‘On the left of the three-mile stone from St. Giles’s Pound, Pryor, Esq.’ (a name retained in the ‘Pryors,’ the present home of Walter Field, Esq.), ‘whose family have been for some time resident at Hampstead.’ ‘A little further on Belsize House, William Everett, Esq., and C. Todd, Esq., nearly opposite to which is T. Cartright, Esq. Farther on the left Roberts, Esq., and Coke, Esq. An eighth of a mile on the left, Rosslyn House, Mrs. Milligen. On the top of Red Lion Hill, to the right, is T. Gardner, Esq.; opposite is Pilgrim, Esq., adjoining to which is Mrs. Key. On the entrance to the Heath, T. Sheppard, Esq., M.P. for Frome’ (who resided in Steevens’ old house, now the home of the Misses Lister); and ‘across the Heath, S. Hoare, Esq., and a distant view of Caen Wood, with the seats of Charles Bosanquet, Esq., and Lord Erskine.’
He does not mention Edward Coxe, the poet, who was their neighbour the preceding year. ‘On the right is Caen Wood, Earl of Mansfield, and near it Fitzroy Farm, Lord Southampton. Between the Castle (Jack Straw’s) and North End, on the left, Kerney, Esq.; adjoining Ware, Esq., and opposite S. Hoare junior, Esq., Hill House, and James Kesteven, Esq. On the right Robert Ward, Esq., and opposite John Thompson, Esq., The Priory; and beyond the Hoop on Golder’s Green are seats of Henry Woodthorpe, Esq., Beck, Esq., and Amand, Esq.’
Abrahams tells us that in 1811 Church Street (as he calls it) had 25 residences; Flask Walk, 58; New End, 59; the Well Walk and thereabouts, 39; the Square, 20; part of the Heath, 20; the Terrace, 58; Nag’s Head side, 74; the Heath and North End, 38; Heath Street is not mentioned.
In this year it is stated in the Lady’s Magazine:
‘We hear that it is in contemplation to form a new Ranelagh and Vauxhall near Chalk Farm, and a contract has been entered into for forty acres of land to be appropriated to that purpose.’
New Georgia had long gone to increase Lord Mansfield’s demesne and the acreage of Caen Wood. North End Hall and Well had proved a failure; but the people of Hampstead and its neighbourhood still hankered after the flesh-pots of Egypt, and regretted the affluent days of the Wells fashion, and the bankruptcy of Belsize. Nothing, however, appears to have come of the idea, and long years passed before the beautiful meadows in the neighbourhood of Chalk Farm disappeared.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HEATH.
As early as 1829 we find the freeholders and copyholders of the Manor of Hampstead meeting at the Assembly Rooms on Holly-bush Hill, to discuss the best means to prevent further damage being done to the Heath, by destruction of the herbage, and digging sand and gravel thereon, as well as to inaugurate a subscription to try by law the right of the Lord of the Manor to so disturb and destroy it, or to build on or enclose any part of it.
Even prior to this date there seems to have subsisted an ill-feeling between the inhabitants of Hampstead and Sir Thomas Wilson. The copyholders claimed the right to improve their own copyholds by building on them, or otherwise, as also to get materials for such purposes off their own land, or from the waste. This matter had been tried between Lady Wilson and Sir Francis Willes, and had gone against the latter, because his removing the herbage had been detrimental to the rights of the other copyholders, who on certain parts of the Heath had a right to turn in their cattle, levant et couchant. Yet from the beginning of the century, as we have seen, the digging of sand and gravel for the benefit of Lady Wilson, and subsequently for the Lord of the Manor, had been going on without stint, and with scarcely any intermission, though in doing so (to quote the phrase of Professor Vaughan of Oxford, a resident near the Heath) they were carting away the climate and the drainage, and therefore the health of the neighbourhood, which depended on the sand and gravel.