Frognal And The Central Demesne.
Frognal was
mentioned in the early 15th century as a customary
tenement and in 1740 Frognal field was the eastern
abutment of Northfield, part of the demesne. (fn. 71) By
the 17th century there were several cottages and
houses at Frognal; (fn. 72) by then the name probably indicated the road leading from the church and manor
farm northward to the heath, between the demesne
on the west and Hampstead town on the east. By the
end of the 18th century the name also applied to the
houses built on the site of the manor farm buildings
in Frognal Lane, and by the mid 19th century to
the northern part of the demesne. The road,
Frognal, was extended southward in 1878.
The 15th-century tenement was probably the
'house called Frognal', (fn. 73) which lay on the west side
of the road, probably on the site later occupied by
Frognal House. There were two houses or cottages
there by the beginning of the 18th century, held by
brothers, John and Thomas Smith. Thomas, a
bricklayer, had divided his into two. (fn. 74) All the property had passed to John Padmore, gentleman, of
St. Giles-in-the-Fields by 1741, when he acquired
waste near the house lately built there, (fn. 75) presumably
Frognal House, no. 99 Frognal. (fn. 76) In 1762 the estate,
which also included Upper Frognal Lodge (no. 103)
and a pair of houses to the south, was held by Padmore's nephew John Padmore Perry (d. 1764). (fn. 77)
Another house, on the east side of the road, was
leased by a London draper, Charles Purrett, to
Robert James in 1616. It was occupied by John
Towse (d. 1645) and by a London goldsmith Richard
Hodilow (d. 1698). (fn. 78) It was assessed for 16 hearths
in 1664 and was rebuilt c. 1700 and, with additions,
is identifiable with the Mansion or Old Mansion
(no. 94), a nine-bayed brick house. (fn. 79) Two more
houses had been built on the estate by 1731 (fn. 80) and
another one by 1762, when the property was held by
Richard Westfield or Wastfield (d. 1765) of Lincoln's
Inn. (fn. 81) Other 16th- or 17th-century buildings included three cottages, on the east side of the road,
which were converted to a coach house and workhouse by 1729. (fn. 82) Nearby, at the southern junction
with Mount Vernon, Grove Cottage (no. 110) has
been dated to the 17th century, with the adjoining
no. 108 slightly later. (fn. 83) An early inn, called successively the Three Pigeons, Pilgrim, and Duke of
Cumberland's Head, stood in front of, but was not
identifiable with, nos. 108 and no. (fn. 84) By the mid
1740s (fn. 85) there were two houses at the southern end of
Frognal. Set back from the road in 1½ a., adjoining
the churchyard, was Frognal Hall, which probably
existed by 1646 and can be identified with the
attorney-general's house visited by Pepys in 1668. (fn. 86)
It may have been rebuilt by the architect Isaac Ware,
who owned it from 1759 to 1765. (fn. 87) The southernmost house was that later called Priory Lodge,
opposite Frognal Lane, which has been identified
with the 'small house just beyond the church',
alluded to by Samuel Johnson, where his wife lodged
for the country air according to Boswell and where
Johnson wrote most of the Vanity of Human Wishes,
published in 1749. (fn. 88) Barton Booth, Robert Wilks,
and Colley Cibber may have had summer lodgings
at Frognal, though probably not, as stated in 1816,
in the workhouse building. (fn. 89)
On the west side of Frognal only the estate
associated with Frognal House was ancient copyhold, the rest being either ancient demesne to the
south or waste, part of the heath, to the north. In
1741 the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769)
acquired from Thomas Watson-Wentworth, earl of
Malton, a house dating from 1700 or earlier on what
was then heath, a coach house and stable and another
cottage, and himself obtained further grants of adjoining waste, including the lime walk illustrated by
William Collins. (fn. 90) He probably built Frognal (later
Montagu) Grove on the site (nos. 105 and 107); no.
109 was formed from the stabling. (fn. 91) Flitcroft is also
credited with building the house to the north, variously called Bleak Hall, Judges Bench House, and
Branch Hill Lodge. (fn. 92) On pieces of waste next to
Northwood well, buildings had been erected by a
lessee, Henry Popple, between 1731 and 1739. They
included a house by 1745, when the property passed
to Thomas, later Sir Thomas, Clarke (d. 1764),
Master of the Rolls. (fn. 93) In 1762, therefore, there were
16 copyhold houses in Frognal. A pair of cottages
(nos. 104 and 106) was evidently built soon afterwards. (fn. 94)
Many important lawyers lived in late 18th-century
Frognal. From 1772 until 1794 or later Frognal
Grove was the home of Edward Montagu, master in
Chancery, (fn. 95) and from c. 1810 to 1813 of Richard
Richards, chief justice of Chester. (fn. 96) Branch Hill
Lodge was left by Clarke in 1764 to his patron
Thomas Parker, earl of Macclesfield (d. 1795), who
leased it to Thomas Walker, Master in Chancery,
and then to Lord Loughborough, who lived there
before he moved to Belsize in 1792. (fn. 97) Stephen
Guyon (d. 1779), a merchant, lived in Frognal Hall,
which by 1791 was the home of Sir Richard Pepper
Arden (1745-1804), Master of the Rolls, later Lord
Alvanley and Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas. He was leased 6 a. of adjacent demesne land,
part of which he later bought and all of which was
occupied by his widow for some years. (fn. 98)
In 1792 Frognal was praised for its 'salubrity of
air and soil, in the neighbourhood of pleasure and
