Behind the hospital is a Roman Catholic chapel, in which Mary Anderson was married. This was built in 1816, and the founder was the Abbé Morel. The front is stuccoed, and in a niche there is a group of Virgin and Child. Close by a stone slab bears the name "Holly Place, 1816."
St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Orphanage occupies No.'s 1, 2, 3, Holly Place. To the west are big National schools and playgrounds, and a curving hill called Hollybush Vale runs into the modern part of Heath Street. On the west of Heath Street are Oriel Place and Church Lane. At the corner of the latter is the Sailors' Orphan Girls' Home. This is a big formal building, with none of the architectural beauty which marks the sister establishment on Rosslyn Hill. The institution, however, claims an older date, having been founded in 1829. The present building was opened in 1869 by the Duke of Edinburgh. The girls are kept from six to sixteen years of age and trained for domestic service. Their uniform is the naval colour, dark blue. This road, running past the building formerly called Greenhill, is now merged into Fitz John's Avenue.
Church Row is almost entirely old, one of the most lovable and quiet parts of the parish—houses of brick with flat-sashed windows, projecting porches with carved brackets, here and there red tiles, here and there a bower of jasmine and ivy. One house covered with rusticated woodwork projects above the ground-floor in a bay carried up to the roof.
Dr. Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul's, and a great theological and controversial writer in the reigns of William III. and Anne, and Dr. Arbuthnot were former residents in the Row, and the great Dr. Johnson stayed at Frognal Park in the vicinity. Mrs. Barbauld (see p. [25]) and Miss Aikin are also to be numbered among the residents. There is an industrial school for girls, and at the western end of the Row the parish church (St. John the Evangelist) rears its tower beyond a line of small lime-trees. The place has, however, recently been disfigured by high mansions.
The parish of Hampstead was originally included in that of Hendon. The churchwardens of Hampstead first appeared at the Bishop's visitation in 1598, which therefore marks the beginning of an actual parochial settlement, though the register commences in 1560, nearly forty years earlier. Until 1561 it was considered as a donative or free chapel, and after that date it became a perpetual curacy, subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop and the Archdeacon.
The first church or chapel, which stood on the same site as the present one, must have been a curious little structure, if one may judge from the illustrations still extant—a low-pitched Gothic building with wooden belfry. This was dedicated to St. Mary, and the date of its origin is unknown. In 1745 it was taken down, and services were held in the chapel in Well Walk for two years, while the new church was being built. The building itself is of a kind of dingy earth-brick, which, in spite of the conspicuous date, 1745, at the east end, looks as fresh and sharp-edged as if it were of yesterday. The body of the church is mercifully clothed in ivy, but the square tower, with its abnormal battlements and stone courses and facings, rises up nakedly. The peculiarity of the church is that the tower is at the east end. The conical copper spire was added in 1784. An old clock-dial of stone faces eastward.
To raise funds for the building of the church a plan was formed by which those who gave £50 were to have first choice of seats, and to have the additional privilege of handing on such seats to their heirs. This arrangement continued until 1827. Besides many minor alterations and improvements, a thorough rearrangement of the interior took place in 1878. Then a chancel was added at the west end, and thus we have beneath it the open-arched vaults which form its support. The old pews were done away with, and the interior redecorated. The reredos is of mosaic work. The font is of Siena marble "with moulded bases and carved Ionic capitals of white statuary." The general scheme of decoration is of a free Renaissance colour. The restoration cost £14,000. The ceiling is very elaborately decorated, and in a side chapel is a large fresco painting. The choir is ornamented by beautiful inlaid wood, in the same style as the font cover. There is an excellent bust of Keats, presented by American admirers in 1894.
The churchyard is a peculiarly peaceful spot, surrounded by trees, beeches, acacia, and evergreens. There are no abnormal monstrosities such as are found among the tombstones of our big cemeteries, but plain altar-tombs, crosses, and upright slabs of stone. The main entrance is by flagged walks between neatly-trimmed hedges, and from this foreground even the church looks almost picturesque.
The tomb of John Constable the artist, his wife, and some of his children, is in a shaded corner in the south-east. Joanna Baillie is buried here, and Lucy Aikin, also Lord Erskine, and many minor artists. The churchyard was enlarged in 1738, and in 1811 an additional ground was formed on the north side of the road. Here, though it is very peaceful, there is not the same charm as there is about the older ground. Mrs. Rundle Charles, author of "The Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family," rests here, with a plain Iona marble cross bearing date 1896, as her memorial.
The more important of the parish charities are: