In quite recent times Mr. Le Breton, who had married a grand-niece of Mrs. Barbauld’s, and to whom the inhabitants of Hampstead are indebted for the preservation of the Judges’ Walk, tenanted a house in Church Row, where he died.
In 1895 Miss Harraden, the writer of that well-read story, ‘Ships that Pass in the Night,’ had her summer residence in Church Row.
It will be pleasant for future chronologists of Hampstead to know that, amongst the many men of genius who have made it their home, Mr. Austin Dobson, best known by his charming Vers de Société, resided here. Beyond occasional verse, he is too little heard of. It is to be regretted, for his lyrics contain some real poetical gems.
In my time this central, yet retired, part of Hampstead, which is close to the busiest streets, and yet entirely secluded from them, continued to be a favourite locality with artists and other professional men. There were symptoms of social decadence towards the end of the fifties in a ‘Home for Servants,’ to which No. 28 was then converted; while two or three other public institutions thrust themselves noticeably forward, ‘as ’tis their nature to.’ Its old traditions of privacy and dignified quiet—there was no public traffic through Church Row; Miss Sullivan’s toll-gate stopped the way—was to be sacrificed, and the character it had maintained for so many years for staid gentility and retirement swept away.
Austin Dobson.
No. 9, next door to Mrs. Barbauld’s old home, had become, before I left the neighbourhood, a Reformatory School for Girls, established in 1861 by Miss Christian Nicoll, under whose admirable superintendence it has done, and is doing, good and useful work. The school is the only Government one of the kind in Middlesex. The young inmates have all been convicted of crime, and are undergoing various terms of detention; but advantage is taken of this period to bring them under the influence of religious teaching free from sectarianism, to instruct them in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and to train them for domestic service. Account has to be rendered to the Home Secretary of the conduct and progress of the girls for four years after they leave, and the result is that from 70 to 80 per cent. are found to do well.
From Church Row you walk straight into the gateway of the prettily-situated parish church of St. John, and in those times the well-kept graveyard.
Until 1745 the ancient chapel, originally dedicated to the Virgin, and appropriated in 1461[66] to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, continued to be the only church at Hampstead. It had been patched up and added to and rendered picturesque by reason of age, irregularity of outline, and ruin, and was in so dangerous a condition, to quote the preamble of the petition to rebuild and enlarge, ‘that the inhabitants could not attend Divine worship without apparent hazard to their lives.’ Moreover, it is further stated ‘that Hampstead being a place of great resort, especially in summer-time, the said church, were it in a repairable condition, would not be sufficient to accommodate one-half of the parishioners and others who are desirous of coming to Divine service there.’
The old church was taken down in the spring of 1745, and the present structure consecrated by Dr. Gilbert, Bishop of Llandaff, October, 1747.[67]