business'. (fn. 99) As early as 1762 some 43 a. of demesne
were leased to copyhold tenants who used them as
pleasure grounds. (fn. 1) In 1674 the manor house was
leased to a Londoner, Benoni Honywood, who
occupied it for only six weeks a year, subletting the
land and part of the house. (fn. 2) From 1757 and probably earlier the manor house was divided and
although one half was used as a farmhouse, the other
may always have been a dwelling house detached
from the farmland. (fn. 3) By 1774 the eastern part, leased
to John Foster, had been made by him into two distinct houses, each with its own stabling. (fn. 4) Foster
lived in one until 1783, when the two were converted
into a single house, occupied from 1785 until 1803
by the Revd. Charles Grant (d. 1811), the curate,
and, after the manorial court met there in 1802, was
called the Manor House. (fn. 5) In 1785 the western part
of the very dilapidated manor house was leased to
Thomas Pool on condition that he carried out considerable repairs. (fn. 6) Pool probably began work on the
eastern end, apparently preserving the carcase of the
old building; he borrowed £300 from the lord of
the manor, which perhaps led to an inscription on a
datestone, 'erected by Sir T. S. Wilson by. 1785'. (fn. 7)
Two houses had been built by 1797: no. 23, which
was occupied from 1798 by John Ogilvie, an army
agent who spent heavily on completing the building,
which he leased directly from 1801 (fn. 8) until his bankruptcy in 1804, (fn. 9) and the house to the west of it, later
nos. 19 and 21 Frognal Lane. Pool himself occupied
the western house and at great expense had completed it by 1800 when he sold it to George Stacey,
a Holborn chemist, who then obtained a direct lease
from the lord. (fn. 10) Pool moved to 'another messuage
opposite' on which he spent money between 1798
and 1800 and which was presumably no. 40 Frognal
Lane, later called Manor Lodge after the manorial
courts held there. (fn. 11) In 1810 Pool (d. 1813) was
leased the house with its surrounding 5 a. and outbuildings on the southern side of Frognal Lane,
formerly occupied by farm buildings only. (fn. 12)
John Metcalf, who bought no. 23 in 1804, also
acquired some 27 a. of demesne land leased to
Ogilvie, on which by 1806 he built a 'new white
house', later called Frognal Park, set well back from
Frognal Lane, north-west of the other houses. (fn. 13)
Frognal Park, in parkland and possibly the largest of
the Frognal houses, passed in 1809 to Joseph Blunt,
a solicitor, and between 1826 and 1831 to John F.
Menet, (fn. 14) whose widow Louisa subleased the estate
in 1849 to Henry Hucks Gibbs, a merchant. (fn. 15)
Metcalf subleased no. 23 in 1805 to Jeremy Bentham's brother Sir Samuel (1757-1831), naval
architect and engineer, who had superintended shipbuilding in Russia, where he had been made a
general. He obtained a direct lease in 1813 but left
England again in 1814; (fn. 16) the house was empty in
1820. In the mid 1820s it was occupied by John
Innos and during the 1830s by Miss Anne Hetherington. (fn. 17) It was leased to Henry B. Fearon, a wine
merchant and one of the founders of London University, in 1841 and occupied throughout the 1850s
and most of the 1860s by his widow. (fn. 18)
Between 1810 and 1814 a timber cottage, later
called Manor Cottage, was built on the south side of
Frognal Lane, east of Manor Lodge. (fn. 19) It was mostly
occupied by undertenants of the demesne farm, including a newsman of Tottenham Court Road in
1817, (fn. 20) a New Bond Street hatter in 1851 (fn. 21) and the
manorial bailiff in 1872-3. (fn. 22) In 1815 Manor Lodge
was occupied by John Thompson (d. 1843), a retired
auctioneer, called Memory Thompson for his
phenomenal knowledge of London. In 1817 he relinquished the house and c. 4 a. of the 8 a. of
demesne leased to him, which were leased, together
with the demesne farmland, to William Baker in
1819 and Robert Stone, a Marylebone stablekeeper,
in 1834. The house was sublet and from 1843 to
1871 (fn. 23) was occupied by George Chater, a wholesale
stationer, who obtained a direct lease in 1848 and
extended the house in 1849. (fn. 24) Thompson retained
4 a. on which he had built a new house by 1818,
called by 1834 the Priory or Frognal Priory. He had
added a lodge by 1820. (fn. 25) The house, on an elevated
site with extensive views, had Gothic crenellations,
Renaissance windows, Dutch gables, turrets, and a
cupola. It was filled with furniture claimed by
Thompson to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey and
Elizabeth I and drew many visitors. (fn. 26) Thompson
was still the occupier in 1840 but by 1851 the house
had passed, under his will, to Barnard Gregory
(1796-1852), editor of the Satirist, whose title was
successfully disputed by Thompson's relations, the
McCullochs. (fn. 27)
On the northern side of Frognal Lane the Manor
House, later no. 59 Frognal, was occupied from 1804
to 1817 by Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842),
the publisher, whose father lived in Mount Grove. (fn. 28)
The house changed hands several times until it was
occupied 1834-41 by Robert M. Kerrison, a doctor (fn. 29)
and 1842-81 by Matthew Thomas Husband, a
leather merchant from Regent's Park, who rebuilt it
probably soon after he took the lease. (fn. 30) William Carr,
a solicitor to the Excise, replaced George Stacey at
nos. 19 and 21 Frognal Lane in 1807, obtained a
direct lease in 1812, and lived there until 1829 or
later. (fn. 31) Carr, with his large and sociable family,
entertained Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth.
The latter often stayed with the family several times
between 1819 and 1822, in a 'delightful airy bedchamber' with a bow window. (fn. 32) From 1833 to 1841
the house was occupied by James Gordon Murdoch. (fn. 33) In 1841 the house, with 6 a. of grounds, was
leased to William James Ferguson, who assigned the
lease in 1845 to Robert Prance (d. 1869), (fn. 34) a stockbroker and magistrate. (fn. 35)
A cottage called the Salt Box was built on demesne
land on the edge of the heath north of Branch Hill
Lodge between 1789 and 1808 (fn. 36) and was replaced by
a house called the Grange probably by 1834. (fn. 37) In
1799 the earl of Macclesfield's son sold Branch Hill
Lodge to a wealthy merchant, Thomas Neave, who
became a baronet in 1814. Neave enlarged the house,
which he filled with stained glass from convents
plundered during the French Revolution in addition
to the glass taken from the Chicken House. (fn. 38) To his
4 a. of copyhold land Neave added 9 a. of demesne
freehold, which he purchased in 1807 and 1815; he
was leased another 21½ a. of demesne from 1808. (fn. 39)
He sold Branch Hill Lodge, which later briefly
housed Lord Byron's widow and was purchased
with 14 a. in 1867 by a city wine merchant, and built
two houses to the west on former demesne land,
Oak Hill Lodge, where he was living by 1840, and
Oak Hill House. He later moved to his family seat at
Dagnam Park, Romford, taking his glass collection
with him, (fn. 40) and the Frognal estate passed to his third
son Sheffield Neave, a director of the Bank of England, possibly as part of Sheffield's marriage settlement in 1851. (fn. 41) By 1850, however, Sheffield was
already associated with a local builder, Thomas
Clowser, in building two houses in Branch Hill field,
possibly Sandfield Lodge and another large house
on the borders of the Neave estate, near the Grange,
which existed by 1870. Clowser built another 10 in
the next two years in what he called Oak Hill Park
estate after the new road running from Frognal to
Oak Hill House and Lodge. (fn. 42) George Smith (1824-
1901), founder of the Dictionary of National Biography, lived from 1863 to 1872 in Oak Hill Lodge,
where he entertained leading writers and artists.
Florence Nightingale was a frequent visitor to Oak
Hill Park, where Manley Hopkins, an authority on
maritime law, lived in the 1850s with his family, including Gerard, the future poet. (fn. 43) The actormanager Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917) later
lived at the Grange which he left in 1891 because of
the difficulties of travel to 'such a remote country
spot'. (fn. 44)
There were few changes in old Frognal. The
dilapidated old workhouse was taken down soon
after 1800. (fn. 45) Between 1819 and 1844 John Hodgson
considerably enlarged Priory Lodge with a baywindowed extension (fn. 46) and on the west side, north of
the demesne houses, Bay Tree Cottage existed by
1841. (fn. 47) In 1811 Frognal was a 'hamlet of handsome
residences', surrounded by groves and gardens 'of
an extent begrudged by builders in these modern
days'. (fn. 48) In 1824 arguments against the proposed new
road made particular reference to the houses occupied by Carr, Blunt, Innes (sic), and Thompson, the
few gentlemen's houses valued for their privacy and
the views which they or their grounds commanded. (fn. 49)
When the Finchley Road was built through the
middle of the demesne between 1826 and 1835, it
destroyed the exclusivity and converted the farmland into ripe building land, which the lord of the
manor, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, was eager to
exploit. He was thwarted by the will of his father,
Sir Thomas (d. 1821), which left him unable to grant
building leases, and by local defenders of the heath
who opposed his private bills. (fn. 50) The demesne became available only after his death in 1869, when
building was further delayed, mainly because the
new lord Sir John (d. 1876) and his son Spencer
needed to resolve their differences in order to break
the terms of the entail. In 1873 they agreed to divide
the estate, allocating to Spencer frontages along
Finchley Road, and on two proposed new roads,
Priory Road and Fitzjohn's Avenue, on all of which
it was planned to build, and land in the north. Apart
from Spencer, whose grandiose plans ultimately prevailed in Fitzjohn's Avenue, the main influence in
shaping the estate was F. J. Clark, the land agent
who advised the Maryon Wilsons to build the main
roads and sewers themselves and to release the land
for building in an orderly manner. (fn. 51)
Some of the earliest building on the demesne
estate was along Finchley Road. (fn. 52) To the south,
building was already completed on the St. John's
Wood estate up to the boundary with the Maryon
Wilson estate. Much of the demesne west of Finchley Road was occupied by railways, with a station
called Finchley Road opened on each of the three
lines, in 1860, 1869, and 1879, respectively. (fn. 53) In
1872 Holy Trinity church was built on the east side
of Finchley Road on a site given by Sir John Maryon
Wilson (fn. 54) and six cottages were built in 1873 on the
Finchley Road brickfield, which had been leased to
John Culverhouse in 1871. (fn. 55) Holy Trinity Vicarage
was built in 1877 and a skating rink in 1880, and 29
houses and at least five shops were built in Finchley
Road from Swiss Cottage northward in the early
1880s and another 19 houses at the end of the decade. In 1891 another five shops were built and five
houses altered into shops; the Midland Railway
built six coal offices. (fn. 56)
Spencer Maryon Wilson's second area of development was in the south-west, where it joined the
Upton and Cotton estates. Land was exchanged between the Maryon Wilson estate and Col. Cotton
and Priory Road, extending northward from the
Upton estate, was begun in 1874. (fn. 57) Plots were for
sale in Priory (then called Canfield) Road in 1875 (fn. 58)
and 51 mostly detached houses were built between
1877 and 1882. (fn. 59)
As early as 1871 F. J. Clark had suggested a new
road direct to Hampstead and in 1872 Spencer
Maryon Wilson was hoping to create a 'truly imposing road'. In 1875 he contracted with John Culverhouse, who since 1871 had been the tenant at will of
the two main demesne farms, to make Fitzjohn's
Avenue, from College Crescent off Finchley Road to
Greenhill Road, and to plant ornamental trees.
