it is an earlier road than the surrounding 19th developments.
Belsize Farm. This was in the area of Belsize Place and fronted Belsize Lane from the 18th. As the lane here was on private land the farm maintained a toll gate to charge those passing through.
London Parcels Delivery Co 1890s, near Belsize Place
Air shafts. Behind houses at the entrance to Belsize Lane are two airshafts for the Belsize Tunnel below
120 Tavistock Clinic Centre. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust. It was originally the Tavistock institute of medical psychology founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller. Its original location was in Tavistock Square. From the start in order to offer free treatment the clinic needed to generate income by providing training to clinical professionals. In 1948 it became a leading clinic within the newly created NHS and remains extremely influential. In 1994 it joined with the Portman Clinic to become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
The Tavistock Centre is on the site of the Marie Curie Hospital which fronted onto Fitzjohns Avenue. This replaced a temporary wooden church which was replaced by Holy Trinity in Finchley Road.
Statue of Sigmund Freud. This is on the corner with Fitzjohns Avenue but was originally outside the Basil Spence Leisure Centre where it was unveiled 1970 by five of Freud’s grandchildren. It was cast in plaster in Vienna by Oscar Nemon and through an international appeal to psycho analysts the money was raised for a bronze.
Belsize Park
Belsize House. Belsize was a sub manor recorded in the early 14th and Belsize House is mentioned in 1496. Means Be-assis beautifully sited The House stood at a point somewhere between the present day St Peters church and the junction of Belsize Park and Belsize Park Gardens. As an Elizabethan mansion it was owned by the Waad family who held various Crown offices, and were implicated in the Overbury scandal. In the Civil War they were Royalists and the house was occupied by Cromwell's men. The house was rebuilt in 1663 in the restoration style. From 1720 it became pleasure garden. With concerts, dancing, fishing, hunting and racing but in 1722 the magistrates tried to prevent unlawful gaming and rioting. The house was rebuilt again in 1746 and 1812. It was demolished in 1853.
69 Woodcote. The Hill Junior School. This is an upmarket ‘prep’ school. The school has been on various sites in the area but has had this building since 1916.
St.Peter’s Church. Built 1858-9 by W. Mumford in ragstone with chancel and tower-porch added by J.P. St Aubyn around 1875. It stands in a garden area and the church today runs an active musical arts programme.
Belsize Square
Belsize Square Synagogue. Built in 1958 by H. W. Reifenberg, incorporating the 1915 vicarage of the neighbouring St Peter's Church, It is an independent synagogue – neither orthodox nor reform. It derives from continental Liberal Judaism, and was founded in 1939 by refugees mainly from Germany. Services are mainly conducted in Hebrew, and its music and which are live streamed.
Belsize Terrace
This is an open space with shops surrounding tree and seating. When the estate was built developer, Willett, gave up some land to form a village green here.
Broadhurst Gardens
This area was heavily bombed in the Second World War and replacement housing, including Broadhurst Close, must reflect this.
Broadhurst Gardens Play Area. This was once called Broadhurst Copse. It appears to be a Camden Council playground on old railway land alongside the Great Central Railway line and its temporary terminus at Canfield Place.
Buckland Crescent
18 The Hall School. This upmarket ‘prep’ school originated as Belsize School, founded here in 1881.
Canfield Gardens
10a Hampstead Shtiebel. Part of the South Hampstead Synagogue
Canfield/Greencroft Open Space. This lies between Canfield and Greencroft Gardens and is an open space with trees and wildlife habitat. It includes a community allotment for vegetables and herbs.
Canfield Place
Terminus. This was the original terminus of the Great Central railway. From 1894 the Great Central Railway, originally the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Railway, ran on Metropolitan tracks from Quainton Road to Canfield Road which became the terminus.
Tunnel. The railway ran through tunnels from Canfield Place in the ‘Hampstead Tunnel’ to Marylebone from 1899. This had two double track tunnels side by side, but only one was ever used. The portal of the second tunnel exists at Canfield Road but after a few yards it narrows and the end is bricked up.
Warehouses. Eleven stables were built in Canfield Place, backing on Finchley Road station, in 1884-5 by Ernest Estcourt and James Dixon,
Electric substation, this is at the end of the road on railway property
Canfield Place Signal box. This stood beyond the sub-station.
College Crescent
North court. This house had been built in 1880 for the businessman Samuel Palmer, of Huntley & Palmer Biscuits. He died in 1903, having given the house to a hospital charity.
20, Children's Hospital. The Home for Incurable Children opened in 1875 in Maida Vale. In 1904 it moved to Northcourt. In 1919 the name changed to the Northcourt Hospital for Sick Children because more conditions were treatable. In 1928 it became the Hampstead Hospital for Children and then the Children's Hospital, Hampstead. It closed at the beginning of the Second World War and the building was requisitioned. After the War it was used as the Royal Free Hospital's Preliminary Training School for nurses and later used as a Nurses' Home. It was sold in 1995. In 2004, it was converted into a budget hotel for back packers called Palmers Lodge
Palmer Memorial Drinking Fountain. Presented in memory of Samuel Palmer of North Court, Hampstead by his widow and family through the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. 1904 This is Palmer of Huntley and Palmer's biscuits,
New College of Independent Dissenters. this institution trained ministers and opened in 1851 in a Tudor style building designed by J. T. Emmett, It was an amalgamation of three dissenting academies., It had a distinguished staff and students could study for London University degrees. It eventually became part of the theology department of London University and moved to a building in Finchley Road
Northways. For five years during the Second World War Northway’s, flats at the junction with Finchley Road, was requisitioned by the Government, and became the headquarters of Britain's submarine service. I 1940 the Navy headed by Admiral Sir Max Horton, planned the offensive off the Norwegian coast and in the Mediterranean. The basement was converted into an emergency operations centre, but tenants of the flats above remained. In 1945, the submarine service returned to Gosport
Compayne Gardens
Compayne Open Space, this lies between Compayne and Canfield Gardens. There is a hard surfaced tennis court area, an open grassed area with a few trees and a community garden. A number of trees and shrubs have been planted along with climbing species on trellises.
