Hampstead: Frognal and the Central Demesne

Frognal And The Central Demesne.

Frognal was mentioned in the early 15th century as a customary tenement and in 1740 Frognal field was the eastern abutment of Northfield, part of the demesne. (fn. 1) By the 17th century there were several cottages and houses at Frognal; (fn. 2) by then the name probably indicated the road leading from the church and manor farm northward to the heath, between the demesne on the west and Hampstead town on the east. By the end of the 18th century the name also applied to the houses built on the site of the manor farm buildings in Frognal Lane, and by the mid 19th century to the northern part of the demesne. The road, Frognal, was extended southward in 1878.

The 15th-century tenement was probably the 'house called Frognal', (fn. 3) which lay on the west side of the road, probably on the site later occupied by Frognal House. There were two houses or cottages there by the beginning of the 18th century, held by brothers, John and Thomas Smith. Thomas, a bricklayer, had divided his into two. (fn. 4) All the property had passed to John Padmore, gentleman, of St. Giles-in-the-Fields by 1741, when he acquired waste near the house lately built there, (fn. 5) presumably Frognal House, no. 99 Frognal. (fn. 6) In 1762 the estate, which also included Upper Frognal Lodge (no. 103) and a pair of houses to the south, was held by Padmore's nephew John Padmore Perry (d. 1764). (fn. 7) Another house, on the east side of the road, was leased by a London draper, Charles Purrett, to Robert James in 1616. It was occupied by John Towse (d. 1645) and by a London goldsmith Richard Hodilow (d. 1698). (fn. 8) It was assessed for 16 hearths in 1664 and was rebuilt c. 1700 and, with additions, is identifiable with the Mansion or Old Mansion (no. 94), a nine-bayed brick house. (fn. 9) Two more houses had been built on the estate by 1731 (fn. 10) and another one by 1762, when the property was held by Richard Westfield or Wastfield (d. 1765) of Lincoln's Inn. (fn. 11) Other 16th- or 17th-century buildings included three cottages, on the east side of the road, which were converted to a coach house and workhouse by 1729. (fn. 12) Nearby, at the southern junction with Mount Vernon, Grove Cottage (no. 110) has been dated to the 17th century, with the adjoining no. 108 slightly later. (fn. 13) An early inn, called successively the Three Pigeons, Pilgrim, and Duke of Cumberland's Head, stood in front of, but was not identifiable with, nos. 108 and no. (fn. 14) By the mid 1740s (fn. 15) there were two houses at the southern end of Frognal. Set back from the road in 1½ a., adjoining the churchyard, was Frognal Hall, which probably existed by 1646 and can be identified with the attorney-general's house visited by Pepys in 1668. (fn. 16) It may have been rebuilt by the architect Isaac Ware, who owned it from 1759 to 1765. (fn. 17) The southernmost house was that later called Priory Lodge, opposite Frognal Lane, which has been identified with the 'small house just beyond the church', alluded to by Samuel Johnson, where his wife lodged for the country air according to Boswell and where Johnson wrote most of the Vanity of Human Wishes, published in 1749. (fn. 18) Barton Booth, Robert Wilks, and Colley Cibber may have had summer lodgings at Frognal, though probably not, as stated in 1816, in the workhouse building. (fn. 19)

On the west side of Frognal only the estate associated with Frognal House was ancient copyhold, the rest being either ancient demesne to the south or waste, part of the heath, to the north. In 1741 the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769) acquired from Thomas Watson-Wentworth, earl of Malton, a house dating from 1700 or earlier on what was then heath, a coach house and stable and another cottage, and himself obtained further grants of adjoining waste, including the lime walk illustrated by William Collins. (fn. 20) He probably built Frognal (later Montagu) Grove on the site (nos. 105 and 107); no. 109 was formed from the stabling. (fn. 21) Flitcroft is also credited with building the house to the north, variously called Bleak Hall, Judges Bench House, and Branch Hill Lodge. (fn. 22) On pieces of waste next to Northwood well, buildings had been erected by a lessee, Henry Popple, between 1731 and 1739. They included a house by 1745, when the property passed to Thomas, later Sir Thomas, Clarke (d. 1764), Master of the Rolls. (fn. 23) In 1762, therefore, there were 16 copyhold houses in Frognal. A pair of cottages (nos. 104 and 106) was evidently built soon afterwards. (fn. 24)

