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West Hampstead | |
Tufnell Park |
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Hampstead Garden Suburb | |
Camden Town |
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Muswell Hill | |
Kentish Town |
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Crouch End | |
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Hampstead Garden Suburb
‘The Suburb’, as it is affectionately known, is unique in London for having been built from the beginning to a strategic plan designed to make it a very pleasant place to live – and it remains so to this day.
History
Hampstead Garden Suburb was the visionary idea of a well-known philanthropist, Dame Henrietta Barnet, who wanted to create a model environment at the start of the 20th century. She acquired a local farm and some more land adjoining the extension of Hampstead Heath which slopes down north west from Jack Straw’s Castle and then set planners and architects to work to create a village within a city. It was to be green, thoughtfully laid-out and respectful of the land’s existing contours. For the most part, traffic would pass it by (little, probably, did the good Dame realise what a boon that would be almost a century later!). People from all walks of life would happily co-exist together, from artisans to intellectuals to what we would today call the mega-rich.
Two men who had designed the much admired Letchworth Garden City, Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, were engaged to draw up the master-plan. It was decided that houses should be built in the vernacular style. There should be no fences only hedges. The great majority of homes should have a garden. There were to be tree-lined avenues, off which many a close and cul-de-sac would be created to make quiet secluded spaces.
Some of the great names in architecture were given commissions, most notably Sir Edward Lutyens, architect of New Delhi in India and many a grand English country home. Lutyens himself designed the Suburb’s Central Square which, as the name implies, was at the centre of the first great phase of development in the Edwardian years up to the First World War.
Grand houses for wealthy people were built in the south alongside the Heath, villas for the middle classes to the west, and apartments and cottages for artisans in the north. As each property was completed Dame Henrietta gave the new owners a fruit tree for the garden – many of which continue to flourish today.
Dame Henrietta’s original vision was only partly completed by the time the First World War erupted and changed everything. After that, the ideal of a mixed community was diluted and the Suburb became a largely middle and upper middle class enclave, with subsequent building never quite as good as in the first phase.
‘The Suburb’ remains a wonderfully unspoilt and very pleasant place to live today, its appearance and character preserved by strict planning laws, green, tranquil, and virtually free of traffic jams. It even has its own open-air theatre, one of the few in Britain. As you might guess, after such beginnings, and with such a lay-out, it has always had one of the strongest community spirits in London.
Location
It abuts Hampstead Heath while Hampstead Village is only a short drive away. To the west is Golders Green with a collection of bars, cafes, shops and a handful of restaurants. Kenwood House, a magnificent 18th century building to the north of the Heath, now maintained by English Heritage, houses the Iveagh Bequest, the most important private collection of paintings ever given to the nation, which includes some superb Vermeers, Van Dycks and Rembrandts. (The House also has beautiful grounds open to the public and stages open-air events in the summer). The Brent Cross shopping precinct, with dozens of stores from household names to smaller specialist shops, is a short distance away to the west.
Property in the area
While most of the housing remains Victorian there are quite a lot of modern houses, many built in the spaces created by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War as their bombs missed the railway terminals and main lines which pass through neighbouring areas.
Primrose Hill therefore now offers a wonderful mix of housing along broad and sweeping streets and around pretty squares. Being a conservation area, new development is strictly controlled.
The residents
It is popular with people from abroad, captains of industry senior managers from many walks of life, and many a professional family.
Transport
The area has no underground or overland railways. Access to different branches of the Northern Line on the Underground at Golders Green and East Finchley is provided by a frequent local bus service.
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