This post is not finished has not been checked or edited
Post to the north Belsize Park
Post to the west Swiss Cottage
Post to the south St.John's Wood
Post to the east (three sections) includes Kentish Town West
Adelaide Road
Some
attractive villas erected prior to 1853 on land belonging to the former London
and North- Western Railway
Supposed to have been part of ring road but in the end big
council estate built. 1965
Nature Reserve along the railway line
Group Medical
Practice. By Pentarch, a later addition of 1992, sited over a car park and approached like a ship by a gangway from
the street.
Regents Park Marriott
Hotel. Was Holiday Inn. Part of the original scheme by Dennis Lennon
& Partners;
Eastern Tyburn crosses it, Western Tyburn down it
52 Pinwell
86 Pinwell
143 Eton Tavern
Adelaide Tavern
St.Saviour
Franklin D Roosevelt School special school L.C.C
Ainger Road
Boundary of St.John's parish; Ainger was Vicar of
St.John's 1841; 1863 clerical and schools.
Antrim Grove
15 Survivor of rural villas.
A small house of c. 1820,
Antrim Road
Library. Rebuilt 1934-7 by H.A. Gould and R. de W
Aldridge. , with apsidal reading room, and pantiled roof
Beaumont Walk
44
houses and flats. 1976 by the G.L.C. Architect's Department (J. Bancroft, D. Parris, N. Handi.
Berkley Grove
on the northern side of Berkley Road, between the terrace
of 1860 houses, and the backs of houses in Chalcot Square. It is not visibly
named and contains a variety of small works and factories. The Grove seems to have been commercial from the first.
Endolithic Ivory Marble
Company on Goad's Insurance Map of 1900
J. Sell & Son, builder, on the right hand side In 1900
Berkley Road
Northern boundary of old pleasure gardens. as such was
present, though unnamed and without houses, in the parish map of 1849. The 1860
map shows the road clearly and named. The name seems to have no local significance and may be just an attempt to
achieve Mayfair elegance. Its first houses were known as Norfolk Terrace.
Chalk Farm Baptist Chapel. The foundation stone of the building was laid
on 13 June 1870 : and it was opened
on 15 February 1871, with a capacity of 850 seats. In 1957, the building was reconstructed after bomb
damage and a bottle was found under the foundation stone, containing a copy of
the Camden &Kentish Town Gazelle, forerunner of the North I.ondon Press.
2, post-war rebuilding on a pair of bombed sites.
8 a small organ
factory, owned in 1884 by H. T. Widlake, Organ Builder. Rintoul Bros., Piano
Makers, occupied it from 1911 to 1935 —a firm which also had premises in
Patshull Road, Kentish Town — and
from 1935 to 1960 Lambert London manufactured pianos there. The building, now
called Haico House, is still in business
Bridge Road?
Calvert Street
Calverts the
brewers who owned Chalk Farm Tavern
Chalcot Gardens
Eton College developments, 35 acres Chalcot estate. Plans in the late 1820s but plans redrawn
1840s by John Shaw. College Surveyor. Reduced the size of the plots
dramatically. Middle class Victorian values.
15 studio by Huxley for Hal Ludlow, 1883, half-timbered
16 1881 with front and back additions by Voysey for Adolphus Whalley.
Plaque to Arthur Rackham who had a
studio here from 1903. says
'illustrator lived here'.
Chalk Farm
Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822, named from
‘Choidecote’ 1253, ‘Caldecote’ c.1400, ‘Chakote’ 1593, ‘Chat’ 1746, that is
'the cold cottage(s)', from Old English ‘ceald’ and ‘cot’. Names
identical in origin to this one, usually still spelt ‘Caldecote’ or ‘Chalcote’,
occur in most English counties, but their precise significance is uncertain:
they may refer to dwellings which are poorly built or which stand in exposed
locations, or even to inhospitable spots to which malefactors were once
banished. It will be noted that the 'worn- down' form ‘Chalk’ appears
relatively late; on the 1822 Ordnance Survey map the old form ‘Chalcott’ still
appears beside ‘Chalk Farm’, these representing the two farms known in the 17th
century as Upper & Lower Chalcot. In 1822, just before much development
took place, they are still both surrounded by open land. The soil here is clay,
this emphasizing the fact that the transformation of the original name is due
only to phonetic changes and folk etymology!