Many important lawyers lived in late 18th-century Frognal. From 1772 until 1794 or later Frognal Grove was the home of Edward Montagu, master in Chancery, (fn. 25) and from c. 1810 to 1813 of Richard Richards, chief justice of Chester. (fn. 26) Branch Hill Lodge was left by Clarke in 1764 to his patron Thomas Parker, earl of Macclesfield (d. 1795), who leased it to Thomas Walker, Master in Chancery, and then to Lord Loughborough, who lived there before he moved to Belsize in 1792. (fn. 27) Stephen Guyon (d. 1779), a merchant, lived in Frognal Hall, which by 1791 was the home of Sir Richard Pepper Arden (1745-1804), Master of the Rolls, later Lord Alvanley and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was leased 6 a. of adjacent demesne land, part of which he later bought and all of which was occupied by his widow for some years. (fn. 28)

In 1792 Frognal was praised for its 'salubrity of air and soil, in the neighbourhood of pleasure and business'. (fn. 29) As early as 1762 some 43 a. of demesne were leased to copyhold tenants who used them as pleasure grounds. (fn. 30) In 1674 the manor house was leased to a Londoner, Benoni Honywood, who occupied it for only six weeks a year, subletting the land and part of the house. (fn. 31) From 1757 and probably earlier the manor house was divided and although one half was used as a farmhouse, the other may always have been a dwelling house detached from the farmland. (fn. 32) By 1774 the eastern part, leased to John Foster, had been made by him into two distinct houses, each with its own stabling. (fn. 33) Foster lived in one until 1783, when the two were converted into a single house, occupied from 1785 until 1803 by the Revd. Charles Grant (d. 1811), the curate, and, after the manorial court met there in 1802, was called the Manor House. (fn. 34) In 1785 the western part of the very dilapidated manor house was leased to Thomas Pool on condition that he carried out considerable repairs. (fn. 35) Pool probably began work on the eastern end, apparently preserving the carcase of the old building; he borrowed £300 from the lord of the manor, which perhaps led to an inscription on a datestone, 'erected by Sir T. S. Wilson by. 1785'. (fn. 36) Two houses had been built by 1797: no. 23, which was occupied from 1798 by John Ogilvie, an army agent who spent heavily on completing the building, which he leased directly from 1801 (fn. 37) until his bankruptcy in 1804, (fn. 38) and the house to the west of it, later nos. 19 and 21 Frognal Lane. Pool himself occupied the western house and at great expense had completed it by 1800 when he sold it to George Stacey, a Holborn chemist, who then obtained a direct lease from the lord. (fn. 39) Pool moved to 'another messuage opposite' on which he spent money between 1798 and 1800 and which was presumably no. 40 Frognal Lane, later called Manor Lodge after the manorial courts held there. (fn. 40) In 1810 Pool (d. 1813) was leased the house with its surrounding 5 a. and outbuildings on the southern side of Frognal Lane, formerly occupied by farm buildings only. (fn. 41)

John Metcalf, who bought no. 23 in 1804, also acquired some 27 a. of demesne land leased to Ogilvie, on which by 1806 he built a 'new white house', later called Frognal Park, set well back from Frognal Lane, north-west of the other houses. (fn. 42) Frognal Park, in parkland and possibly the largest of the Frognal houses, passed in 1809 to Joseph Blunt, a solicitor, and between 1826 and 1831 to John F. Menet, (fn. 43) whose widow Louisa subleased the estate in 1849 to Henry Hucks Gibbs, a merchant. (fn. 44) Metcalf subleased no. 23 in 1805 to Jeremy Bentham's brother Sir Samuel (1757-1831), naval architect and engineer, who had superintended shipbuilding in Russia, where he had been made a general. He obtained a direct lease in 1813 but left England again in 1814; (fn. 45) the house was empty in 1820. In the mid 1820s it was occupied by John Innos and during the 1830s by Miss Anne Hetherington. (fn. 46) It was leased to Henry B. Fearon, a wine merchant and one of the founders of London University, in 1841 and occupied throughout the 1850s and most of the 1860s by his widow. (fn. 47)

Between 1810 and 1814 a timber cottage, later called Manor Cottage, was built on the south side of Frognal Lane, east of Manor Lodge. (fn. 48) It was mostly occupied by undertenants of the demesne farm, including a newsman of Tottenham Court Road in 1817, (fn. 49) a New Bond Street hatter in 1851 (fn. 50) and the manorial bailiff in 1872-3. (fn. 51) In 1815 Manor Lodge was occupied by John Thompson (d. 1843), a retired auctioneer, called Memory Thompson for his phenomenal knowledge of London. In 1817 he relinquished the house and c. 4 a. of the 8 a. of demesne leased to him, which were leased, together with the demesne farmland, to William Baker in 1819 and Robert Stone, a Marylebone stablekeeper, in 1834. The house was sublet and from 1843 to 1871 (fn. 52) was occupied by George Chater, a wholesale stationer, who obtained a direct lease in 1848 and extended the house in 1849. (fn. 53) Thompson retained 4 a. on which he had built a new house by 1818, called by 1834 the Priory or Frognal Priory. He had added a lodge by 1820. (fn. 54) The house, on an elevated site with extensive views, had Gothic crenellations, Renaissance windows, Dutch gables, turrets, and a cupola. It was filled with furniture claimed by Thompson to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey and Elizabeth I and drew many visitors. (fn. 55) Thompson was still the occupier in 1840 but by 1851 the house had passed, under his will, to Barnard Gregory (1796-1852), editor of the Satirist, whose title was successfully disputed by Thompson's relations, the McCullochs. (fn. 56)

On the northern side of Frognal Lane the Manor House, later no. 59 Frognal, was occupied from 1804 to 1817 by Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842), the publisher, whose father lived in Mount Grove. (fn. 57) The house changed hands several times until it was occupied 1834-41 by Robert M. Kerrison, a doctor (fn. 58) and 1842-81 by Matthew Thomas Husband, a leather merchant from Regent's Park, who rebuilt it probably soon after he took the lease. (fn. 59) William Carr, a solicitor to the Excise, replaced George Stacey at nos. 19 and 21 Frognal Lane in 1807, obtained a direct lease in 1812, and lived there until 1829 or later. (fn. 60) Carr, with his large and sociable family, entertained Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth. The latter often stayed with the family several times between 1819 and 1822, in a 'delightful airy bedchamber' with a bow window. (fn. 61) From 1833 to 1841 the house was occupied by James Gordon Murdoch. (fn. 62) In 1841 the house, with 6 a. of grounds, was leased to William James Ferguson, who assigned the lease in 1845 to Robert Prance (d. 1869), (fn. 63) a stockbroker and magistrate. (fn. 64)

A cottage called the Salt Box was built on demesne land on the edge of the heath north of Branch Hill Lodge between 1789 and 1808 (fn. 65) and was replaced by a house called the Grange probably by 1834. (fn. 66) In 1799 the earl of Macclesfield's son sold Branch Hill Lodge to a wealthy merchant, Thomas Neave, who became a baronet in 1814. Neave enlarged the house, which he filled with stained glass from convents plundered during the French Revolution in addition to the glass taken from the Chicken House. (fn. 67) To his 4 a. of copyhold land Neave added 9 a. of demesne freehold, which he purchased in 1807 and 1815; he was leased another 21½ a. of demesne from 1808. (fn. 68) He sold Branch Hill Lodge, which later briefly housed Lord Byron's widow and was purchased with 14 a. in 1867 by a city wine merchant, and built two houses to the west on former demesne land, Oak Hill Lodge, where he was living by 1840, and Oak Hill House. He later moved to his family seat at Dagnam Park, Romford, taking his glass collection with him, (fn. 69) and the Frognal estate passed to his third son Sheffield Neave, a director of the Bank of England, possibly as part of Sheffield's marriage settlement in 1851. (fn. 70) By 1850, however, Sheffield was already associated with a local builder, Thomas Clowser, in building two houses in Branch Hill field, possibly Sandfield Lodge and another large house on the borders of the Neave estate, near the Grange, which existed by 1870. Clowser built another 10 in the next two years in what he called Oak Hill Park estate after the new road running from Frognal to Oak Hill House and Lodge. (fn. 71) George Smith (1824- 1901), founder of the Dictionary of National Biography, lived from 1863 to 1872 in Oak Hill Lodge, where he entertained leading writers and artists. Florence Nightingale was a frequent visitor to Oak Hill Park, where Manley Hopkins, an authority on maritime law, lived in the 1850s with his family, including Gerard, the future poet. (fn. 72) The actormanager Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917) later lived at the Grange which he left in 1891 because of the difficulties of travel to 'such a remote country spot'. (fn. 73)

There were few changes in old Frognal. The dilapidated old workhouse was taken down soon after 1800. (fn. 74) Between 1819 and 1844 John Hodgson considerably enlarged Priory Lodge with a baywindowed extension (fn. 75) and on the west side, north of the demesne houses, Bay Tree Cottage existed by 1841. (fn. 76) In 1811 Frognal was a 'hamlet of handsome residences', surrounded by groves and gardens 'of an extent begrudged by builders in these modern days'. (fn. 77) In 1824 arguments against the proposed new road made particular reference to the houses occupied by Carr, Blunt, Innes (sic), and Thompson, the few gentlemen's houses valued for their privacy and the views which they or their grounds commanded. (fn. 78) When the Finchley Road was built through the middle of the demesne between 1826 and 1835, it destroyed the exclusivity and converted the farmland into ripe building land, which the lord of the manor, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, was eager to exploit. He was thwarted by the will of his father, Sir Thomas (d. 1821), which left him unable to grant building leases, and by local defenders of the heath who opposed his private bills. (fn. 79) The demesne became available only after his death in 1869, when building was further delayed, mainly because the new lord Sir John (d. 1876) and his son Spencer needed to resolve their differences in order to break the terms of the entail. In 1873 they agreed to divide the estate, allocating to Spencer frontages along Finchley Road, and on two proposed new roads, Priory Road and Fitzjohn's Avenue, on all of which it was planned to build, and land in the north. Apart from Spencer, whose grandiose plans ultimately prevailed in Fitzjohn's Avenue, the main influence in shaping the estate was F. J. Clark, the land agent who advised the Maryon Wilsons to build the main roads and sewers themselves and to release the land for building in an orderly manner. (fn. 80)

Some of the earliest building on the demesne estate was along Finchley Road. (fn. 81) To the south, building was already completed on the St. John's Wood estate up to the boundary with the Maryon Wilson estate. Much of the demesne west of Finchley Road was occupied by railways, with a station called Finchley Road opened on each of the three lines, in 1860, 1869, and 1879, respectively. (fn. 82) In 1872 Holy Trinity church was built on the east side of Finchley Road on a site given by Sir John Maryon Wilson (fn. 83) and six cottages were built in 1873 on the Finchley Road brickfield, which had been leased to John Culverhouse in 1871. (fn. 84) Holy Trinity Vicarage was built in 1877 and a skating rink in 1880, and 29 houses and at least five shops were built in Finchley Road from Swiss Cottage northward in the early 1880s and another 19 houses at the end of the decade. In 1891 another five shops were built and five houses altered into shops; the Midland Railway built six coal offices. (fn. 85)

Spencer Maryon Wilson's second area of development was in the south-west, where it joined the Upton and Cotton estates. Land was exchanged between the Maryon Wilson estate and Col. Cotton and Priory Road, extending northward from the Upton estate, was begun in 1874. (fn. 86) Plots were for sale in Priory (then called Canfield) Road in 1875 (fn. 87) and 51 mostly detached houses were built between 1877 and 1882. (fn. 88)

As early as 1871 F. J. Clark had suggested a new road direct to Hampstead and in 1872 Spencer Maryon Wilson was hoping to create a 'truly imposing road'. In 1875 he contracted with John Culverhouse, who since 1871 had been the tenant at will of the two main demesne farms, to make Fitzjohn's Avenue, from College Crescent off Finchley Road to Greenhill Road, and to plant ornamental trees. Most of the building land on either side was let under a single agreement to Herbert and Edward Kelly, speculative builders, although some plots were sold to individuals who commissioned architects. (fn. 89) Applications to build 70 houses in Fitzjohn's Avenue were made between 1877 and 1879; nos. 45 and 61 were built in 1878, the latter a low building with Dutch gables, designed by Richard Norman Shaw for the fashionable painter Edwin Long (1829-91). No. 47, designed by George Lethbridge, dated from 1880, as did nos. 53 and 55 (the Tower), which had 25 rooms; no. 6 (Three Gables) was built in 1881 by Shaw for the portrait painter Frank Holl (1845-88). In 1883 no. 1 (Oakwood Hall) was designed by J. J. Stevenson in red brick in a neoDutch style and a drill hall was built for the Hampstead Volunteers near the junction with College Crescent. (fn. 90)

Spencer Maryon Wilson's insistence on a treelined boulevard with large houses proved to be justified. Fitzjohn's Avenue was compared with Paris and was described by Harpers magazine in 1883 as 'one of the noblest streets in the world'. Its early inhabitants included Lloyds underwriters, shipowners, auctioneers, silk manufacturers, a wine merchant, a director of Hull Docks, an Arctic explorer, and an Islamic scholar. It was particularly popular with successful artists, who included John Pettie (1839-93) at the Lothians and Paul Falconer Poole (1807-79) (fn. 91) at Uplands (no. 75), built by T. K. Green and described as 'elephantine Gothic with bargeboarded gables'. (fn. 92) The artists' houses were opened on Show Sunday, attracting, according to the novelist Sir Max Pemberton (1863-1950), who lived at no. 56, those who 'should have been a source of inspiration . . . to the makers of fashion-plates'. Another resident was the author James Cotter Morison (1832-88), who entertained Henry James and George Meredith at no. 30. (fn. 93)

The last of the areas of demesne land allocated to Spencer Maryon Wilson in 1873 was in the north, bordering the heath and the Branch Hill and Oak Hill estates. (fn. 94) Seven houses were built at Branch Hill between 1873 and 1877, most of them on land belonging to Basil Woodd Smith of Branch Hill Lodge, where there had been rebuilding to S. S. Teulon's designs in 1868. (fn. 95) They probably included Combe Edge in Oak Hill Way, an old footpath from Branch Hill to Oak Hill Park, which was built in 1874 and first owned by the author Elizabeth Rundle Charles (1828-96), and Oak Tree House, Redington Gardens, designed in 1874 by Basil Champneys for Henry Holiday (1839-1927), the stained-glass painter, on land at Branch Hill Park. (fn. 96) Another house was built in Oak Hill Park in 1873. (fn. 97) Probably the success of those houses prompted the construction on Spencer's demesne land of Redington Road, a long road curving from Frognal round Oak Hill Park to the northern part of West Heath Road. In 1875 land was offered in lots at the Frognal end. In 1876 nos. 2 and 4, 'a wonderfully subtle pair', were designed by Philip Webb and no. 6, 'unrepentantly Gothic', by T. K. Green as St. John's Vicarage. No. 12 (Wellesley House), 'curiously old-fashioned Italianate', was built in 1878. Building thereafter was slow, no. 35 (Redington Lodge) by Horace Field being built in 1887 and no. 16 (One Oak) designed by A. H. Mackmurdo in 1889. Among those who lived in the road was the sculptor Sir Hamo Thornycroft (1850-1925) at no. 16. (fn. 98) John Lewis (d. 1928), the store owner, had built Spedan Tower, a large house, on the site of Sandfield Lodge by 1889. (fn. 99)

From the late 1870s building spread beyond Spencer Maryon Wilson's allocation on the demesne lands. The first major development was in the southwest, which lack of height and the vicinity of Kilburn made less desirable and houses were middle-class but more crowded than those farther north or east. (fn. 100) Several roads, named after Maryon Wilson estates in other counties, ran from Finchley Road to Priory Road, linking with roads on the Cotton estate. Building began from the east end with 20 houses by Charles Kellond in Goldhurst Terrace, the most southerly of the roads, in 1879 and another 50 there between 1880 and 1885; 101 houses, some flats, and a riding school were added between 1886 and 1900, mostly by T. K. Wells of Kentish Town. The middle road was Canfield Gardens, where six houses were built in 1881, 30 between 1885 and 1886, mansion flats in 1886 and 1889, and three shops in 1897. The northern road, near the Metropolitan railway line, was Broadhurst Gardens, where 116 houses were built between 1882 and 1894. Fairhazel Gardens (originally called North End Road) crossed the three roads to link with Loudoun Road in St. John's Wood; five houses were built there in 1879 and 1881 and another 31 houses and three blocks of flats between 1886 and 1896. Eleven stables and six houses were built in Canfield Place, backing on Finchley Road station, in 1884-5 by Ernest Estcourt and James Dixon, who also, with Wells, built Canfield and Greencroft gardens, which by 1891 reached Fairhazel Gardens from its eastern junction with Goldhurst Terrace; some 68 houses and Rutland House flats were built in Greencroft Gardens, after 1891 extended to Priory Road, between 1886 and 1897. Compayne Gardens, which extended from its eastern junction with Canfield Gardens, reached Fairhazel Gardens by 1891 and Priory Road by 1913; 77 houses and three blocks of flats were built there between 1886 and 1894 by local builders, James Tomblin and E. Michael. Tomblin also built most of the 29 houses erected between 1893 and 1897 in Aberdare Gardens, the last road in the area, which ran from its western junction with Goldhurst Terrace to Fairhazel Gardens. Building was complete throughout the area by 1913. (fn. 101) Except the mews Canfield Place, which was 'fairly comfortable', the whole district was middle-class c. 1890. (fn. 102) Residents included Mme. Bergman-Osterberg, pioneer of physical education, at no. 1 Broadhurst Gardens in the 1880s, and Walter Sickert, the painter, at no. 54 from 1885 to 1894. (fn. 103) Cecil Beaton recalled a more exotic atmosphere at no. 74 Compayne Gardens, called Santa Cruz c. 1900 when it housed the Bolivian consul general. Another exotic inhabitant was Frederick Rolfe, author and self-styled Baron Corvo, at no. 69 Broadhurst Gardens. (fn. 104)

