Hendon: Growth before 1850

Growth before 1850.

There is no firm evidence of pre-Roman settlement in the parish, which has yielded many Romano-British finds. (fn. 1) Hendon was first mentioned in a charter purporting to date from 972-8, (fn. 2) by which time a settlement had presumably grown up at Church End, on a well-watered eminence (fn. 3) where the parish church, with its Norman font, is situated. The same charter mentions land in the north of the parish called Lotheresleage, (fn. 4) whose name had disappeared by the end of the Middle Ages, as had that of Blechenham, an estate to the south which was first mentioned in a charter reputedly dating from 959. (fn. 5) In 1321 trees still covered many slopes. There were woods called Highpark and Downage, the latter near Church End, (fn. 6) while Cricklewood and Highwood Hill, first recorded then, gave their names to later hamlets. (fn. 7) The survival of some early-14th-century names in those of later fields (fn. 8) indicates that the common fields lay north of Church End. Parts of the parish may never have had a common-field system; the presence of large areas of woodland in the 16th century, both in compact 'groves' and in hedgerows, suggests that small fields were assarted in the south. (fn. 9)

Most of the cultivated land seems to have been inclosed by 1574, when there were common fields called Sheveshill, Shoelands, Dinge, and Forty near the Hale. (fn. 10) The last to survive was Sheveshill, near the site of Burnt Oak Underground station, which disappeared between 1828 (fn. 11) and 1843. (fn. 12) There were no large commons or heaths, although in 1754 manorial waste at Golders Green stretched for some distance on either side of the main road from Hampstead; (fn. 13) the name, apparently derived from that of a local family, the Goodyers, was first recorded in 1612. (fn. 14) In 1754 there were also greens at Lower Hale and at Gibbs Green near by; at Holcombe Hill, Mill Hill, and Drivers Hill; near Burton Hole farm; at the Hyde; at Temple Fortune; in Cricklewood Lane (Cowhouse Green); and at Golders Hill. (fn. 15) As early as 1711 the lord's quit-rents were increasing each year through new admissions to the waste (fn. 16) and by the early 19th century the amount of common land had declined considerably, (fn. 17) while Golders Green was inclosed for villas. As a result animals were often grazed on the roads and in 1835 they broke down the fences at Clitterhouse. (fn. 18) An attempt in 1878 to sell Brent Green, the last piece of manorial waste in southern Hendon, was defeated by local residents, and the land was bought by the parish as an open space. (fn. 19)

Most of the early inhabitants lived in hamlets on the gravel-topped hills. Until the late 19th century the low-lying and poorly drained western part of the parish contained little but isolated farm-houses. (fn. 20) There were two small settlements on Edgware Road: the Hyde, recorded in 1281, (fn. 21) and Cricklewood, mentioned in 1294. (fn. 22) The Hale, in the northwest corner (healh) of the parish, was an element in a personal name in 1294. (fn. 23) The Burroughs, named after the hill on which it stands, was recorded in 1316, (fn. 24) Highwood Hill in 1321, (fn. 25) Mill Hill in 1374, (fn. 26) and Childs Hill in 1593. (fn. 27) The hamlet of Golders Green originated, like Mill Hill and the Hyde, as a group of cottages on waste ground on each side of a main road; Brent Street, recorded in 1613, was similarly situated. (fn. 28) There was an inn c. 1274 (fn. 29) but its location is unknown.