Crossfield Road
The Hall School. Posh ‘prep’school. They are on three sites around the area and moved to this one before 1909.
Eton Avenue
54 Hampstead Chest Clinic. In the 1950s-60 this was a tuberculosis clinic.
Hampstead Theatre. Glass building with environmentally ok auditorium. Built by Bennett Associates 2003. It began as the Hampstead Theatre Club’ in Holly Bush Vale. In 1962 they moved to a studio in Swiss Cottage and in 2003, the new 325-seat Hampstead Theatre was built. As well as the main auditorium there is a studio theatre
64 Embassy Theatre, The Embassy Theatre was opened as a repertory company in 1928 in what had been the Hampstead Conservatoire of Music. The theatre was sold to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 1956 that remain there. It is now a branch of London University. There has been a new build project in the early 21st for rehearsal and performance spaces.
Hampstead Conservatoire of Music. This was a private college for music and the arts. The building had been the Eton Avenue Hall, rebuilt in 1890 with a large Willis pipe organ – this organ was transferred to St Peter's Church in Brighton in 1910. In 1928 the building was converted into the Embassy Theatre.
Fairfax Place
Fairfax Yard. Fairfax National Gauge Factory. This was opened: in 1917 by the Ministry of Munitions. It was managed by the Wolsey Motor Co. and operated by German Prisoners of War
44 Stereoscopic Displays. Registered as luminising works using radium.
Fairfax Road
Britannia Pub. Dated from the 1860s but rebuilt on a slightly different site in the 1960s. Now a supermarket.
Fairhazel Gardens
Fairhazel Open Space is between Fairhazel and Compayne Gardens. It is open space with perimeter trees.
8 Camden’s Hub for mental health well being. This is an old school building, also once used as a Civil Defence centre
All Souls Church of England School. This was founded in 1860 in a hay loft in Victoria Mews. It provided instruction for the poor and children of omnibus drivers and similar. The site in Fairhazel Gardens was turned into a new school in 1871 but lack of space prevented expansion. It was closed by 1951 as part of London County Council’s post-war plans
Finchley Road
This was built as an additional by-pass to the old road north through Hampstead. Built through the demesne of Frognal this was laid out as a turnpike road by Colonel Eyre, owner of the Eyre Estate. It is crossed by the Westbourne, and the Kilburn streams - Excavations prove that this was the furthest point south which ice age glaciers reached. ..
Rail tunnel for the Midland Railway runs underneath the road, built by W.H. Barlow, 1865-7 and duplicated in the 1880s. It is a mile long.
Finchley Road Station. This opened in 1868, Built by the Midland Railway. It was called ‘Finchley Road and St.John’s Wood’. It closed in 1927 closed.
263 Micnora Leather goods factory. This was here in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Finchley Road Station. Opened in 1879 it lies between Wembley Park and Baker Street on the Metropolitan Line and between West Hampstead and Swiss Cottage on the Jubilee Line. It was originally built by the Metropolitan District Railway and stands on the corner of Finchley Road and Canfield Gardens. In 1884 the name was changed to ‘Finchley Road (South Hampstead)’ and in 1914 it was rebuilt with the entrance part of a parade of shops. In 1939 the Bakerloo Line was extended here from Baker Street. The station was rebuilt with two island platforms - Metropolitan trains using outer tracks and Bakerloo trains the inner. In 1979 the Bakerloo line trains became Jubilee Line
Car Park. In 1964 an automatic barrier - the first ever - was installed in the car park here.
158 The Frognal Bijou Picture Palace. This opened in 1910 as a purpose built cinema. G is in white stone, with two bay windows on the first floor level. By 1914, it had been re-named Frognal Picture Palace. In 1920/1921, it was re-named Odette’s Picture House, then later Arcadia Cinema and by 1924, it was the Casino Picture Theatre. Around 1930 it was converted to ‘talkies’, and renamed New Frognal Kinema. It was closed in 1931. The building is new in use as a shop.
The Lighthouse. This was Holy Trinity Church. It was originally built in 1871, to replace a temporary wooden church in Belsize Lane and the foundation stone as laid by the philanthropist Earl of Shaftesbury. It was expensive, designed by Henry Legg with deep concrete foundations under the steeple because of the Metropolitan Railway below. In 1968 a private parliamentary bill allowed demolition of the church and a smaller one built in its place. This was built 1978 by Biscoe & St Lon in brick. There are now plans to rebuild again as part of the Lighthouse project.