The south-west demesne estate was bounded by Finchley Road and the railway line. To the north, in Lithos Road, squeezed in between the railway lines, 20 houses were built between 1882 and 1887 and another 14 houses, two blocks of flats, and a power station between 1892 and 1896. Eight stables and five houses were built in the parallel Rosemont Road between 1893 and 1897. There was no building in Lymington Road, which ran between Finchley Road and West End Lane north of the railway lines, until 1899, when 10 houses were built; shops were added in 1911. (fn. 105)

East of Finchley Road spacious houses were built, mostly in the 1880s, on the former Belsize farm lands on either side of Fitzjohn's Avenue: (fn. 106) 13 houses were built in Netherhall Terrace (later Gardens) from 1879 to 1888, 30 in Maresfield Gardens from 1881 to 1886, 3 in Nutley Terrace from 1885 to 1887, and 2 in Daleham Gardens in 1888. (fn. 107) South Hampstead High school was opened at the southern end of Maresfield Gardens in 1882 and Herbert Henry Asquith, then an M.P., lived at no. 27 from 1887 to 1892. In Netherhall Gardens a second house was designed for Edwin Long by Richard Norman Shaw at Kelston (no. 42) in 1888. Batterbury & Huxley were responsible for St. Kilda (no. 6) c. 1882 and Sidney and Beatrice Webb moved into no. 10 after their marriage in 1892. (fn. 108) The area, all former demesne land, where building was complete by 1891, was classified as upper middle- and middleclass and wealthy. (fn. 109)

Frognal Priory, 'very far in ruin' in 1869, (fn. 110) and let to John Culverhouse in 1871, was demolished in 1876 (fn. 111) and the old road, Frognal, had been extended southward beyond Arkwright Road by 1878 (fn. 112) and reached Finchley Road soon afterwards. Basil Champneys (1842-1935) built himself a house (no. 42 Frognal Lane) on the site of farm buildings on the Priory estate in 1881. A red-brick four-square house, 'very snug and solid', it was called Manor Farm and, from 1894, Hall Oak and was occupied by the architect until his death. (fn. 113) Two houses were built in 'Frognal Road' in 1881 and 20 in Frognal between 1882 and 1890, mostly by Sharp. (fn. 114) They included, on the west side, another Gothic house called Frognal Priory, designed by Richard Norman Shaw for Edwin Tate and built in 1881-2, (fn. 115) and no. 39, tile-hung in the style of a Surrey Weald cottage with a studio across the top, designed in 1885 by Norman Shaw for Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), the illustrator, who died there. (fn. 116)

The break-up of Thompson's Priory estate opened up the area south of Frognal Lane to development. Arkwright Road was extended from the Greenhill estate westward to Finchley Lane and six houses were being built there in 1878. (fn. 117) Fourteen houses were built in Lindfield Gardens in 1884 and 1890-2, one house was built in Frognal Lane, west of Manor Lodge, in 1877, and Langland Gardens had been constructed, though as yet no houses built, by 1891. (fn. 118)

