Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 5, Vol. I, February 2, 1884

No. 5.—Vol. I.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1884.
Hampstead Heath! What a world of delight seemed concentrated in that name in the days of childhood, when donkey-riding was not yet too undignified an amusement, and a gallop ‘cross country’ through the bracken and furze struck terror into the heart of nurse or parent, and covered the rider with glory! Such feats of horsemanship now belong to the irrevocable past; but yet no part of the great ‘province of houses’ known as London brings such pleasant memories as the quaint old village on its northern outskirts and the wild breezy heath that bounds it. Even now, Hampstead is rather in London, than of it, and keeps up customs that have died out elsewhere. There, on the fifth of November, a gallant procession takes its way through its steep winding streets, and the centuries mingle with as little regard to accuracy as they might do in a schoolboy’s dream the night before an examination in history. Gallant Crusaders in chain-mail, with the red cross embroidered on their flowing white mantles, jostle very nineteenth-century Guardsmen, who in their turn seem to feel no surprise at seeing Charles I. in velvet doublet and lace collar talking amicably to a motley, spangled harlequin. But were the inhabitants in this their yearly carnival to picture the history of their village and of the notable personages who have lived in it, they might make a pageant as long and varied as any that imagination can invent.
The manor of Hampstead was given by Edward the Confessor to the monks of Westminster; and subsequent monarchs conferred on them the neighbouring manors of Belsize and Hendon. It was at Hendon Manor-house that Cardinal Wolsey made his first halt when journeying from Richmond to York after his disgrace. At that time, however, Hampstead itself had no great claim to notice, its inhabitants being, we are told, chiefly washerwomen, whose services were in great demand among the inhabitants of London. That this peaceful if humble occupation could be carried on, proves at least that the wolves which, according to Dame Juliana Berners’s Boke of St Albans , abounded among the northern heights of London in the fifteenth century, had been exterminated by the end of the sixteenth. The wild-boar lingered longer; and so late as 1772, we hear of the hunting of a deer in Belsize Park. This, however, can scarcely be regarded as genuine sport, as it is advertised to take place among other amusements intended to allure visitors to Belsize House, which had been opened as a pleasure-house by an energetic individual of the name of Howell. He describes in his advertisement all the attractions of the place, and promises for the protection of visitors that ‘twelve stout fellows completely armed will patrol between Belsize and London.’