Hendon's proximity to London made it a favoured site for country houses, although few that were built before the 18th century have survived. The abbots of Westminster had a house there by 1285. (fn. 30) John Norden (1548-1625), the topographer, who is believed to have lived at Hendon House, Brent Street, (fn. 31) said that Sir John Fortescue (d. 1607), Chancellor of the Exchequer, often stayed at Hendon Place, the Herberts' manor-house. (fn. 32) Hendon House, Brent Street, a gabled building probably of the 16th century, had 16 hearths in 1664. (fn. 33) It was the residence of Sir William Rawlinson (1640- 1703), a Commissioner of the Great Seal, from 1691 (fn. 34) and afterwards of his daughter, whose second husband was Giles Earle (?1678-1759), the politician. (fn. 35) The house was rebuilt in the early 19th century and demolished in 1909. (fn. 36) Copt Hall, Page Street, was rebuilt between 1624 and 1637, as the seat of a branch of the Nicholl (Nicoll) family, and a building of similar date at Mill Hill may have been Cookes farm-house, which also belonged to the Nicholls. (fn. 37) Several other farm-houses were rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries. The sole survival is Church Farm House, Church End, a gabled brick building dating probably from the early 17th century and one of the most complete examples of Middlesex vernacular architecture of its time. It was bought by Hendon U.D. in 1944 and restored in 1954 for use as a local history museum. (fn. 38) Farm-houses of similar date included Dole Street, a weatherboarded building demolished in 1937, (fn. 39) and Clitterhouse. (fn. 40)

In 1754 the chief hamlets in the north part were the Hale, Highwood Hill, and Mill Hill, the smallest being the Hale. At Lower Hale, on the Edgware border, there were no more than six houses, (fn. 41) of which the most prominent was Lower Hale or Hale Grove farm-house, a substantial building with an early-18th-century frontage which survived into the early 20th century (fn. 42) and may have been a capital messuage belonging to Edward Nicholl in 1732. (fn. 43) Upper Hale, a short distance to the south-east, was a larger collection of buildings at the junction of Deans, Hale, and Selvage lanes; it included Hale farm-house and the Green Man, which was first recorded in 1751. (fn. 44) The Hale remained a distinct hamlet until the 1920s. (fn. 45) The largest farm-houses near by were Stoneyfields, Shakerham, Goldbeaters, Bunns, and Coventry. All had disappeared by 1970, except for some of the Coventry farm buildings, which formed part of Mill Hill golf club.

In contrast to the Hale, a purely agricultural community, the Mill Hill ridge was occupied by fashionable houses, many of them built for London merchants. By 1814 Mill Hill was a considerable village and, like Highwood Hill, boasted many 'respectable family residences' in extensive grounds. (fn. 46) Some of the houses, like Littleberries and Ridgeway House, had been built in the 17th and early 18th centuries but most of them dated from c. 1800, when the area's popularity reached a peak, on account of its woods, its views, and its proximity to London. (fn. 47) The first notable resident was Rachel, Lady Russell (1636-1723), a friend of Queen Anne, who lived on or near the site of the later Highwood House, after the execution of her husband William, Lord Russell, in 1683. (fn. 48) Another well-known early resident was the actress Mary Porter (d. 1765), who moved to Highwood Hill after her retirement in 1745. (fn. 49)

The survival of several large houses at Mill Hill has helped to preserve an opulent and spacious air. At Highwood Hill the largest is Highwood House, a classical building of brick and stucco, with slightly projecting wings and a semicircular Ionic porch. It was built shortly before 1817 for William Anderson, (fn. 50) bought by Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, in 1825, and inhabited by his widow from 1826 until 1858. (fn. 51) In 1954 it was restored for use as a nursing home. (fn. 52) The grounds contained Lady Russell's well, whose water was compared favourably in 1807 with that issuing from the Cheltenham springs. (fn. 53) To the east, at the other side of Nan Clarke's Lane, Hendon Park stood with an adjoining farm-house in 1756. (fn. 54) To its north-west the site of an old earthwork, described in 1756 as a proper place to build on, had been levelled to make way for a farm-house by 1764 (fn. 55) and replaced by Moat Mount House by 1796. (fn. 56) The only other large house north of Highwood Hill was Hyver Hall, in existence by 1863. (fn. 57) Two smaller late-18th- or early-19th-century villas survived in 1970: Highwood Ash, a stuccoed house which contains parts of a timber-framed building, and Highwood Lodge, with bargeboarded gables, Tudor windows, and a battlemented wing. They stood, with some cottages, around the junction of Marsh Lane and the road leading to the Ridgeway. Of the two inns at Highwood Hill licensed in 1751 (fn. 58) the Rising Sun survived, much rebuilt, in 1970 but the Three Crowns, an 18thcentury bow-fronted building, had been demolished in 1937. (fn. 59)

South of Highwood Hill lies Holcombe Hill, where a forge, mentioned in 1839, (fn. 60) and some weatherboarded cottages form a group at the northern end of Lawrence Street. The Plough, a small weatherboarded inn which existed in 1751, (fn. 61) was demolished in 1931. (fn. 62) A large green at Holcombe Hill in 1754 (fn. 63) disappeared, like much of the waste on either side of the Ridgeway, between 1754 and 1828. (fn. 64) Of the two farms at the foot of Lawrence Street, mentioned in 1796, (fn. 65) Uphill, an early-19thcentury building, was demolished in 1931 (fn. 66) but Lawrence Street farm-house, a large red-brick building of the early 18th century, survives among the semi-detached villas of Goodwyn Avenue.

On the Ridgeway itself Holcombe Hill marked the beginning of a line of buildings which by 1754, (fn. 67) stretched intermittently on either side of the road for about a mile to Drivers Hill. The area became known as Mill Hill village, to distinguish it from the 20th-century suburb called Mill Hill Broadway. (fn. 68) South-east of Holcombe Hill is Holcombe House, a stuccoed villa designed in 1775 by John Johnson for John William Anderson (d. 1813), afterwards Lord Mayor of London and a baronet. The interior contains some elaborate late-18th-century plaster work and a staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade. A domed Grecian temple in the grounds was demolished soon after the Second World War. (fn. 69) In 1970 Holcombe House was surrounded by the buildings of St. Mary's abbey, of which it had formed a part since 1881. (fn. 70) Almost opposite, on the north-east side of the Ridgeway, stood the late-18thcentury Belmont House. (fn. 71) To the south-east Ridgeway House, an early-18th-century building, (fn. 72) was the home in 1754 of Peter Collinson (1694- 1768), naturalist and antiquary, (fn. 73) and c. 1802 of the botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury (1761-1829). (fn. 74) It was taken over by Mill Hill school on its formation in 1807 but was demolished in 1825, although the garden, visited by Linnaeus, survived for another ten years. (fn. 75) In 1970 a wall-plaque marked the site of the house.

The site of Ridgeway House is occupied by the main block of Mill Hill school, which was built in 1825-7 to the designs of William Tite. (fn. 76) The twostoreyed building presents a severe aspect to the Ridgeway but the main front, facing south across playing fields, has a bold Ionic portico. The sanatorium, a plain gabled building designed by T. Roger Smith, was built c. 1877. Further additions to the school were made at the end of the 19th century: the red-brick chapel in the basilican style was built to the designs of Basil Champneys in 1898 and a group of buildings including the tuck shop and the Murray scriptorium, named after the lexicographer J. A. H. Murray (d. 1915), a master at the school from 1870 to 1875, (fn. 77) was begun in 1902 to the designs of T. E. Colcutt. The Winterstoke library, adjoining the scriptorium, was built before 1912 to Colcutt's designs (fn. 78) and the McClure music school was designed by Martin Briggs, a native of Mill Hill. (fn. 79) The style of both buildings, with their steeplypitched roofs and mixture of vernacular and classical motifs, resembles that employed at the same time in Hampstead Garden Suburb. (fn. 80) The war memorial gateway on the Ridgeway front was designed by Stanley Hamp, Colcutt's partner, in 1919. (fn. 81) The boarding houses of the school are in Wills Grove, some of them dating from the early 20th century and others, like Hamp's neo-Georgian Burton Bank, (fn. 82) from a later period.

Two large houses stood in 1754 near the junction of the Ridgeway and Milespit Hill. (fn. 83) The Clock House (fn. 84) occupied the site of the residence later known as the Priory, while opposite was Littleberries, a large and plain brick building probably built by George Littlebury, who bought the site in 1691. (fn. 85) A pedimented Ionic temple, with baroque plasterwork inside, was later built in the grounds and alterations and additions to the house were carried out by J. F. Pawson before 1850. (fn. 86) After its purchase by a religious community in 1885 some elaborate fittings were sold (fn. 87) but in 1970 a mid-18thcentury wrought iron staircase and an early plaster ceiling in the Gilt Room remained in situ. Littleberries, like Holcombe House, became surrounded by later buildings. A smaller 18th-century house called Jeanettes occupied an adjacent site until the early 1930s, when it made way for an extension to the convent's vegetable garden. (fn. 88) At the southeastern end of the Ridgeway, at the top of Bittacy Hill, stood Bittacy House, a plain stuccoed villa described as modern in 1828. (fn. 89) It was demolished in 1950 (fn. 90) and replaced by Watchtower House. (fn. 91)

