Mr. Walter Rye, the well-known Norfolk antiquary, and present proprietor of Frognal House, strongly supports Park’s view of the origin of the name, of which there are many examples in various parts of the country.
Frognal is situated on the demesne land, which formerly extended from Child’s Hill, north, to Belsize, south, the site of the old church, or, rather, chapel, of St. Mary,[74] and that of the ancient manor-house, clearly indicating the portion of the manor first peopled.[75]
At Frognal Rise the ground is level with Mount Vernon, but it gradually descends, till at the ruined house (no longer standing) known in my time as Frognal Priory it is nearly flat. Like every other part of Hampstead, Frognal has its reminiscences. At the beginning of this century there was still standing on the rise of the hill, where a high wall (said to have been part of it) skirted a narrow lane leading up to Mount Vernon, a remarkable old brick mansion, of the origin or owners of which neither Lysons nor Park gives any account. It is picturesque, with two high pointed gables, mullioned windows, connected by a balustraded gallery, deep bays and dormers on the roof. Park, in his ‘History of Hampstead,’ gives an engraving of it, taken in 1814, from a picture by William Alexander, painted in 1801. For some cause or other, the fine old fabric had suffered neglect, and some time prior to 1725 was let in apartments. It occupied a beautiful situation, and here, amongst other lodgers, Colley Cibber and his theatrical friends, Booth and Wilks, were frequent visitors in summer.
Subsequently the lease was purchased by the parochial authorities of Hampstead, and the fine old house was converted to the uses of the village poor-house. It seems to have served this purpose till 1800, when it had become so decayed and ruinous, and so prejudicial to the health and comfort of the inmates, that the minister[76] and parishioners, with Josiah Boydell at their head,[77] petitioned Parliament for leave to bring in a Bill to build, or provide, a new workhouse. The Bill was granted the following May, and the mansion belonging to Mrs. Leggett at New End being to be sold, it was purchased, and there is lying before me the printed specification of the alterations required to fit it for its present occupation.
From this period the old house at Frognal fell into desuetude and decay—an interesting object to the antiquary and the delight of artists, but daily becoming more dangerous to the public, on which account it was taken down a few years before Park published the first edition of his history (1813). White, of Fleet Street, published an engraving of it in 1814.
The first house on the west side of the churchyard is Frognal Hall, formerly in the occupation of a very remarkable man, Mr. Isaac Ware, who, by his genius and self-education, aided by Lord Burlington, raised himself from the humble position of chimney-sweep to that of an eminent architect. He was the author, Park tells us, of a correct and valuable edition of Palladio’s ‘Architecture,’ which, self-taught, he had translated from the Italian, and had also engraved the plates after tracings taken from the original work. He afterwards translated Lorenzo Sarigatti’s ‘Perspective,’ and brought out an accurate edition of Palladio’s first five books on the Five Orders, which was then considered the standard of the English School, and was himself the author of a ‘Complete Body of Architecture.’ He was of His Majesty’s Board of Works. Truly a remarkable man;[78] but there was a flaw somewhere, for, with all his talent and success in his career, he died in distressed circumstances at his house in Kensington Gravel Pits.
Frognal Hall subsequently became the residence of the Guyons, a French family of eminent merchants. ‘Stephen Guyon, Esq.,’ so says the slab in the churchyard, ‘ob. Dec. 5th, 1779, æt. 73; and Henry Guyon, Esq., ob. May 15th, 1790.’ The house was sold on the death of Stephen Guyon. Another member of the family continued to reside at Hampstead till his death (May, 1806).[79]
After having had one or two other tenants, it was occupied by Lord Alvanley, ‘Richard Pepper Ardennes, Esq., a descendant of the ancient family of the Ardennes of Cheshire, who successively held the high offices of Solicitor and Attorney General, Chief Justice of Chester, Master of the Rolls, and Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and was finally raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Alvanley.’ He died at Hampstead, March 19, 1804,[80] and was buried in the Rolls Chapel,[81] now ruthlessly destroyed.
Lady Alvanley continued to reside at Frognal Hall for some years subsequently.
Lord Alvanley was as remarkable for the smallness of his stature as for the importance of the offices he had arrived at. As a gentleman of the long robe, he made a frequent subject for the caricaturists and the paragraph-writers of the day. He appears to have been a kind man as well as a clever lawyer, with a sense of humour that did not take offence at being the cause of it in others.