Hampstead and Marylebone

by G. E. Mitton

The High Road at Kilburn, continuing in a straight line into Maida Vale and the Edgware Road, is the old Watling Street of the Romans.

As a street it possesses little interest. Lines of modern red-brick buildings with shops on the ground-floor form the main part of it, and further south the shops are smaller, the buildings more irregular.

In the remainder of the ward pleasant rows of moderate-sized houses with small trees growing before them form the majority of the streets.

In Priory Road is St. Mary's Church, a fine stone edifice in the Gothic style, dating from 1857. Behind this are open fields, rapidly being encroached upon by the builder.

In Quex Road there is a large Wesleyan chapel with a big portico, close by a Roman Catholic church with high-pitched roof, which instantly recalls the Carmelite Church at Kensington; the architect was the same, Pugin. It was built in 1878, and inside is lofty and light, with polished gray granite pillars supporting the roof.

A slight account of the Manor of Belsize has been given above (see p. [2]). The manor-house stood about the site of the present church, St. Peter's, and Rocque's map of 1745 shows it in the middle of very extensive grounds surrounded by fields. In the beginning of the eighteenth century the house was a place of public entertainment. In some newspaper cuttings from the Daily Post, date 1720, we read that the "ancient and noble house" had been fitted up for the entertainment of ladies and gentlemen during the whole summer season, and was to be opened with "uncommon Solemnity of Dancing and Music." Among the entertainments mentioned are the Park, Bowling Green, and Fish Ponds. The latter were stored with the "best of Carp and other Fish," and the company might amuse themselves by angling or catching them with nets, when they should be "dressed to perfection." We hear also that the Park was well stocked with deer, and in August, 1721, a notice was issued. "Besides the usual Diversions, there is to be a wild Fox Hunted To Morrow, the 1st inst., to begin at four a clock." One hundred coaches could stand in the square of the house, if we may trust the advertiser, and "Twelve men will continue to guard the Road every night till the last of the Company are gone." There was a satirical poem called "Belsize House," published in 1722, showing that the house had earned a bad reputation. Belsize Avenue, Park Gardens, and Buckland Crescent are all built over the property. There is a tradition that the house was the private residence of the Right Hon. Sir Spencer Perceval, when it ceased to be a place of amusement in 1745. In 1841 the place was demolished, and the site transformed as we now see it.

Belsize Lane is very old, being marked between hedges in Rocque's 1745 map, and shown as leading to the grounds of the manor-house. Baines says that about 1839 "Belsize Lane was long, narrow, and lonesome; midway in it was a very small farm, and near thereto the owner of Belsize House erected a turnpike gate to demonstrate his rights of possession."

The lane at present boasts a few shops and modern red-brick houses, but it is greatly bounded by high garden walls, and the gardens reaching from the backs of the houses in Belsize Avenue.

Belsize Avenue is a park-like road, from which on the south side stretch the meadows of Belsize Park. Large elm-trees of great age throw shade across the road, and seats afford rest to those climbing the ascent to Haverstock Hill. Up to 1835 a five-barred gate closed the east-end and made the road private.

In Belsize Square stands the Church of St. Peter, with a square pinnacled tower. This was consecrated in 1859, and the chancel added some seventeen years later. It is in the decorated style of Gothic, and has a row of picturesque gable-ends lining the north-east side.