Hampstead Ice skating rink. This opened in 1880 and was refused a music and dancing licence. In 1882 it was rebuilt as a clubhouse with a rink behind and it also provided lawn tennis, since it was replaced in 1887 by the municipal baths.
199 Waitrose. This was the John Barnes department store which opened in 1900. The present building was built in the 1930s by T.P.Bennett and Son and was purchased by the John Lewis partnership in 1940.
Hampstead Baths. These replaced the skating rink. The Hampstead vestry opened its own baths in Finchley Road, opposite the North Star, in 1888 in a building designed by A. W. S. Cooper and Henry Spalding. There were two swimming baths for men, one for women, and 24 private baths; washhouses were not required in that neighbourhood. A second bath for women was added in 1891. In 1910 a Roller Skating Pavilion was opened. After the Swiss Cottage Leisure centre was opened in 1963 The Finchley Road building was used as a warehouse was burnt down in 1972 and replaced by a new building for Woolworths. It is now an Iceland supermarket
104 The North Star. This was built in 1850 as one of the first buildings to grace the new Finchley Road. It was purpose built as a pub, with embossed stars on the pillar supports. Originally there was a stone balustrade and arch at roof level which were removed as unsafe. A cast-iron balcony remains. It was a tram terminus in the 1920's. In the 1930 the Bakerloo Line (now the Jubilee) was built and the Metropolitan line was diverted, lies three feet below the cellar floor.
New College Parade. This parade of shops lies on and to the north of the site of New College and behind the site of the Children’s Hospital. In the early 19th it was the site of Abbey Farm lodge, an ‘Elizabethan residence’, built in the 1840s.
96 Odeon Cinema. This was one of the original cinemas in the Oscar Deutsch chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd which opened in 1937. It was the only original Odeon to be equipped with a theatre organ, a Compton 3Manual/8Ranks (with Melotone & Grand Piano) and illuminated console. The exterior was plain with a series of seven tall windows. This interior was ‘modernised’ in 1960 and from 1973 the Odeon it was a triple screen cinema. It was closed in 2011, for a complete modernisation with an IMAX auditorium, new seats and screens. It now has 5 screens, 4 f these are Odeon Luxe cinemas and the IMAX screen has recliner seats.
Fitzjohns Avenue
Built through the lands of the Maryon Wilsons following what was originally a track from St. John’s Wood to Hampstead via the Shepherd’s Well. Spencer Maryon Wilson commissioned an estate plan and named roads after their estate in Great Canfield.
1 Edinburgh House. Army Reserve Centre. Two intelligence corps are currently based here.
2 Marie Curie Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. Founded for the "radiological treatment of women suffering from cancer and allied diseases", the hospital opened in 1929. Funds had been raised through a public appeal to buy 2 Fitzjohn's Avenue. The 30-bed hospital was staffed entirely by women. Marie Curie was of course the scientist who discovered radium. An Out-Patients Department was opened and soon after bought the adjoining building, No. 4 in 1933. In 937 a new building for research laboratories - the Helen Chambers Laboratories - and a Nurses' Home were opened here. In 1938 it was renamed the Marie Curie Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. At the outbreak of Second World War the radium was stored in the vaults of the Middlesex Hospital and the patients were transferred to country hospitals. In 1944 the buildings, except for the new wing and the shelter, were totally destroyed by a high explosive bomb, fortunately with no casualties. Radium, stored in steel cylinders, was buried beneath the building and not recovered for almost three weeks. The hospital had an annexe at no 66 and the hospital continued there. In 1965 it moved to Mount Vernon and it closed in 1967. The site is now largely taken up with the Tavistock Centre fronting onto Belsize Lane.
3 Hyme House. This was the home of society portrait painter Philip de László. The house was built in 1886; and de Laszlo and his wife, Lucy Guinness lived there 1921 - 1937. In 1938 the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, took over this house and also 5-7 and turned it into a girls' school, which was here until 1985. It has since been a hotel and a private house, de Lazlo House
8 Portman Clinic. This is adjacent to the Tavistock Centre. The Portman Clinic was founded in 1931 with clinical services for people with problems from delinquent, criminal, or violent behaviour. Its early vice-presidents included Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Havelock Ellis and HG Wells. The Portman and Tavistock Clinics joined forces in 1994 to become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
Goldhurst Terrace
Maryon Wilson Green Triangle and Goldhurst Open Space lie to the rear of Fairhazel Gardens and Goldhurst Terrace. It is a community garden with sycamore woodland and ivy ground cover. There is an amenity area, an herb garden beds and a shrubbery. There is a pond has and the hedging uses native species.
Harben Road
Playground. On the north east side of the road on the estate
Air shaft. This is for the railway below and is sited on the edge of the play area. The railway is the line into Marylebone from Canfield Place.
Hampstead School of Golf, had a sports ground on the north east side of the road in the 1930s.
Hillgrove Road
St John's Wood Fire Station. This was on part of the site of Regency Lodge. 1890s-1900s.
Loudon Road
South Hampstead Station. Opened in 1879 this lies Between Kilburn High Road and Euston on the London Overground Line to Euston . It was built by the London North West Railway and called Loudon Road station" the name changing in 1922. The original LNWR street building was replaced by one in the 1960s and a new station footbridge was constructed.
Maresfield Gardens
St. Thomas More, Roman Catholic Church built 1968-9 by Gerard Goalen. It has an elliptical plan. It is the third church on this site since 1938 when a temporary church was installed here. This was replaced in 1953 and again in 1968
20 Freud Museum. Plaque to Sigmund Freud. Freud only lived here a short while having fled from Vienna in 1938, his daughter Anna stay here until her death in 1982. It was her wish that the house be converted to a museum. It was opened in 1986.
South Hampstead Girls High School. The school was founded in 1876, the ninth school established by the Girls' Public Day School Trust, as the St John's Wood School. In 1887 the name changed to South Hampstead High School; and moved to a purpose-built site in Maresfield Gardens. Since the the school has expanded and new buildings added.
Holy Trinity school. This was built for Trinity Church on a site donated by the Maryon Wilsons. The school continues as a local primary school
Netherhall Gardens
4 this was once the Vicarage for Holy Trinity Church
6 British College of Osteopathic Medicine. This was founded as the British College of Naturopathy in 1936 by Stanley Leif. It has been here since 1953. It is named after Hector Frazer, who gave it to the British Naturopathic & Osteopathic Association. It housed lecture rooms, accommodation and a Clinic with treatment rooms. The House dated from 1883, designed by Batterbury and Huxley and commissioned by Thomas Davidson, whose paintings are in the Greenwich Maritime Museum. Since 1954 there have been three extensions.
8 North Bridge House. Private nursery.
10 Beatrice & Sydney Webb - home of the social scientists and political reformers with blue plaques.
5 & 12 South Hampstead High School. Junior Department.
Winchester Road
21 The Winchester hotel. Dating from the 1890s it closed around 1970 to become the Winchester Project, for local youth.
St. Paul Church of England. Primary School, They moved to a purpose build school on a sire leased by Eton Coll. It became voluntary aided Church of England primary school in 1951. The building closed in 1972 and the school moved elsewhere.
St. John's Wood High School was opened by Girls' Public Day School Trust in 1876 in a house here, in 1882, they moved to a new building in Maresfield Gardens.
Sources
Acorn Archive, Web site
AIM. Web site
Barton, Lost Rivers of London
Better. Web site
Blue Plaque Guide
British History Online. Camden. Web site
Camden History Review
Clarke. In our Grandmother’s Footsteps
Clunn. The Face of London
Darke. The Monument Guide
Day. London Underground
Field. London Place names
GLC home sweet home
Hampstead Synagogue. Web site
Headley & Meulenkamp. Follies
Lighthouse. Web site
London Borough of Camden. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lucas. London
O’Connor. Forgotten Stations
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Portman and Tavistock NHS Trust. Web site
Records of the Chelsea Speleological Society
Robbins. North London Railway
Summerson. Georgian London
Symonds. Behind Blue Plaques
Tavistock Centre. Web site
The Underground Map. Web site
Trench & Hillman. London Under London
Walford. Hampstead to the Lea
Post to the east Primrose Hill
Adelaide Road
Named after Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV.
4a Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre. This is now managed by Better. The current centre dates from 2006 by Farrell’s. It was a Public Private Partnership between the Council, Barratt Homes and Dawnay Day. It has a fitness suite, a four-court sports hall; two squash courts; a climbing wall; two exercise studios and a café. There is a competition swimming pool and a teaching pool. A landscaped park was designed by Gustafson Porter with an all-weather football pitch and a doctors’ surgery. The previous centre was built 1963-4 by Basil Spence and intended as the part of a new Civic Centre. It was built on the site of a previous congregational church.
The UCL Academy. This is a secondary school, which opened in 2012 and sponsored by University College London .It is in a new purpose-built structure with rooms for cross-curricular general learning called Superstudios; science laboratories, and a science demonstration theatre, an engineering science suite, including workshops and labs.
Avenue Road
Swiss Cottage station. The current station lies between Finchley Road and St.John’s Wood stations on the Jubilee Line. There were two stations here, the original opened in 1868 and Built by the Metropolitan and St.John's Wood Railway. It opened between Baker Street and Swiss Cottage and was thus the northern terminus, extended to West Hampstead in 1879. In the 1920s the Metropolitan Railway demolished the street-level station building on the west side of Finchley Road, and replaced it with a shopping arcade. By the mid-1930s to ease this congestion, a new deep-level tunnel was built between Finchley Road station and the Bakerloo line tunnels at Baker Street and from 1939 some trains then transferred to the Bakerloo line. A new Bakerloo line station was then opened here, In 1940 Metropolitan line station closed. The station building was demolished in the 1960s and the current station is effectively the one built fir the Bakerloo trains now running as the Jubilee Line
School for the Blind. This was the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read and for Training Them in Industrial Occupations. 1876-1930. it was on the corner with Eton Avenue, It originated in 1838 with Thomas Lucas established whose Lucas Type was a form of embossed text. In 1847 a purpose-built school in Swiss Cottage was completed. In the Second World War the evacuated to Buckinghamshire and in 1954 moved to Seal.
Sunnyside. Large mansion which became St. Columba’s Hospital. The house was later demolished and it became the site of the Hampstead Theatre. The site is now an open space next to Swiss Cottage Library.
St Columba's Hospital. This was Friedensheim Islington, in 1885. It was to provide for dying men. In 1892 they moved to Sunnyside at a large mansion house and it was turned into a Home Hospital. In 1915its name was changed to St Columba's Hospital (Home of Peace for the Dying). Terminally ill women were also admitted. In the Second World War the Hospital reserved a ward for casualties. It joined the NHS in 1948 and in 1954 moved to Spaniards Road.
Ye Olde Swiss Cottage. This is a chalet-style building, painted French mustard colour, with balconies, shutters and an Alpine look. There's a beer garden outside. It was built in 1840, known as the Swiss Tavern and was a coaching inn. When Finchley and Avenue Roads were built in 1926 they went around the pub. It’s a Sam Smiths house. It is said to have originated as a toll keeper’s cottage for toll-gate which to nearby
88 Swiss Cottage Library. This had been remodelled by John McAslan & Partner on the basis of the Grade II building originally designed by Sir Basil Spence in 1962-64
Congregational church. This was on the site of the library and called New College chapel. It was Founded 1853 and designed by J. T. Emmett, it had stained glass, by Alfred East. It closed in 1941 and its stained glass is in a church at Hendon.
80 Swiss Cottage School. This is a maintained special school for learners with complex layered needs - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties, Severe Learning Difficulties, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Communication Disorders, Sensory Needs, Physical Needs, and/or Social, Emotional Mental Health Needs. It is also a Teaching School and a research centre. Current building opened in 2012 is by Penoyre & Prasad.
Hampstead Theatre Club. This was a small studio used as a theatre from 1963 to 2002 when it became the Hampstead Theatre in Eton Avenue.
John Keats and Franklin D. Roosevelt Schools. Built 1959 and 1955-7 by the LCC job architects A. J. Lynne and W. Kretchmer for handicapped and delicate children, The Roosevelt School closed in 1993. And seems to have been replaced by Swiss Cottage School.
The Hampstead Figure by F.E. McWilliam, 1964. Abstract sculpture commissioned by Basil Spence for the green space near the library. May since have been moved.
St Paul’s church. This was a parish church standing opposite Swiss Cottage School and dating from 1860 It. was closed and united with the parish of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill in 1956. The site is now housing.
Baynes Mews
Grand street with garages behind. 1871, also by Willett, street front of three storeys with arched windows, coloured brickwork, and a still genuine cobbled area
Belsize Avenue
This was the carriage way leading to Belsize House from the Great Road to Hampstead – now Haverstock Hill.
Belsize Lane
Winding character indicates that it is an earlier road than the surrounding 19th developments.
Belsize Farm. This was in the area of Belsize Place and fronted Belsize Lane from the 18th. As the lane here was on private land the farm maintained a toll gate to charge those passing through.
London Parcels Delivery Co 1890s, near Belsize Place
Air shafts. Behind houses at the entrance to Belsize Lane are two airshafts for the Belsize Tunnel below
120 Tavistock Clinic Centre. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust. It was originally the Tavistock institute of medical psychology founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller. Its original location was in Tavistock Square. From the start in order to offer free treatment the clinic needed to generate income by providing training to clinical professionals. In 1948 it became a leading clinic within the newly created NHS and remains extremely influential. In 1994 it joined with the Portman Clinic to become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
The Tavistock Centre is on the site of the Marie Curie Hospital which fronted onto Fitzjohns Avenue. This replaced a temporary wooden church which was replaced by Holy Trinity in Finchley Road.
Statue of Sigmund Freud. This is on the corner with Fitzjohns Avenue but was originally outside the Basil Spence Leisure Centre where it was unveiled 1970 by five of Freud’s grandchildren. It was cast in plaster in Vienna by Oscar Nemon and through an international appeal to psycho analysts the money was raised for a bronze.
Belsize Park
Belsize House. Belsize was a sub manor recorded in the early 14th and Belsize House is mentioned in 1496. Means Be-assis beautifully sited The House stood at a point somewhere between the present day St Peters church and the junction of Belsize Park and Belsize Park Gardens. As an Elizabethan mansion it was owned by the Waad family who held various Crown offices, and were implicated in the Overbury scandal. In the Civil War they were Royalists and the house was occupied by Cromwell's men. The house was rebuilt in 1663 in the restoration style. From 1720 it became pleasure garden. With concerts, dancing, fishing, hunting and racing but in 1722 the magistrates tried to prevent unlawful gaming and rioting. The house was rebuilt again in 1746 and 1812. It was demolished in 1853.
69 Woodcote. The Hill Junior School. This is an upmarket ‘prep’ school. The school has been on various sites in the area but has had this building since 1916.
St.Peter’s Church. Built 1858-9 by W. Mumford in ragstone with chancel and tower-porch added by J.P. St Aubyn around 1875. It stands in a garden area and the church today runs an active musical arts programme.
Belsize Square
Belsize Square Synagogue. Built in 1958 by H. W. Reifenberg, incorporating the 1915 vicarage of the neighbouring St Peter's Church, It is an independent synagogue – neither orthodox nor reform. It derives from continental Liberal Judaism, and was founded in 1939 by refugees mainly from Germany. Services are mainly conducted in Hebrew, and its music and which are live streamed.
Belsize Terrace
This is an open space with shops surrounding tree and seating. When the estate was built developer, Willett, gave up some land to form a village green here.
Broadhurst Gardens
This area was heavily bombed in the Second World War and replacement housing, including Broadhurst Close, must reflect this.
Broadhurst Gardens Play Area. This was once called Broadhurst Copse. It appears to be a Camden Council playground on old railway land alongside the Great Central Railway line and its temporary terminus at Canfield Place.
Buckland Crescent
18 The Hall School. This upmarket ‘prep’ school originated as Belsize School, founded here in 1881.
Canfield Gardens
10a Hampstead Shtiebel. Part of the South Hampstead Synagogue
Canfield/Greencroft Open Space. This lies between Canfield and Greencroft Gardens and is an open space with trees and wildlife habitat. It includes a community allotment for vegetables and herbs.
Canfield Place
Terminus. This was the original terminus of the Great Central railway. From 1894 the Great Central Railway, originally the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Railway, ran on Metropolitan tracks from Quainton Road to Canfield Road which became the terminus.
Tunnel. The railway ran through tunnels from Canfield Place in the ‘Hampstead Tunnel’ to Marylebone from 1899. This had two double track tunnels side by side, but only one was ever used. The portal of the second tunnel exists at Canfield Road but after a few yards it narrows and the end is bricked up.
Warehouses. Eleven stables were built in Canfield Place, backing on Finchley Road station, in 1884-5 by Ernest Estcourt and James Dixon,
Electric substation, this is at the end of the road on railway property
Canfield Place Signal box. This stood beyond the sub-station.
College Crescent
North court. This house had been built in 1880 for the businessman Samuel Palmer, of Huntley & Palmer Biscuits. He died in 1903, having given the house to a hospital charity.
20, Children's Hospital. The Home for Incurable Children opened in 1875 in Maida Vale. In 1904 it moved to Northcourt. In 1919 the name changed to the Northcourt Hospital for Sick Children because more conditions were treatable. In 1928 it became the Hampstead Hospital for Children and then the Children's Hospital, Hampstead. It closed at the beginning of the Second World War and the building was requisitioned. After the War it was used as the Royal Free Hospital's Preliminary Training School for nurses and later used as a Nurses' Home. It was sold in 1995. In 2004, it was converted into a budget hotel for back packers called Palmers Lodge
Palmer Memorial Drinking Fountain. Presented in memory of Samuel Palmer of North Court, Hampstead by his widow and family through the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. 1904 This is Palmer of Huntley and Palmer's biscuits,
New College of Independent Dissenters. this institution trained ministers and opened in 1851 in a Tudor style building designed by J. T. Emmett, It was an amalgamation of three dissenting academies., It had a distinguished staff and students could study for London University degrees. It eventually became part of the theology department of London University and moved to a building in Finchley Road
Northways. For five years during the Second World War Northway’s, flats at the junction with Finchley Road, was requisitioned by the Government, and became the headquarters of Britain's submarine service. I 1940 the Navy headed by Admiral Sir Max Horton, planned the offensive off the Norwegian coast and in the Mediterranean. The basement was converted into an emergency operations centre, but tenants of the flats above remained. In 1945, the submarine service returned to Gosport
Compayne Gardens
Compayne Open Space, this lies between Compayne and Canfield Gardens. There is a hard surfaced tennis court area, an open grassed area with a few trees and a community garden. A number of trees and shrubs have been planted along with climbing species on trellises.
Crossfield Road
The Hall School. Posh ‘prep’school. They are on three sites around the area and moved to this one before 1909.
Eton Avenue
54 Hampstead Chest Clinic. In the 1950s-60 this was a tuberculosis clinic.
Hampstead Theatre. Glass building with environmentally ok auditorium. Built by Bennett Associates 2003. It began as the Hampstead Theatre Club’ in Holly Bush Vale. In 1962 they moved to a studio in Swiss Cottage and in 2003, the new 325-seat Hampstead Theatre was built. As well as the main auditorium there is a studio theatre
64 Embassy Theatre, The Embassy Theatre was opened as a repertory company in 1928 in what had been the Hampstead Conservatoire of Music. The theatre was sold to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 1956 that remain there. It is now a branch of London University. There has been a new build project in the early 21st for rehearsal and performance spaces.
Hampstead Conservatoire of Music. This was a private college for music and the arts. The building had been the Eton Avenue Hall, rebuilt in 1890 with a large Willis pipe organ – this organ was transferred to St Peter's Church in Brighton in 1910. In 1928 the building was converted into the Embassy Theatre.
Fairfax Place
Fairfax Yard. Fairfax National Gauge Factory. This was opened: in 1917 by the Ministry of Munitions. It was managed by the Wolsey Motor Co. and operated by German Prisoners of War
44 Stereoscopic Displays. Registered as luminising works using radium.
Fairfax Road
Britannia Pub. Dated from the 1860s but rebuilt on a slightly different site in the 1960s. Now a supermarket.
Fairhazel Gardens
Fairhazel Open Space is between Fairhazel and Compayne Gardens. It is open space with perimeter trees.
8 Camden’s Hub for mental health well being. This is an old school building, also once used as a Civil Defence centre
All Souls Church of England School. This was founded in 1860 in a hay loft in Victoria Mews. It provided instruction for the poor and children of omnibus drivers and similar. The site in Fairhazel Gardens was turned into a new school in 1871 but lack of space prevented expansion. It was closed by 1951 as part of London County Council’s post-war plans
Finchley Road
This was built as an additional by-pass to the old road north through Hampstead. Built through the demesne of Frognal this was laid out as a turnpike road by Colonel Eyre, owner of the Eyre Estate. It is crossed by the Westbourne, and the Kilburn streams - Excavations prove that this was the furthest point south which ice age glaciers reached. ..
Rail tunnel for the Midland Railway runs underneath the road, built by W.H. Barlow, 1865-7 and duplicated in the 1880s. It is a mile long.
Finchley Road Station. This opened in 1868, Built by the Midland Railway. It was called ‘Finchley Road and St.John’s Wood’. It closed in 1927 closed.
263 Micnora Leather goods factory. This was here in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Finchley Road Station. Opened in 1879 it lies between Wembley Park and Baker Street on the Metropolitan Line and between West Hampstead and Swiss Cottage on the Jubilee Line. It was originally built by the Metropolitan District Railway and stands on the corner of Finchley Road and Canfield Gardens. In 1884 the name was changed to ‘Finchley Road (South Hampstead)’ and in 1914 it was rebuilt with the entrance part of a parade of shops. In 1939 the Bakerloo Line was extended here from Baker Street. The station was rebuilt with two island platforms - Metropolitan trains using outer tracks and Bakerloo trains the inner. In 1979 the Bakerloo line trains became Jubilee Line
Car Park. In 1964 an automatic barrier - the first ever - was installed in the car park here.
158 The Frognal Bijou Picture Palace. This opened in 1910 as a purpose built cinema. G is in white stone, with two bay windows on the first floor level. By 1914, it had been re-named Frognal Picture Palace. In 1920/1921, it was re-named Odette’s Picture House, then later Arcadia Cinema and by 1924, it was the Casino Picture Theatre. Around 1930 it was converted to ‘talkies’, and renamed New Frognal Kinema. It was closed in 1931. The building is new in use as a shop.
The Lighthouse. This was Holy Trinity Church. It was originally built in 1871, to replace a temporary wooden church in Belsize Lane and the foundation stone as laid by the philanthropist Earl of Shaftesbury. It was expensive, designed by Henry Legg with deep concrete foundations under the steeple because of the Metropolitan Railway below. In 1968 a private parliamentary bill allowed demolition of the church and a smaller one built in its place. This was built 1978 by Biscoe & St Lon in brick. There are now plans to rebuild again as part of the Lighthouse project.
Hampstead Ice skating rink. This opened in 1880 and was refused a music and dancing licence. In 1882 it was rebuilt as a clubhouse with a rink behind and it also provided lawn tennis, since it was replaced in 1887 by the municipal baths.
199 Waitrose. This was the John Barnes department store which opened in 1900. The present building was built in the 1930s by T.P.Bennett and Son and was purchased by the John Lewis partnership in 1940.
Hampstead Baths. These replaced the skating rink. The Hampstead vestry opened its own baths in Finchley Road, opposite the North Star, in 1888 in a building designed by A. W. S. Cooper and Henry Spalding. There were two swimming baths for men, one for women, and 24 private baths; washhouses were not required in that neighbourhood. A second bath for women was added in 1891. In 1910 a Roller Skating Pavilion was opened. After the Swiss Cottage Leisure centre was opened in 1963 The Finchley Road building was used as a warehouse was burnt down in 1972 and replaced by a new building for Woolworths. It is now an Iceland supermarket
104 The North Star. This was built in 1850 as one of the first buildings to grace the new Finchley Road. It was purpose built as a pub, with embossed stars on the pillar supports. Originally there was a stone balustrade and arch at roof level which were removed as unsafe. A cast-iron balcony remains. It was a tram terminus in the 1920's. In the 1930 the Bakerloo Line (now the Jubilee) was built and the Metropolitan line was diverted, lies three feet below the cellar floor.
New College Parade. This parade of shops lies on and to the north of the site of New College and behind the site of the Children’s Hospital. In the early 19th it was the site of Abbey Farm lodge, an ‘Elizabethan residence’, built in the 1840s.
96 Odeon Cinema. This was one of the original cinemas in the Oscar Deutsch chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd which opened in 1937. It was the only original Odeon to be equipped with a theatre organ, a Compton 3Manual/8Ranks (with Melotone & Grand Piano) and illuminated console. The exterior was plain with a series of seven tall windows. This interior was ‘modernised’ in 1960 and from 1973 the Odeon it was a triple screen cinema. It was closed in 2011, for a complete modernisation with an IMAX auditorium, new seats and screens. It now has 5 screens, 4 f these are Odeon Luxe cinemas and the IMAX screen has recliner seats.
Fitzjohns Avenue
Built through the lands of the Maryon Wilsons following what was originally a track from St. John’s Wood to Hampstead via the Shepherd’s Well. Spencer Maryon Wilson commissioned an estate plan and named roads after their estate in Great Canfield.