Land owned by Eton College. sundry devout men of London in
the time of Edward I gave land at Westminster and at Hendon, Chalcote and
Hampstead to the Leper Hospital dedicated to St James near Whitehall. Henry VI
in 1449 gave the hospital and its lands to his newly founded Eton College, and in 1531 Henry VIII seized
the hospital and pensioned
off the fourteen leprous Sisters who occupied it. He kept the land at
Westminster and started to build St James's Palace on the site of the Hospital,
but allowed Eton to retain the outlying lands. As far as Chalcote is concerned
these were in Hampstead around Primrose Hill, except for one field on the south
of the hill, which was half in St Pancras and half in St Marylebone. Lower Chalcotts Farm.. Was ‘Chalcotts Estate’ corrupted to ‘Chales
farm’. Derives
its name from Chalcots, an estate owned by Eton College, which began to make
plans for the area in the 1820s, although nothing was built until c. 1840. The
long straight streets lined with respectable but plain mid-Victorian villas
terraces were never very exciting, and much was rebuilt later. Up to that time Chalk Farm had been a country district, and
here was some of the most charming
scenery to be found near London, extending from Chalk
Farm to Hampstead and from Hampstead to Highgate, consisting of sloping fields and woods, including the Belsize,
Chalcotts, and Eton College Estates. When this country was cut up for building in 1853 it
was suggested that a boulevard a
hundred yards wide, with rows of trees, and lined with elegant villas, should be constructed through these
estates from Primrose Hill to Hampstead
Heath. If this could have been done it would have formed
one of the grandest pieces of urban scenery in the kingdom. But unfortunately it was too late, for Eton College had
already laid out its fields to the back
of Chalk Farm. Chalcotts was being built over. And the Dean and Chapter of Westminster had planned the
imposing new villa town of Belsize
which intersected the proposed boulevard
16 1881 A.Voysey Arthur Rackham
Chamberlain Street
Built in 1850s as Bernard Street named changed 1855. a
short cul-de-sac off Regent's Park Road, the blunt end of the street being on the old St Pancras borough boundary. It is
suggested in London Street Names that the name commemorates a James Bradley
Chamberlain, who was an optician in High Holborn and was admitted as a tenant
of the Manor of Tottenham Court, in respect of some land near Chalk Farm, in
1860. The street is so symmetrical, it must represent the work of one builder.
The houses are adorned with iron railings and the familiar porch pillars of the
period.
Costello Road?
Railway tunnel.
Eglon Mews
opens into Berkley Road at the side of the Baptist chapel.
Its construction was proposed in 1867 by a Mr Berrill. The 1870 Ordnance Survey map
shows the central space occupied by stables, which had another access eastwards
into St George's Square (now Chalcot Square). By 1900, this latter exit had
disappeared and the stables were converted
1-7 These
original buildings are now modernised
and form houses to a motor car works
Elsworthy Road
St Paul Church Of England School 1972-6, in landscaped grounds
England's Lane
This was the lane going to Upper Chalcots Farm. An old lane which
became a small shopping street in the later c19, with stuccoed terraces. Terraces of houses to the north of it in the
1820s.
32 Basilisk Press
50 Washington
Erskine Mews
Built in 1884.
Stables and small businesses then
Erskine Road
Named
Hampstead's resident. Lord Erskine
(1750-1823).
He once lived in Kentish Town, then Erskine House, adjoining Spaniards Inn from 1788. A lawyer and Lord Chancellor in 1806. old St Pancras boundary cut across
Erskine Road between No. 1 and the
Chalk Farm Tavern, so originally in the Eton Estate in Hampstead.
Hindley and Son, cabinet makers on north side until 1892,
Building then used by John Malcolm Reed Organ Manufacturers burnt down,
included an iron chapel and one of the original houses of the area
Chalk Farm Tavern. Tavern Yard is behind
auto-engineers.