Most of the building land on either side was let
under a single agreement to Herbert and Edward
Kelly, speculative builders, although some plots
were sold to individuals who commissioned architects. (fn. 60) Applications to build 70 houses in Fitzjohn's
Avenue were made between 1877 and 1879; nos. 45
and 61 were built in 1878, the latter a low building
with Dutch gables, designed by Richard Norman
Shaw for the fashionable painter Edwin Long
(1829-91). No. 47, designed by George Lethbridge,
dated from 1880, as did nos. 53 and 55 (the Tower),
which had 25 rooms; no. 6 (Three Gables) was built
in 1881 by Shaw for the portrait painter Frank Holl
(1845-88). In 1883 no. 1 (Oakwood Hall) was designed by J. J. Stevenson in red brick in a neoDutch style and a drill hall was built for the
Hampstead Volunteers near the junction with
College Crescent. (fn. 61)
Spencer Maryon Wilson's insistence on a treelined boulevard with large houses proved to be
justified. Fitzjohn's Avenue was compared with
Paris and was described by Harpers magazine in
1883 as 'one of the noblest streets in the world'. Its
early inhabitants included Lloyds underwriters,
shipowners, auctioneers, silk manufacturers, a wine
merchant, a director of Hull Docks, an Arctic
explorer, and an Islamic scholar. It was particularly
popular with successful artists, who included John
Pettie (1839-93) at the Lothians and Paul Falconer
Poole (1807-79) (fn. 62) at Uplands (no. 75), built by
T. K. Green and described as 'elephantine Gothic
with bargeboarded gables'. (fn. 63) The artists' houses
were opened on Show Sunday, attracting, according
to the novelist Sir Max Pemberton (1863-1950), who
lived at no. 56, those who 'should have been a source
of inspiration . . . to the makers of fashion-plates'.
Another resident was the author James Cotter
Morison (1832-88), who entertained Henry James
and George Meredith at no. 30. (fn. 64)
The last of the areas of demesne land allocated to
Spencer Maryon Wilson in 1873 was in the north,
bordering the heath and the Branch Hill and Oak
Hill estates. (fn. 65) Seven houses were built at Branch
Hill between 1873 and 1877, most of them on land
belonging to Basil Woodd Smith of Branch Hill
Lodge, where there had been rebuilding to S. S.
Teulon's designs in 1868. (fn. 66) They probably included
Combe Edge in Oak Hill Way, an old footpath from
Branch Hill to Oak Hill Park, which was built in
1874 and first owned by the author Elizabeth Rundle
Charles (1828-96), and Oak Tree House, Redington
Gardens, designed in 1874 by Basil Champneys for
Henry Holiday (1839-1927), the stained-glass
painter, on land at Branch Hill Park. (fn. 67) Another
house was built in Oak Hill Park in 1873. (fn. 68) Probably
the success of those houses prompted the construction on Spencer's demesne land of Redington Road,
a long road curving from Frognal round Oak Hill
Park to the northern part of West Heath Road. In
1875 land was offered in lots at the Frognal end. In
1876 nos. 2 and 4, 'a wonderfully subtle pair', were
designed by Philip Webb and no. 6, 'unrepentantly
Gothic', by T. K. Green as St. John's Vicarage.
No. 12 (Wellesley House), 'curiously old-fashioned
Italianate', was built in 1878. Building thereafter
was slow, no. 35 (Redington Lodge) by Horace Field
being built in 1887 and no. 16 (One Oak) designed
by A. H. Mackmurdo in 1889. Among those who
lived in the road was the sculptor Sir Hamo Thornycroft (1850-1925) at no. 16. (fn. 69) John Lewis (d. 1928),
the store owner, had built Spedan Tower, a large
house, on the site of Sandfield Lodge by 1889. (fn. 70)
From the late 1870s building spread beyond
Spencer Maryon Wilson's allocation on the demesne
lands. The first major development was in the southwest, which lack of height and the vicinity of Kilburn
made less desirable and houses were middle-class
but more crowded than those farther north or east. (fn. 71)
Several roads, named after Maryon Wilson estates
in other counties, ran from Finchley Road to Priory
Road, linking with roads on the Cotton estate.
Building began from the east end with 20 houses by
Charles Kellond in Goldhurst Terrace, the most
southerly of the roads, in 1879 and another 50 there
between 1880 and 1885; 101 houses, some flats, and
a riding school were added between 1886 and 1900,
mostly by T. K. Wells of Kentish Town. The
middle road was Canfield Gardens, where six houses
were built in 1881, 30 between 1885 and 1886, mansion flats in 1886 and 1889, and three shops in 1897.
The northern road, near the Metropolitan railway
line, was Broadhurst Gardens, where 116 houses
were built between 1882 and 1894. Fairhazel Gardens (originally called North End Road) crossed the
three roads to link with Loudoun Road in St. John's
Wood; five houses were built there in 1879 and 1881
and another 31 houses and three blocks of flats between 1886 and 1896. Eleven stables and six houses
were built in Canfield Place, backing on Finchley
Road station, in 1884-5 by Ernest Estcourt and
James Dixon, who also, with Wells, built Canfield
and Greencroft gardens, which by 1891 reached
Fairhazel Gardens from its eastern junction with
Goldhurst Terrace; some 68 houses and Rutland
House flats were built in Greencroft Gardens, after
1891 extended to Priory Road, between 1886 and
1897. Compayne Gardens, which extended from its
eastern junction with Canfield Gardens, reached
Fairhazel Gardens by 1891 and Priory Road by
1913; 77 houses and three blocks of flats were built
there between 1886 and 1894 by local builders,
James Tomblin and E. Michael. Tomblin also built
most of the 29 houses erected between 1893 and
1897 in Aberdare Gardens, the last road in the area,
which ran from its western junction with Goldhurst
Terrace to Fairhazel Gardens. Building was complete throughout the area by 1913. (fn. 72) Except the
mews Canfield Place, which was 'fairly comfortable',
the whole district was middle-class c. 1890. (fn. 73) Residents included Mme. Bergman-Osterberg, pioneer
of physical education, at no. 1 Broadhurst Gardens
in the 1880s, and Walter Sickert, the painter, at no.