1 Edinburgh House. Army Reserve Centre. Two intelligence corps are currently based here.
2 Marie Curie Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. Founded for the "radiological treatment of women suffering from cancer and allied diseases", the hospital opened in 1929. Funds had been raised through a public appeal to buy 2 Fitzjohn's Avenue. The 30-bed hospital was staffed entirely by women. Marie Curie was of course the scientist who discovered radium. An Out-Patients Department was opened and soon after bought the adjoining building, No. 4 in 1933. In 937 a new building for research laboratories - the Helen Chambers Laboratories - and a Nurses' Home were opened here. In 1938 it was renamed the Marie Curie Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. At the outbreak of Second World War the radium was stored in the vaults of the Middlesex Hospital and the patients were transferred to country hospitals. In 1944 the buildings, except for the new wing and the shelter, were totally destroyed by a high explosive bomb, fortunately with no casualties. Radium, stored in steel cylinders, was buried beneath the building and not recovered for almost three weeks. The hospital had an annexe at no 66 and the hospital continued there. In 1965 it moved to Mount Vernon and it closed in 1967. The site is now largely taken up with the Tavistock Centre fronting onto Belsize Lane.
3 Hyme House. This was the home of society portrait painter Philip de László. The house was built in 1886; and de Laszlo and his wife, Lucy Guinness lived there 1921 - 1937. In 1938 the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, took over this house and also 5-7 and turned it into a girls' school, which was here until 1985. It has since been a hotel and a private house, de Lazlo House
8 Portman Clinic. This is adjacent to the Tavistock Centre. The Portman Clinic was founded in 1931 with clinical services for people with problems from delinquent, criminal, or violent behaviour. Its early vice-presidents included Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Havelock Ellis and HG Wells. The Portman and Tavistock Clinics joined forces in 1994 to become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
Goldhurst Terrace
Maryon Wilson Green Triangle and Goldhurst Open Space lie to the rear of Fairhazel Gardens and Goldhurst Terrace. It is a community garden with sycamore woodland and ivy ground cover. There is an amenity area, an herb garden beds and a shrubbery. There is a pond has and the hedging uses native species.
Harben Road
Playground. On the north east side of the road on the estate
Air shaft. This is for the railway below and is sited on the edge of the play area. The railway is the line into Marylebone from Canfield Place.
Hampstead School of Golf, had a sports ground on the north east side of the road in the 1930s.
Hillgrove Road
St John's Wood Fire Station. This was on part of the site of Regency Lodge. 1890s-1900s.
Loudon Road
South Hampstead Station. Opened in 1879 this lies Between Kilburn High Road and Euston on the London Overground Line to Euston . It was built by the London North West Railway and called Loudon Road station" the name changing in 1922. The original LNWR street building was replaced by one in the 1960s and a new station footbridge was constructed.
Maresfield Gardens
St. Thomas More, Roman Catholic Church built 1968-9 by Gerard Goalen. It has an elliptical plan. It is the third church on this site since 1938 when a temporary church was installed here. This was replaced in 1953 and again in 1968
20 Freud Museum. Plaque to Sigmund Freud. Freud only lived here a short while having fled from Vienna in 1938, his daughter Anna stay here until her death in 1982. It was her wish that the house be converted to a museum. It was opened in 1986.
South Hampstead Girls High School. The school was founded in 1876, the ninth school established by the Girls' Public Day School Trust, as the St John's Wood School. In 1887 the name changed to South Hampstead High School; and moved to a purpose-built site in Maresfield Gardens. Since the the school has expanded and new buildings added.
Holy Trinity school. This was built for Trinity Church on a site donated by the Maryon Wilsons. The school continues as a local primary school
Netherhall Gardens
4 this was once the Vicarage for Holy Trinity Church
6 British College of Osteopathic Medicine. This was founded as the British College of Naturopathy in 1936 by Stanley Leif. It has been here since 1953. It is named after Hector Frazer, who gave it to the British Naturopathic & Osteopathic Association. It housed lecture rooms, accommodation and a Clinic with treatment rooms. The House dated from 1883, designed by Batterbury and Huxley and commissioned by Thomas Davidson, whose paintings are in the Greenwich Maritime Museum. Since 1954 there have been three extensions.
8 North Bridge House. Private nursery.
10 Beatrice & Sydney Webb - home of the social scientists and political reformers with blue plaques.
5 & 12 South Hampstead High School. Junior Department.
Winchester Road
21 The Winchester hotel. Dating from the 1890s it closed around 1970 to become the Winchester Project, for local youth.
St. Paul Church of England. Primary School, They moved to a purpose build school on a sire leased by Eton Coll. It became voluntary aided Church of England primary school in 1951. The building closed in 1972 and the school moved elsewhere.
St. John's Wood High School was opened by Girls' Public Day School Trust in 1876 in a house here, in 1882, they moved to a new building in Maresfield Gardens.
Sources
Acorn Archive, Web site
AIM. Web site
Barton, Lost Rivers of London
Better. Web site
Blue Plaque Guide
British History Online. Camden. Web site
Camden History Review
Clarke. In our Grandmother’s Footsteps
Clunn. The Face of London
Darke. The Monument Guide
Day. London Underground
Field. London Place names
GLC home sweet home
Hampstead Synagogue. Web site
Headley & Meulenkamp. Follies
Lighthouse. Web site
London Borough of Camden. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lucas. London
O’Connor. Forgotten Stations
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Portman and Tavistock NHS Trust. Web site
Records of the Chelsea Speleological Society
Robbins. North London Railway
Summerson. Georgian London
Symonds. Behind Blue Plaques
Tavistock Centre. Web site
The Underground Map. Web site
Trench & Hillman. London Under London
Walford. Hampstead to the Lea
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