Area of gardens in front Berkeley Road/ Chalcot Square/
Sharpleshall Street, bandstand
Eton College Road
Cumming development of Chalcot estate for Eton College. As
Eton Road
Eton Road
These smaller middle-class villas built in the 1840s-50s,
reminiscent of Nash's earlier Park Villages and the contemporary St
John’s Wood, reflect the more refined taste of the Eton Estate surveyor John Shaw Jun.
St.Saviour. The body of
the church is of 1855-6 by E M. Barry, his first independent work.
Hall, 1967-8, By D S. Martin octagonal and of brown brick.
Vicarage 1972-3. By D S. Martin
octagonal and of brown brick.
6 Robertson
156 S.Sov nondescript
Wellington House
South Hampstead United Synagogue, 1962 by H.J. Georghiou.
Eton Villas
Chalcot Estate development for Eton College by Cumming. As
Eton Road
Grafton Terrace?
9 Marx
Haverstock Hill
129-133 a taller group, brick
above stucco, with projecting pedimented centre, is part of the same
development.
148 Crown Lodge a small Grecian villa of the earlier c19, with
stuccoed front, paterae and pilasters, an isolated survival among the usual main
road mixture of late Victorian houses and c20 flats.
Load of Hay. handsome Italianate pub. This pub was the
focus for what was a settlement called Haverstock Hill rather than it just
being a road. Rebuilt in 1863.
Seventh Day Adventist. Formerly Oxendon Presbyterian, 1877
by Thomas Arnold.
Cottages around junction with England’s Lane were the
village of Haverstock Hill. Replaced by artists’ studios in the 19th.
Howitt Road
9 home of Ramsay
Macdonald. 1866-1937. Plaque saying: ‘Prime Minister, lived here 1916-1925'’ .
Lamble Street?
Housing
London City Mission
Lancaster Grove
Fire Station. 1914-15, by C. C. Winmill,one wing with firemen's quarters, the other with garages, a
powerful brick hose and water
tower marking the junction.
Maitland Park Road
Maitland Park was named after Ebenezer Maitland chairman
of an orphanage which stood here among open fields until 1848 when it moved to
Haverstock Hill. The Southampton family landowners planned an upmarket estate
here but ended up building working class housing at high densities. Some Co-operative building schemes like the
Friends of Labour 1866. Maitland Park Cricket club opened in 1899.
1 gone, Karl Marx also at Grafton Terrace also demolished.
1845-55
Maitland Park Estate. London County Council flats from the 1960s
Alexandra Orphanage 1881;
Almshouses Tudor
1832/32; W.Morris lived here when called Maitland Villas.
Primrose Hill
In the eighteenth century the area belonged to the
Chalcots, Eton College, and also called Battle and Greenberry Hill. Green, Hill and Berry in 1670 were found
guilty of a murder of Sir E.B.Godfrey who had heard Titus Oates in Popish Plot
trial. Used by St.Pancras volunteers for
target practice. In the Nineteenth
century used by duellists. In the 1840s Lord Southampton had proposed to
build a cemetery here and pressure was put on the Government to create a park
instead. An Act to form the park was passed in 1842 and the Crown acquired some
60 acres from Eton and Lord Southampton, his contribution being the plots down
Primrose Hill west of his new road. The park was finished in 1847. In 1847 there was a gym or Turnrein - lots of famous acrobats
trained there and in 1882 a rifle range.
Closed 1964. Oak tree on the hill
to commemorate Shakespeare birth - successor to that burnt in 1844 by S.Phelps. V2.
Managed by HM Office of Works
Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822, earlier ‘Prymrose Hill’ 1586,
self-explanatory, 'hill where primroses grow'. In the 16th century the hill,
which reaches 206 ft, was still meadowland. Primrose bank planted.
Railway Tunnel. South
of Adelaide Road tunnel with big towers by Robert Stephenson with contractors
Jackson and Seddon. For the line from
Euston. Stone portal by W.H. Budden, 1837, with sunburst rustication flanked massive Italianate towers and curved wing
walls. There were considerable construction problems and it eventually cost
double to the original estimate. The tunnel and its portals were duplicated in
1879, so the electric suburban lines of c. 1920 can burrow beneath.
Railway Cutting. It is about 20 ft below the surface built in
brick and bedded on concrete. There were some problems after it was finished
and some shoring and drainage was necessary – iron struts had to be put in
although they have since been moved.