54 from 1885 to 1894. (fn. 74) Cecil Beaton recalled a more
exotic atmosphere at no. 74 Compayne Gardens,
called Santa Cruz c. 1900 when it housed the
Bolivian consul general. Another exotic inhabitant
was Frederick Rolfe, author and self-styled Baron
Corvo, at no. 69 Broadhurst Gardens. (fn. 75)
The south-west demesne estate was bounded by
Finchley Road and the railway line. To the north,
in Lithos Road, squeezed in between the railway
lines, 20 houses were built between 1882 and 1887
and another 14 houses, two blocks of flats, and a
power station between 1892 and 1896. Eight stables
and five houses were built in the parallel Rosemont
Road between 1893 and 1897. There was no building in Lymington Road, which ran between Finchley Road and West End Lane north of the railway
lines, until 1899, when 10 houses were built; shops
were added in 1911. (fn. 76)
East of Finchley Road spacious houses were built,
mostly in the 1880s, on the former Belsize farm
lands on either side of Fitzjohn's Avenue: (fn. 77) 13
houses were built in Netherhall Terrace (later Gardens) from 1879 to 1888, 30 in Maresfield Gardens
from 1881 to 1886, 3 in Nutley Terrace from 1885
to 1887, and 2 in Daleham Gardens in 1888. (fn. 78) South
Hampstead High school was opened at the southern
end of Maresfield Gardens in 1882 and Herbert
Henry Asquith, then an M.P., lived at no. 27 from
1887 to 1892. In Netherhall Gardens a second house
was designed for Edwin Long by Richard Norman
Shaw at Kelston (no. 42) in 1888. Batterbury &
Huxley were responsible for St. Kilda (no. 6) c. 1882
and Sidney and Beatrice Webb moved into no. 10
after their marriage in 1892. (fn. 79) The area, all former
demesne land, where building was complete by
1891, was classified as upper middle- and middleclass and wealthy. (fn. 80)
Frognal Priory, 'very far in ruin' in 1869, (fn. 81) and
let to John Culverhouse in 1871, was demolished in
1876 (fn. 82) and the old road, Frognal, had been extended
southward beyond Arkwright Road by 1878 (fn. 83) and
reached Finchley Road soon afterwards. Basil
Champneys (1842-1935) built himself a house (no.
42 Frognal Lane) on the site of farm buildings on
the Priory estate in 1881. A red-brick four-square
house, 'very snug and solid', it was called Manor
Farm and, from 1894, Hall Oak and was occupied
by the architect until his death. (fn. 84) Two houses were
built in 'Frognal Road' in 1881 and 20 in Frognal
between 1882 and 1890, mostly by Sharp. (fn. 85) They
included, on the west side, another Gothic house
called Frognal Priory, designed by Richard Norman
Shaw for Edwin Tate and built in 1881-2, (fn. 86) and no.
39, tile-hung in the style of a Surrey Weald cottage
with a studio across the top, designed in 1885 by
Norman Shaw for Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), the
illustrator, who died there. (fn. 87)
The break-up of Thompson's Priory estate opened
up the area south of Frognal Lane to development.
Arkwright Road was extended from the Greenhill
estate westward to Finchley Lane and six houses
were being built there in 1878. (fn. 88) Fourteen houses
were built in Lindfield Gardens in 1884 and 1890-2,
one house was built in Frognal Lane, west of Manor
Lodge, in 1877, and Langland Gardens had been
constructed, though as yet no houses built, by
1891. (fn. 89)
In old Frognal no. 99 housed the Sailors' Orphan
Girls' Home from 1862 until 1869 (fn. 90) and Montagu
Grove was enlarged in the 1860s by the architect
G. E. Street, whose family had acquired it through
marriage. (fn. 91) Of the demesne houses, Frognal Park
was leased from 1856 to after 1896 to James Anderson, a shipowner, (fn. 92) who by 1861 had rebuilt it after
a fire. (fn. 93) No. 23, the Ferns, was leased from 1868 to
William Dunlop Anderson, a colonial broker, who
made alterations in 1883 and whose widow obtained
the freehold in 1889. (fn. 94) The adjoining house, nos. 19
and 21, which by the 1890s was called Maryon Hall,
was the home of Reginald Prance, a stockbroker,
from 1871 until 1894, when he moved to the Ferns. (fn. 95)
In 1896 Francis Tasker of Bedford Row converted
Maryon Hall into two dwellings, with separate doorways. (fn. 96) Frognal Hall was occupied c. 1878-c. 1890
by Julius Talbot Airey but by c. 1903 it housed a
school. (fn. 97) George Hornblower built nos. 79-87
Frognal (the Oaks), including an Italianate watch
tower for no. 79, for E. P. Musman in 1902. (fn. 98) In
1878 Frognal was described as a beautiful suburban
village, full of gentlemen's seats. (fn. 99) In 1903 it still
had an air of affluence but was overlooked by 'manywindowed, scarlet-faced mansions' and had lost its
'aimless paths and trees'. (fn. 1) Building had covered
most of the frontage to the road, old as well as new,
and was encroaching on the large private gardens. (fn. 2)
Alexander Gray bought the Old Mansion on the east
side of old Frognal c. 1889, laid out an L-shaped
road, Frognal Gardens, through the grounds, and
commissioned James Neale, a former pupil of
Street. He added a wing to the old house, and designed no. 100 Frognal and five houses in Frognal
Gardens, built by the local firm Allison & Foskett
from 1890 to 1896. They included no. 18 (Frognal
End), built in 1892 for the novelist and antiquary
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901). Two houses were
added in the rear in 1907. (fn. 3) Frognal House was in a
dangerous state in 1896 but presumably was repaired, and Frognal Mansions flats were built by
Palgrave & Co. next to it together with an astronomical observatory in 1897. (fn. 4) In 1895 the architect Sir
Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) built no. 51 Frognal
for himself and the adjoining no. 49, occupied by
William Morris's typographer, Thomas CobdenSanderson (1840-1922), south of the junction with
Frognal Lane. (fn. 5) In 1906-7 Arnold Mitchell designed
University College school, 'an impressive group of
Edwardian baroque buildings' just south of Priory
Lodge. (fn. 6) At the Finchley Road end of Frognal nos.