Between the mansions of Mill Hill many smaller villas and groups of cottages survive. One group stands at the corner of Hammers Lane and the Ridgeway, and in Hammers Lane itself there are two stuccoed villas of c. 1800, called West Grove and Sunnyside. The Three Hammers was mentioned in 1751 (fn. 92) but the old weatherboarded building was replaced soon after 1925. (fn. 93) Opposite Belmont there is a pair of brick and weatherboarded cottages, one of them containing a shop and post office. To the east, the King's Head, a three-storeyed brick building (fn. 94) mentioned in 1751, (fn. 95) was demolished in 1949, when the site was incorporated in the playingfields of Belmont school. (fn. 96) Farther east Church Cottages, with St. Paul's church and school, survive from the 1830s. More weatherboarded houses face Mill Hill school and include the Grove, with features of c. 1700, which was restored in 1912 as a residence for masters at the school, (fn. 97) and Rosebank, the meeting-place of late-17th-century Quakers. (fn. 98) A larger cluster of buildings by the village pond and green, where Milespit Hill meets the Ridgeway, includes Nicholl's alms-houses and some modern houses on the site of the Angel, an inn mentioned in 1751. (fn. 99) Shops, cottages, and a Methodist chapel were built north of the pond in the 19th century on an inclosed part of the green. The weatherboarded Adam and Eve stood at the junction of the Ridgeway and Burton Hole Lane in 1751 but was replaced soon after 1915. (fn. 100) It served the small hamlet of Drivers Hill, which consisted in 1754 of a few cottages around a green, all of which have disappeared. Burton Hole Lane, recorded in 1754, (fn. 101) leads downhill from the Ridgeway to Burton Hole farm-house, a small 18th-century weatherboarded building. (fn. 102)

Several small groups of cottages and farm-houses stood on the southern slopes of the Mill Hill ridge. In Page Street, mentioned in 1588, (fn. 103) the cottages which stood near Copt Hall at the junction with Bunns Lane in 1754 (fn. 104) have all disappeared. Among them was Old Goodhews farm-house, a large 18thcentury brick building with a mansard roof, demolished soon after 1928. (fn. 105) At the foot of Bittacy Hill the hamlet of Dollis, mentioned in 1574, (fn. 106) consisted in 1754 (fn. 107) of two groups of farm buildings, together with the Harrow, an inn recorded in 1751 (fn. 108) but converted before 1796 (fn. 109) into a private house. Dollis Farm was demolished in 1932. (fn. 110) Near-by farm-houses in 1754 included the later Dole Street, Elm (or Rose), and Sanders Lane (or Devonshire) farms, all west of Bittacy Hill, while east of the road stood Bittacy, Frith, and Partingdale (Pattengale) farms. The last forms the nucleus of the house in Partingdale Lane known as Partingdale Manor, a substantial brick building, mostly early-19thcentury. Residences south of Mill Hill include Featherstone House, in Wise Lane, a small brick building refronted in the 18th century, and Chase Lodge, formerly Page Street House, of brick and stucco with a projecting Ionic porch, built by 1802. (fn. 111) Arrandene, in Wise Lane, a cottage with bargeboarded gables much altered in the later 19th century, (fn. 112) was probably built soon after 1800.