Panic at Chalk Farm. The Martian cylinders containing the
destructive monsters land smack into the middle of Camden and the Martians
establish a massive redoubt upon the top of Primrose Hill, within easy range of H G Wells's lodgings at
Fitzroy and Mornington Roads. There are extraordinarily vivid descriptions of
the ensuing panic as thousands of people attempt to board trains at Chalk Farm
or stream up Haverstock Hill to escape the Martians' heat ray and poisonous
black gas
Primrose Hill Road,
Although the road was started at the north end in the
1860s, it did not get through to Regent's Park Road until the late 1870s and this, no doubt, is why St
George's Terrace has its private approach road. The block of flats. The Boundary was adjusted to put all of the Zoo into Westminster.
Regents built in little bulge of Marylebone Park, Guerrier
2 Ranee of Sarawak
4 Hill View flats marks the site of No. 4, which was for
many years the home of two popular stage personalities, Fred Terry (brother of
Ellen Terry) and Julia Neilson, his wife and partner. For the first quarter of
this century the couple starred
together in London and on repeated provincial tours in romantic costume dramas,
the best remembered being The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the 1960s an attempt was
made by the British Theatre Museum Association to replace the magnolia tree,
which had been a feature of the front garden of No. 4 before the house was
demolished, but the young tree and the bronze plaque recalling the Terry
connection fell victim to local vandals.
House for ballerina Tamara Karsavina. St.Pancras Borough day nursery. Changed after Queen Victoria's marriage
9 was bombed
10 Tallulah Bankhead
16 Gert and Daisy Walters and Jack Warner
16a MacNeice
First turning on the left is a footbridge over the canal
leading to the outer circle
Gymnasium plus wooden shed where monument to Queen
Victoria was carved
London County Council, Nuffield in 1969
Most of terrace leased to Nuffield
St Mary, 1870-2 by M. P. Manning, on a site given by the
Eton College Estate.
'The Prince' added by London County Council in 1937.
Water Meeting Bridge, because of Cumberland branch,
rebuilt in 1961
Primrose Gardens
Provost Road
Part of Eton College’s Chalcot estate. 1840s Samuel
Cumming erected houses. Robust charm. As Eton Road
Regent's Park Road
Before the
early 1830s and the arrival of the London and
Birmingham Railway, the lane to Chalk Farm Tavern
had only three other houses on it on the north side — Bianca Lodge, Bow Cottage and Montrose House. The land containing these houses was purchased by the railway company and they have all gone. Bianca Lodge was pulled down to make way for King Henry's Road to join Regent's Park Road in the 1860s.Terraces from 1850s
Chalk Farm Tavern stands just inside the borders of the old Parish of St Pancras, on
the spot where the old tavern stood for some hundreds of years. Its early
history is obscure: apparently in the eighteenth century it was 'allowed by
tradition to have been the country residence of Ben Jonson', while the Survey of London
says that the Manor House of Rugmere 'doubtless stood on the site of the Old
Chalk Farm Tavern'. These claims seem insubstantial, but there is no doubt that
the tavern was once also a farm, approached by a lane leading from the
Hampstead Road to Primrose Hill and known as Lower Chalcot. ‘Chaldecote’ means
cold cottages, named by Eton College and became the estate of Chalcotts corrupted to ‘Chales Farm’, and later to
‘Chalk Farm’ owned by the Rhodes family.. - Lower Chalcote became an inn called ‘White House’ – in 1678 it
was also called Farm House and In the 17th century it was used as pleasure
gardens. Steele lived there in 1712 because he was wanted for debts. There were duels, dead navvies etc. At the back was a row of trees where duellists
could retire in the shelter after ordering breakfast in the tavern. In 1834 is was rebuilt as Chalk Farm tavern, beer garden, etc.
reBuilt in 1853 replacing the larger original. In the 1970s briefly called Pub
Lotus beause of motor racing. n 1678 the tavern makes its first appearance, when the
missing magistrate. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, was found murdered in a ditch at
the foot of Primrose Hill. His body was taken to the White House, which can be
identified as Chalk Farm. At the time it is described as an ale house, with no accommodation there.