2-16, 'huge but coarse Queen Anne pairs' were built
in 1889-91 (fn. 7) and most of the 25 houses and four
blocks of flats built in Frognal between 1891 and
1896 were by E. H. & H. T. Cave. The same firm
was responsible for most of the 38 houses, blocks of
flats, and 16 shops built in Finchley Road between
1893 and 1897 and the 10 houses and 15 shops in
1905, for the flats at the junction with Arkwright
Road in 1896, and for 17 houses in Frognal Lane in
1897-8; 17 houses and some flats built in Langland
Gardens from 1895 to 1897 and 4 houses built in
Lindfield Gardens in 1895 were probably part of the
same development. (fn. 8)
Edward Michael built three houses in Frognal
Lane in 1898-9, one of them at the junction with
Chesterford Gardens. That road, for which an
application was made in 1896, crossed the grounds
of Frognal Park from Frognal Lane to Redington
Road; nine houses were built there from 1897 to
1900 and another two in 1905; C. H. B. Quennell
may have designed nos. 5-11. (fn. 9)
Building spreading northward along Finchley
Road was virtually complete on the eastern side and,
mostly as shops, had reached beyond Lymington
Road on the western by 1913. In 1899 six houses and
a block of flats were built at the junction with West
Hampstead Avenue (later Heath Drive), a new road
skirting the demesne from Finchley Road to
Redington Road; 20 houses and a block of flats were
built there between 1897 and 1900 and another four
between 1905 and 1907, mostly designed by C. H. B.
Quennell. Nearby six houses were built in Redington
Road and four in Branch Hill Park between 1905
and 1908; (fn. 10) no. 66 Redington Road was built in 1910
for William Garnett, education adviser to the
L.C.C. (fn. 11) New roads included Bracknell Gardens,
between Heath Drive and Frognal Lane, where 23
houses were built between 1905 and 1912, Barby
(later Oakhill) Avenue, between Bracknell Gardens
and Redington Road, where 10 houses were built
between 1907 and 1909, Templewood Avenue, between Heath Drive and West Heath Road, where 13
houses, including some handsome ones by Quennell,
were built between 1910 and 1912, and Redington
Gardens, from Templewood Avenue to Redington
Road, laid out in 1911 where four houses were built
in 1913. (fn. 12) The large new houses were said to 'bristle
with . . . respectable establishment figures'. (fn. 13) They
also included the photographer and designer Cecil
Beaton (1904-80), who was born at no. 21 Langland
Gardens, a 'small, tall red-brick house of ornate but
indiscriminate Dutch style', and lived from 1911 to
1922 at no. 1 Templewood Avenue. The literary
forger Thomas Wise (1859-1937) lived at no. 25
Heath Drive from 1910 and the writer Leonard
Huxley (1860-1933) at no. 16 Bracknell Gardens
from c. 1917; Leonard's son Aldous, the novelist,
was there from 1917 to 1920. (fn. 14)
After the First World War building continued in
all areas, usually as infilling. Four houses were
squashed in between Fitzjohn's Avenue and Spring
and Shepherd's paths in 1922, another house (no. 1)
was added to Fitzjohn's Avenue in 1925, and five
others were built behind existing houses from 1936
to 1938; 11 houses were added to Maresfield Gardens in 1920, from 1925 to 1928, and in 1937-8.
Another six were built in Redington Road between
1920 and 1927, including the neo-Georgian no. 81,
designed by Sir Edward Maufe, and Hill House
(no. 87), a red-brick house 'in the style of Mies van
der Rohe', designed in 1938 by Oliver Hill with
gardens by Christopher Tunnard. (fn. 15) Individual
houses were built in Heath Drive in 1922 and 1933
and on former heath in West Heath Road in 1927
and 1932, the latter, Sarum Chase, 'unashamed
Hollywood Tudor'. (fn. 16) In Bracknell Gardens a few
houses were built in 1920, 1928, and 1936 and flats
in 1937. Greenaway Gardens was built in 1914
through the grounds of Frognal Park, which was
demolished soon afterwards; the new road had six
houses by 1920, four more in 1923-4, and another
one in 1934. (fn. 17)
Priory Lodge and Frognal Hall, threatened in
1899, (fn. 18) finally succumbed in the 1920s. They were
replaced by nos. 96-98 Frognal and nos. 3-9 Frognal
Gardens, by E. B. Musman, in 1923 and by Frognal
Way, which has been described as the 'showpiece of
interwar Hampstead housing' and also as exhibiting
styles ranging from neo-Georgian to Hollywood
Spanish-Colonial and South African Dutch. (fn. 19) The
first house was built there in 1924 and at least five
others were added from 1928 to 1935, including no.
7 by Oswald Milne, no. 13 by C. H. B. Quennell, no.
11 in 1925 by Albert Farmer, no. 5 in 1930 by
Adrian Gilbert Scott for himself, no. 4 in 1934, no.