The high ground in the centre of the parish was occupied by the three hamlets of the Burroughs, Church End, and Brent Street. By 1597 there was a cross-roads at the Burroughs, (fn. 113) where the workhouse and other buildings later stood around a pond at a point where the ground sloped steeply to the south, north, and west. Houses which survived the construction of Watford Way through the crossroads in 1927 were nos. 9-15, an early-18th-century group in brick, no. 42 (Burroughs House), a larger brick building, and early-19th-century terraced cottages stretching along the road towards Church End. The White Bear, mentioned in 1751, (fn. 114) was rebuilt in 1932. (fn. 115) Burroughs Lodge, west of the cross-roads, was gabled and probably once a farmhouse, with early-19th-century alterations; its site is occupied by Richmond Gardens. (fn. 116) Grove House, one of the largest seats in the parish, stood in extensive grounds to the north of the Burroughs by 1753. (fn. 117) It was a stuccoed building, altered in the early 19th century and demolished in 1934, when the grounds became a public park. (fn. 118) Burroughs, or Grove, Farm, also demolished, was a small weatherboarded building at the cross-roads. (fn. 119)

Church End consisted in 1754 (fn. 120) of a cluster of small buildings around St. Mary's church, including Church End Farm (later called Hinge's and the Model Dairy farms), Church Farm, (fn. 121) the weatherboarded Greyhound inn on the site of the old church house, (fn. 122) and several weatherboarded cottages. The hamlet, away from main roads, retains something of its rural character among acres of suburban housing. To the south were Daniel's alms-houses and Ravensfield House, a stuccoed building of c. 1800, which made way for a bus garage in 1912. (fn. 123)

Some substantial houses were built in Parson Street, near Hendon Place and the Vicarage, (fn. 124) in the 18th century. The largest was Hendon Hall, at the corner of Ashley Lane, described as new in 1756. (fn. 125) Its body is a plain brick three-storeyed block with a six-bay front and moulded wooden windowsurrounds; the most notable feature, however, is a massive portico extending the whole height and almost the whole width of the house, with a pediment supported by four Corinthian columns of brick. The portico is said to have been added by Brian Scotney, the occupier in 1796, (fn. 126) and to have been brought from Wanstead House (Essex), sold for demolition in 1823. (fn. 127) The house was altered in the mid-19th century, when the front to Parson Street was given its Renaissance aspect, and refitted for C. F. Hancock, a London jeweller, in 1889. (fn. 128) It was later leased as a school and became a hotel in 1912, receiving large neo-Tudor extensions before the Second World War. (fn. 129) A ceiling painting by Tiepolo, supposedly a study for the painting of Olympia and the Four Continents in the Residenz, Würzburg (Germany), was discovered in 1954 and sold to an American; two other large ceiling paintings, in the drawing room and the red room, by unknown artists, are still in situ. (fn. 130) Hendon Hall is said to have belonged for a time to David Garrick, lord of the manor 1765-79, but there is no evidence that he lived there. (fn. 131) The grounds contained an octagonal brick temple and many other ornaments celebrating his connexion with the theatre. (fn. 132) The only surviving monuments are small obelisks in the hotel courtyard, inscribed with poems in praise of Garrick and Shakespeare, taken from a larger monument which stood until c. 1957 in Manor Hall Road. (fn. 133)

South of Hendon Hall was Downage House, or Downage Wood House, an 18th-century brick building occupied in 1754 by Lady Torrington; (fn. 134) it was altered in the 19th century (fn. 135) and demolished in 1928. (fn. 136) Down House, a neighbouring late-18thcentury stuccoed building, was demolished in 1876. (fn. 137) Parson Street and its northern continuation, Holders Hill, on account of the wooded, undulating countryside, attracted many villas. Among them was Holders Hill House, a cottage orné built to the designs of Robert Lugar before 1811 (fn. 138) and pulled down later in the century. (fn. 139)