Primrose Hill it became a favourite resort for holiday outings and political
meetings, and the White House acquired the name of Chalk House Farm. The first licensee in the Records is Joshua
Deane in 1732. In 1751 Edward Hipwood wais licensed for the Crown at Chalk
House Tile Kilns. By 1760 the inn is called the Stag and Hounds, but in 1790,
Thomas Rutherford was licensed at the Chalk Farm Tea Gardens. In 1785 the grass farm of Chalk House Farm acres
with the public house, the Old Stag and Hounds was sold with three large barns,
being in the occupation of Thomas and Samuel Rhodes. Primrose Hill’s holiday makers, could enter
the grounds through the arch, a favourite feature of inn gardens at this date
For entertainment other than drinking, there were foot races and boxing and
wrestling matches. There are accounts of many duels, involving mostly military.
Highwaymen in the lanes and roads around Chalk Farm were another risk.
regiments of Volunteers regularly marched to Chalk Farm and practised shooting
at a stone target on the side of Primrose Hill from firing points near the
tavern in Sparks's time the hap- hazard group of buildings at the north east
end was demolished and a short simple wing, with three arched windows leading
on to a balcony with colonnade under, was built instead. Calverts were the
brewers. Chalk
Farm Tavern and its gardens were put up as one lot for sale in 1840, although
now separated by the new road which was to become Regent's Park Road. By the mid
sixties the brewers evidently decided that there was more money in building
plots than in garden entertainments, and the gardens were sold off for
building. Their site is represented by
the enclosure within Regent's Park Road.
Tile kilns demolished in 1756, when the materials were
sold; they were
evidently close to the tavern.
Primrose Tavern opened
1846. fifty yards down the road. Its clients were said to be the roughest sort
of people but it seemed to be popular and surprisingly closed down in 1853, just when
it might have stolen the trade of the Chalk Farm Tavern. This was demolished completely in
1853 and rebuilt in ays 1854 as the
building which exists today.
105, now a
cafe, was the local post office with chemist
attached and by 1884 had a dentist on the
premises as well.
109 was a
bakery for most of its life, became the local
public library from the 1950s and is now an
antique shop.
109a chapel
of the Boys Home. New residents were welcomed to the Home's religious services, built around 1872, was converted
into a club called The Howff,
then became commercial premises
110 lived Thomas
R. Way until his death in 1913. He was a lithographer of some note, who
produced and illustrated various books on old London buildings and had assisted
his father as lithographer to Whistler
111 Essex
Villa 1854 became the superintendent's house
on the boys home in the 1880s. an original house built
in the new road in 1854
115
to 117, flats in building of
1865 The Boys' Home for the Training and
Maintenance of Destitute Boys not Convicted of Crime.
Previously The Boys' Home for the Maintenance by their own Labour of Destitute Boys not Convicted of Crime;
it moved from 44 Euston Road, because of the
extension of the Midland Railway line. Founded in 1858 by two philanthropists, named Bell. It was a
lively place, training 150 boys at a
time in
useful occupations. Many of them emigrated to the
Colonies. They marched with their band
to Primrose Hill, where they exercised
and played football matches. In 1982 the buildings were heightened and given extra windows to house a block of flats.
118, on the corner of Rothwell Street, was the home of
Count Richard Rainshaw, Marquess de Rothwell. He lived here at the end of his
life and his niece, Martha Horley, lived next door at No. 120.
122 A blue
plaque erected by the GLC in recent years to commemorate Friedrich Engels,
political philosopher and friend of Karl Marx.
126 was a dairy,
first belonging to W. Newman, who also had premises in Albany Street; it later housed
a branch of United Dairies.
128 began as
premises for a pianoforte manufacturer, George Youatt, but this can only have
been showrooms or a components factory as there is hardly room for any serious
piano building: it is now a health
food shop.
130 Miss Finlay
described in the 1874 Directory as an ostrich feather manufacturer but, by
1884, she is merely a dyer and cleaner.
134 started life
as a Ladies' Outfitters, turned to plumbing in the 1890s and, after many
changes, became Primrose Hill Books, selling books old and new and Camden
History publications.
142 has remained
a wine and spirit merchant's since it first opened.
146 a shop in
the terrace which has kept its original function as a chemist
152 was
originally a builder's, but by 1904 was recorded as Yeomans. fruiterer, so this
is a long established shop.
156 is recorded
in the 1874 Directory as Henry A. Lovell, oil and colourman. Today this would
be called an ironmongery, so this shop has retained its original function from
the time of building. Richard John
Welsh took over the shop at the turn of the century.
158 was a
butcher's continuously until, sadly, it closed in the 1970s.
162 ex-post office
166 started life
as a house agents's, Ekins & Broderick, and has returned to this use in recent
years.
172-146, opposite
Chalk Farm Tavern, which were built in the late 1860s on the former tavern gardens.
172 was
originally a cheesemonger's and so has changed little, as it is now a grocer's.
174-182-
late 1840s and early 1850s, known as Northumberland Terrace. The plot on which these houses stand was bought at the 1840 Southampton Estate sale by Thomas Pocock, relation of Basset.
These houses have always been
residential and are now mostly converted into flats
184- 192-
constitute a fine terrace of five large houses
with basements
194 one of the remaining semi-detached villa by Henry Bassett,
196 original villa frequently a doctor's residence: its single storey extension was built
around 1890 remaining
semi-detached villa by Henry Bassett,
Garage building of the 1920s fronts Bow Cottage, one of the
original houses in the lane, was
incorporated in the Boys Home as the
Infirmary.
Prettier, circular front garden with a fountain became the main yard of the Home.
Bow Cottage demolished following a fire in 1972
The Queen's, opened 1854
Rothwell Street
narrow, with terraces of pretty, classical houses on each
side, obviously the work of one builder. The site was purchased about 1861 by
the Marquess de Rothwell, his
address being given as Mornington Road, Camden Town, as well as Sharpies Hall
He began building in 1862 and the street was very respectable from the outset.
3 Dr Charles
Read, who lived here in the early 1870s, later moved to a larger house in Chalcot Square
Sharpeshall Street
Southern boundary of pleasure gardens at their junction
with old Chalk Farm Tavern's shooting ground, which stretched towards Primrose
Hill. The street was built in 1862 by Count Richard Rainshaw, Marquess de
Rothwell, who named it after his home in Lancashire, Sharpies Hall at Bolton le
Moors. Richard Rainshaw Rothwell (1808-90) was a barrister and was given his unlikely sounding title in I860 by the
King of Italy. Original 1862 houses
remain on the southern side of the street but the northern side has been
largely reconstructed. It can be seen that the houses on the other side were designed to
have shops on the ground floor and in the 1872 Directory we find a fruiterer,
dyer, house decorator, haberdasher and saddler at Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7. So it may be that original
shop fronts were later replaced by domestic front doors and windows.
Sharpeshall Mews. is always shown on maps as livery
stables with dwellings above: it
is now occupied by a small billiard-table factory
Camden Libraries branch. Opened in 1961, it replaced a
terrace of shops with dwellings over.
St.George's Mews
The first recorded occupant of St George's Mews was J.
Sell, carpenter, in 1854 — perhaps the founder of the builders in Berkley
Grove.
1 built as a forge
St.George’s Terrace
looks onto the green acres of Primrose Hill and consists
of imposing houses of three floors plus a basement, with their own private road
and strip of communal gardens bordering Primrose Hill Road. The Terrace was
built in the early 1850s in a style grander than its neighbours. Primrose Hill Road did not get
through to Regent's Park Road until the
late 1870s and this, no doubt, is why St George's Terrace has its private
approach road
10 -11 The widow of Lord Byron is
said to have died in one of the houses in 1860:
11 Monkhouse
letter box double Victorian graces
the corner
Steele's Road
Area where Steele’s country retreat stood 18th.
Development are mostly by Batterbury & Huxley, studios
at the back,
28 Gothic and gabled
5 Steele's Studios Batterbury & Huxley, 1876, a studio house
Steele’s Mews
Arches but
much rebuilt behind
Wychcombe Studios
curious oasis. By Batterbury, 1879-80, with three studio blocks around a little garden.
Wadham Gardens
Site of Eton and Middlesex Cricket Ground. Developed from 1895; large detached houses by
Willetts. Profusion of patterned tile hangings.
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