20 in 1934 for Gracie Fields, the singer, and no. 9,
the Sun House, by Maxwell Fry in 1935. (fn. 20) The last,
Fry's first London building, and an 'object lesson in
faÆade composition', was one of the most important
embodiments of the modern, international movement of the 1930s in Hampstead. Houses were also
built on the east side of Frognal, between University
College school and Frognal Way, in 1934. No. 66,
north of Frognal Way, was designed by Connell,
Ward & Lucas and built in 1937 of reinforced concrete 'in the extreme idiom of the day' as an attempt
to 'épater les bourgeois'. (fn. 21) Unlike most of the new
houses, which were 'charming', it was considered
out of character with the district's brick and Georgian architecture. (fn. 22) On the western side of Frognal,
Frognal Priory was replaced in 1937 by Frognal
Close, six large semi-detached houses but in a
modern style by E. L. Freud, Sigmund's son. (fn. 23) The
Manor House, the easternmost of the demesne
houses in Frognal Lane, was demolished in 1938 and
three houses (nos. 59, 61, and 63 Frognal) were built
by D. E. Harrington, the architect who lived at no.
61, to complete the frontage, no. 65 having been
built by the owner, Miss W. B. Acworth, in 1934. (fn. 24)
The remaining large area of open ground lay between Finchley Road, Lymington Road, and the
western boundary of the estate. Alvanley Gardens
had been constructed there by 1922 and, although a
cricket ground on the western side survived, c. 15
houses were built between 1922 and 1927. On the
western side of Finchley Road, backing on Alvanley
Gardens, nos. 341-59 (odd) and Dunrobin Court
existed by 1930 and other blocks were built in 1934
(probably Mandeville and Hillside Courts). (fn. 25) Farther
south, a major change from 1934 to 1938 was the
rebuilding of nos. 191-217 Finchley Road to house
John Barnes and St. John's Court flats. (fn. 26) On the east
side of Finchley Road, Palace Court was built in
1926 south of the junction with Frognal Lane,
Frognal Court in 1934 at no. 160, and Bracknell
Gate at the junction of Frognal Lane and Bracknell
Gardens in 1933. (fn. 27)
In 1930 the area had a few warehouses and workshops near the railway west of Finchley Road and
was inhabited by skilled workers 'or similar', while
the rest of the district around Frognal was middleclass and wealthy. (fn. 28) It still had distinguished residents like the politician John Sinclair, Lord Pentland
(1860-1925) at no. 18 Frognal Gardens, the civil
engineer Sir Owen Williams (d. 1969) at no. 16
Redington Road, both in the 1920s, Ramsay MacDonald, the prime minister, at no. 103 Frognal
1925-37, and Morris Ginsberg (1889-1970), the
sociologist, at no. 35 Redington Road in the 1930s. (fn. 29)
Publishers, long attracted to Hampstead, included
Sir Geoffrey Faber (1889-1961) at no. 1 Oak Hill
Park in the 1930s and 1940s and Sir Stanley Unwin
(1884-1968), who lived opposite him from the 1930s
and formed a company to buy the war-damaged
Victorian houses in Oak Hill Park from the Neave
family; he failed, and built no. 4 for himself. (fn. 30)
Musicians included Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
at no. 42 Netherhall Gardens 1912-21, Cecil Sharp
at no. 4 Maresfield Gardens 1918-24, and the conductor Warwick Braithwaite in Fitzjohn's Avenue
c. 1935. (fn. 31) Stephen Spender, the poet, grew up at no.
10 Frognal, at the Finchley Road end, in an 'ugly
house in the Hampstead style, as if built from a box
of bricks', and from 1942 to 1944 lived in a flat next
to the fire station in Maresfield Gardens, where he
and the writer William Sansom (1912-76) were temporary firemen. Other writers included Rafael
Sabatini (d. 1950) at no. 27 Fitzjohn's Avenue in the
1920s and Stella Gibbons (b. 1902) at no. 67
1930-2. The last home of the Victorian artist Henry
Holiday (d. 1927) was no. 18 Chesterford Gardens
and the fashionable painter Philip de Lészló (1869-
1937) lived and worked at no. 3 Fitzjohn's Avenue
from 1922. (fn. 32) The demesne estate, which included
part of cosmopolitan Swiss Cottage, housed its share
of political refugees in the 1930s, among them the
Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), in
Mandeville Court, no. 383 Finchley Road, in 1938 (fn. 33)
and the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (d. 1939) at
no. 20 Maresfield Gardens from 1938. Freud's
daughter Anna, a children's psychoanalyst who
opened a clinic there in 1952, maintained his rooms
intact until her death in 1980; the house was opened
as the Freud Museum in 1986. (fn. 34) Gen. Charles de
Gaulle lived from 1942 to 1944 in no. 99 Frognal. (fn. 35)
Not all the writers and artists could afford expensive houses. Stella Gibbons lived in one room and
many large houses were converted to flats or bedsitting rooms. Others housed institutions, like Havelock Hall, the Baptist training college on the corner
of Fitzjohn's Avenue and Akenside Road in the
1920s, which later became the Marie Curie hospital.
In Fitzjohn's Avenue no. 7 became a hostel for
mothers and babies in 1933, no. 33 a foster home in
1937, and no. 47 a school in 1947. (fn. 36)
Among the areas badly damaged during the
Second World War was Broadhurst Gardens, where
168 council flats were planned in 1948 although work
was not begun until 1953 and completed in 1956, the
architect being Richard Nickson. (fn. 37) The council
acquired a few large houses in Fitzjohn's Avenue,
which it converted into flats during the 1950s and
1960s. (fn. 38) The most controversial post-war development was at Branch Hill, a sparsely populated area
where the L.C.C. decided to purchase 13 a. in 1951.
It retreated in the face of local and government
opposition, since most of those waiting for council
houses in Hampstead could be accommodated in the
Chalcots developments and there was a possibility of
adding the Branch Hill Lodge grounds to the heath.