South-east of Church End lay a settlement at Brent Street, which in 1754 (fn. 140) stretched south along the road of that name towards the Brent. It was the largest hamlet in the 18th century and retained its identity until the late 19th, when building linked it with Church End and the Burroughs. Brent Street, while lacking the grandeur of Mill Hill, was noted for handsome dwellings, (fn. 141) the largest of which was Hendon House. (fn. 142) Fosters and Brent Lodge were two 18th-century brick houses at the corner of Butchers Lane, later Queen's Road; the first became a Christian Science reading room in 1930 and the second, enlarged in the early 19th century and renamed St. Peter's Ouvroir, was demolished in 1957. (fn. 143) Goodyers, near by, was built in 1774. (fn. 144) At the foot of Brent Street another group of substantial houses included, on the north bank, Brent Bridge House, an 18th-century stuccoed building, later the seat of the Whishaws, part of which survives as the Brent Bridge hotel. Brook Lodge, south of the river, was an 18th-century farm-house converted by Charles Whishaw into a gentleman's residence shortly before 1828 (fn. 145) and demolished in 1935, after serving as an annexe to the hotel. (fn. 146) Among other houses near Brent Bridge in 1754 were those later known as Bridge House, Holmebush, and Decoy House (so named after a decoy on the Brent). (fn. 147) In the lane leading to Renters Farm, Shire Hall was mentioned in 1712, (fn. 148) rebuilt in the Renaissance manner c. 1850, and demolished c. 1920. (fn. 149) Many cottages and shops clustered about the junction of Brent Street and Bell Lane, including the Bell, mentioned in 1751 (fn. 150) and considerably altered by 1970. Villas built between Bell Lane and Parson Street in the early 19th century, (fn. 151) almost linking the hamlet of Brent Street with Church End, have all been demolished.

Two small hamlets lay among rich grassland west of the high ground at the centre of the parish: Colin Deep, by a ford over Silk stream, and the Hyde, on Edgware Road at its junction with Kingsbury Road. The former consisted in 1594 of only four houses (fn. 152) and was always very small. The Hyde, divided between Hendon and Kingsbury, contained about a dozen cottages and farm-houses in 1597. (fn. 153) It had not grown much by the mid 18th century, (fn. 154) but some villas with small gardens were built c. 1800, including Cowleaze House, Rose Cottage, and Hyde Cottage. (fn. 155) In 1863 the Hendon part of the Hyde also contained Hyde, Manor, and Rookery farms. (fn. 156) A weatherboarded ale-house called the George was mentioned in 1756, when it also served as Daniel Weedon's farm-house. (fn. 157) The Hyde was the sole hamlet along Edgware Road between Cricklewood, at the southern extremity of the parish, and Edgware bridge at the north. Two isolated inns stood along the road: the Bowl and Pin near Edgware bridge existed in 1751 (fn. 158) but by 1803 had been replaced by the Bald Faced Stag, farther south, (fn. 159) while the Welsh Harp near Brent bridge, mentioned in 1803, seems to have been the Harp and Horn recorded in 1751. (fn. 160) The Old Welsh Harp, so named to distinguish it from the Upper Welsh Harp built farther north in the 19th century, came to be much frequented by day trippers from London; (fn. 161) it was rebuilt in 1937. (fn. 162) Scattered farm-houses along the Brent valley, away from the main centres of population, included Decoy Farm, demolished in 1935, (fn. 163) Renters Farm, Upper and Lower Guttershedge farms, and Cockmans in the Wood, in Cool Oak Lane, on the Kingsbury border. The last, a farm in 1754, (fn. 164) later became known as Woodfield House; it was occupied from 1852 to 1858 by Passionist fathers and was demolished in 1940. (fn. 165)

The largest hamlet south of the river Brent in 1754 was Childs Hill, where small houses and cottages stood together on the northern slopes of Hampstead Heath. Few wealthy residents lived there, many of the inhabitants being brick-makers. (fn. 166) No inn was recorded before the Castle, mentioned in 1796 (fn. 167) and rebuilt in the late 19th century. After 1828 Finchley Road ran through Childs Hill, intersecting Cricklewood Lane by the Castle inn, where several houses were built in the years before 1850. (fn. 168) Among the very few villas built near by in the early 19th century, the Hermitage, a small house in the Tudor manner on the road to Golders Hill, is the only survivor.

Cricklewood, a small hamlet in the extreme southwest, lay partly in Willesden parish and consisted in 1754 (fn. 169) of a group of farm buildings near the Crown inn at the corner of Edgware Road and the road to Childs Hill. The Crown, mentioned in 1751, (fn. 170) was rebuilt in 1889. Some early-19th-century villas along Edgware Road (fn. 171) included Cricklewood House, the residence before 1798 of William Huntington (1745-1813), Calvinistic divine and author. (fn. 172) Neighbouring farms were Clitterhouse, (fn. 173) to the north, and Cowhouse and Westcroft, south of Cowhouse Green, a stretch of waste near the modern Cricklewood tavern. (fn. 174)

By 1754 there were about 16 houses with small gardens at Golders Green, near the later site of the Underground station, (fn. 175) most of them on small inclosures from the waste. In 1814 Golders Green contained 'many ornamental villas and cottages, surrounded with plantations', (fn. 176) and in 1828 detached houses spread on both sides of the road as far as Brent bridge. (fn. 177) The green, already much attenuated, was finally inclosed in 1873-4. (fn. 178) The villas in their wooded grounds, which gave Golders Green its special character, disappeared rapidly with the growth of suburban housing after the extension of the Underground; they included Alba Lodge, Golders Lodge, Gloucester Lodge, the Oaks, and Grove House. (fn. 179) Woodstock House, an early-19thcentury stuccoed building, served as a dormitory for La Sagesse convent in 1970. (fn. 180) It was formerly known as Rose Cottage and was occupied from 1816 to 1835 by Sir Felix Booth (1775-1850), head of Booth and Co., distillers. (fn. 181) In 1751 there were two inns at Golders Green: the Hoop, commemorated in Hoop Lane, and the White Swan, (fn. 182) much altered by 1970. North-east of Golders Green the hamlet of Temple Fortune grew up after the construction of Finchley Road, when the Royal Oak was built; (fn. 183) some terraces of cottages had appeared near by by 1863. (fn. 184) Temple Fortune was a solitary farm-house when first mentioned in 1754; it stood at the intersection of two minor roads, by a small green which itself had disappeared by 1863. (fn. 185)

South of Golders Green, where Hodford Farm once stood, the Hampstead road, later North End Road, rose to Golders Hill, a hamlet bestriding the boundary. (fn. 186) In 1754 (fn. 187) common land lined the road but several encroachments had been made to provide sites for large houses. In a house, later called the Manor House, (fn. 188) belonging to the politician Jeremiah Dyson (1722-76), Mark Akenside (1721-70) the poet and physician (fn. 189) recuperated in 1758. There he wrote a much quoted ode on his recovery in which 'Golder's Hill' is apostrophized. (fn. 190) Opposite Dyson's house, Golders Hill House was built between 1754 and 1796 (fn. 191) in grounds of 27 a. (fn. 192) The house was enlarged in 1875 to the designs of E. F. Clarke (fn. 193) for Sir Thomas Spencer Wells, Bt. (1818-97), surgeon to the queen's household. (fn. 194) It was acquired by the L.C.C. in 1898 (fn. 195) and destroyed during the Second World War (fn. 196) but the grounds were preserved as Golders Hill park. Immediately to the north an early-19th-century villa, Ivy House, was the home from 1857 of C. R. Cockerell (1788-1863), the architect. (fn. 197) From 1913 it was occupied intermittently by Anna Pavlova (d. 1930), the ballet dancer, who made some alterations in 1929, before it became a school of drama. (fn. 198) Wyldes Farm, a little east of Golders Hill on the slopes of Hampstead Heath, is a small weatherboarded building with a large weatherboarded barn and outbuildings attached. The house, known in the 19th century as Collins's Farm or Heath Farm, was occupied by the painter John Linnell (1792-1882), who is said to have entertained William Blake there and added a room in 1826, (fn. 199) by Charles Dickens as a young man, (fn. 200) and by Sir Raymond Unwin, co-planner of the Hampstead Garden Suburb, from 1906 until his death in 1940. (fn. 201)

There were 400 communicants in the parish in 1547, (fn. 202) and 344 persons took the protestation oath in 1642. (fn. 203) Of 228 persons assessed for hearth-tax in 1664, 5 lived in houses with ten or more hearths. (fn. 204) In 1801 the total population was 1,955 and there were 373 houses. The population was 3,110 in 1831 and had reached 3,333 by 1851, when there were 585 houses. (fn. 205)