In 1965 Lord Glendyne sold the house and 11 a.,
described as the last important open site in Hampstead village, to Camden L.B. for the house to become an old people's home and with a covenant
limiting building in the grounds to semi-detached
houses. The council, anxious to house those on its
St. Pancras waiting list, produced in 1978 a scheme
for 42 houses designed by Gordon Benson and Alan
Forsyth, built in concrete in pairs with flat roofs and
stepped brick paths, possibly 'the most expensive
council houses ever built'. (fn. 39) Plans for the redevelopment of a 50-a. site bounded by Finchley Road,
Lymington Road, West End Lane, and Broadhurst
Gardens, most of which lay within the old demesne
estate, were announced in 1963 by the Second
Covent Garden Property Co., with Hampstead
council as the comprehensive development authority. The existing railway lines and warehouses were
to continue, alongside private and council flats to
house 6,000. (fn. 40) In 1987 the original shabby Finchley
Road frontage remained but a new stone-clad L.E.B.
building replaced the old power station in 1975 (fn. 41) and
in the late 1970s Norfolk Mansions was built in
Lithos Road and a housing estate of red-brick terraces grouped around new roads, Dresden Close and
Wedgwood Walk, was built south of Lymington
Road. (fn. 43) The death of Sir Percy Maryon-Wilson in
1965 provoked political conflict when freeholds of
the area to the south, between Broadhurst and Fairhazel Gardens and Goldhurst Terrace, became available. Camden L.B.'s wish to buy them, supported
by a tenants' association, was twice vetoed by the
government, and in 1972 they were sold to Bryston
Property Group. (fn. 43)
At the southern end of Fitzjohn's Avenue, St.
Thomas More church was built in 1953, next to nos.
3-7, Holy Cross convent. (fn. 44) No. 6 was demolished c.
1965 and, with Marie Curie hospital's laboratories,
was replaced by the Tavistock clinic, while the
hospital, at the corner with Akenside Road, was replaced in 1969 by flats built for the Medical Research
Council. (fn. 45)
Most of the private, and expensive, modern rebuilding has been in the northern part. Michael
Lyell's design in the early 1960s of five sevenstoreyed blocks containing 65 'luxury' flats on the
Oak Hill Park estate, which replaced the 19thcentury houses, won a Civic Trust award. (fn. 46) Oak
Tree House in Redington Gardens had, by the 1980s,
been converted to council flats. (fn. 47) In 1984 some 26
detached houses, designed by Ted Levy Benjamin,
were built by Barratt in Grange Gardens on the site
of the Grange. (fn. 48) Beaumont Gardens, neo-Georgian
houses, also off West Heath Road, were built at the
same time by Sutherland Paris Developments for a
mainly foreign market. (fn. 49) In 1985-6 48 houses and
flats, designed by Bickerdike Allen Simovic, were
built on the site of Spedan Tower. (fn. 50) In 1987 the
future of no. 9 West Heath Road, a 'strange and
obsessive building', built in 1963 by James Gowan
for Chaim Schreiber (d. 1983) of the furniture firm,
was in doubt. (fn. 51) Elsewhere conversions of large
houses to flats continued, the Fairhazel Gardens area
being noted for the number of young, professional,
and often single people who moved in during the
1970s. (fn. 52)
The central area, lacking large council estates, has
undergone less change than some other parts of
Hampstead. It continued to attract those involved
in the arts, like Kathleen Ferrier (1912-53), the contralto, at Frognal Mansions, no. 97 Frognal, from
1942, Dennis Brain (1921-57), the horn player, at
no. 37 Frognal, and Tamara Karsavina Diaghilev,
the ballerina, at no. 108 Frognal in the 1950s, E. V.
Knox (1881-1971), the editor of Punch, at no. 110
Frognal from 1945, (fn. 53) Hesketh Pearson, the biographer, at no. 14 Priory Road from 1950 to 1956, (fn. 54)
and several more recent writers. No. 3 Oakhill
Avenue, the home of the singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge, was in 1960 the
headquarters of the Philharmonia Orchestra. (fn. 55) Anton
Walbrook, the actor, died at no. 69 Frognal in
1967 (fn. 56) and Peggy Ashcroft, the actress, had in 1987
lived at Manor Lodge in Frognal Lane since the
1950s. (fn. 57) Politicians included Hugh Gaitskell (1906-
63), who lived at no. 10 Frognal in the 1940s and as
Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950, and Henry
Brooke, Hampstead's M.P. and Home Secretary
(later Baron Brooke of Cumnor) who lived at no. 45
Redington Road 1962-4. Sir Bernard Spilsbury
(1877-1947), the pathologist, died at no. 20 Frognal
and Melanie Klein (1882-1960), the Viennese-born
psychoanalyst, lived her last years at no. 16 Bracknell Gardens. (fn. 58) She exemplified the European connexion established in the 1930s, which contributed
so much to the atmosphere described by John
Mortimer, the barrister and author, who lived in
Swiss Cottage in the 1950s and 1960s: 'a sort of late
Viennese melancholy, promoted by the large number
of middle-aged refugees who sat drinking Kaffee mit
Schlag in the Finchley Road tea-rooms . . . On
summer evenings the crumbling terraces would
come to life with the sound of exiled string quartets'. (fn. 59) In 1975 Compayne Gardens was 'distinctly
cosmopolitan', with a Polish Jewish ex-serviceman's
association at no. 71A and Maccabi House, a former
Russian embassy, at no. 73. (fn. 60) No. 12A Greenaway
Gardens was sold for use by the high commissioner
of Trinidad and Tobago in 1970 and many houses
in Templewood Avenue and Gardens had become
ambassadorial residences about the same time. (fn. 61)
The Sun House in Frognal Way belonged to the
Indian high commission in the 1980s, when the high
price of property increased the cosmopolitan character of the area, many wealthy residents coming from
America, the Middle East, Africa, or Europe. (fn. 62)