In old Frognal no. 99 housed the Sailors' Orphan Girls' Home from 1862 until 1869 (fn. 119) and Montagu Grove was enlarged in the 1860s by the architect G. E. Street, whose family had acquired it through marriage. (fn. 120) Of the demesne houses, Frognal Park was leased from 1856 to after 1896 to James Anderson, a shipowner, (fn. 121) who by 1861 had rebuilt it after a fire. (fn. 122) No. 23, the Ferns, was leased from 1868 to William Dunlop Anderson, a colonial broker, who made alterations in 1883 and whose widow obtained the freehold in 1889. (fn. 123) The adjoining house, nos. 19 and 21, which by the 1890s was called Maryon Hall, was the home of Reginald Prance, a stockbroker, from 1871 until 1894, when he moved to the Ferns. (fn. 124) In 1896 Francis Tasker of Bedford Row converted Maryon Hall into two dwellings, with separate doorways. (fn. 125) Frognal Hall was occupied c. 1878-c. 1890 by Julius Talbot Airey but by c. 1903 it housed a school. (fn. 126) George Hornblower built nos. 79-87 Frognal (the Oaks), including an Italianate watch tower for no. 79, for E. P. Musman in 1902. (fn. 127) In 1878 Frognal was described as a beautiful suburban village, full of gentlemen's seats. (fn. 128) In 1903 it still had an air of affluence but was overlooked by 'manywindowed, scarlet-faced mansions' and had lost its 'aimless paths and trees'. (fn. 129) Building had covered most of the frontage to the road, old as well as new, and was encroaching on the large private gardens. (fn. 130) Alexander Gray bought the Old Mansion on the east side of old Frognal c. 1889, laid out an L-shaped road, Frognal Gardens, through the grounds, and commissioned James Neale, a former pupil of Street. He added a wing to the old house, and designed no. 100 Frognal and five houses in Frognal Gardens, built by the local firm Allison & Foskett from 1890 to 1896. They included no. 18 (Frognal End), built in 1892 for the novelist and antiquary Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901). Two houses were added in the rear in 1907. (fn. 131) Frognal House was in a dangerous state in 1896 but presumably was repaired, and Frognal Mansions flats were built by Palgrave & Co. next to it together with an astronomical observatory in 1897. (fn. 132) In 1895 the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) built no. 51 Frognal for himself and the adjoining no. 49, occupied by William Morris's typographer, Thomas CobdenSanderson (1840-1922), south of the junction with Frognal Lane. (fn. 133) In 1906-7 Arnold Mitchell designed University College school, 'an impressive group of Edwardian baroque buildings' just south of Priory Lodge. (fn. 134) At the Finchley Road end of Frognal nos. 2-16, 'huge but coarse Queen Anne pairs' were built in 1889-91 (fn. 135) and most of the 25 houses and four blocks of flats built in Frognal between 1891 and 1896 were by E. H. & H. T. Cave. The same firm was responsible for most of the 38 houses, blocks of flats, and 16 shops built in Finchley Road between 1893 and 1897 and the 10 houses and 15 shops in 1905, for the flats at the junction with Arkwright Road in 1896, and for 17 houses in Frognal Lane in 1897-8; 17 houses and some flats built in Langland Gardens from 1895 to 1897 and 4 houses built in Lindfield Gardens in 1895 were probably part of the same development. (fn. 136)

Edward Michael built three houses in Frognal Lane in 1898-9, one of them at the junction with Chesterford Gardens. That road, for which an application was made in 1896, crossed the grounds of Frognal Park from Frognal Lane to Redington Road; nine houses were built there from 1897 to 1900 and another two in 1905; C. H. B. Quennell may have designed nos. 5-11. (fn. 137)

Building spreading northward along Finchley Road was virtually complete on the eastern side and, mostly as shops, had reached beyond Lymington Road on the western by 1913. In 1899 six houses and a block of flats were built at the junction with West Hampstead Avenue (later Heath Drive), a new road skirting the demesne from Finchley Road to Redington Road; 20 houses and a block of flats were built there between 1897 and 1900 and another four between 1905 and 1907, mostly designed by C. H. B. Quennell. Nearby six houses were built in Redington Road and four in Branch Hill Park between 1905 and 1908; (fn. 138) no. 66 Redington Road was built in 1910 for William Garnett, education adviser to the L.C.C. (fn. 139) New roads included Bracknell Gardens, between Heath Drive and Frognal Lane, where 23 houses were built between 1905 and 1912, Barby (later Oakhill) Avenue, between Bracknell Gardens and Redington Road, where 10 houses were built between 1907 and 1909, Templewood Avenue, between Heath Drive and West Heath Road, where 13 houses, including some handsome ones by Quennell, were built between 1910 and 1912, and Redington Gardens, from Templewood Avenue to Redington Road, laid out in 1911 where four houses were built in 1913. (fn. 140) The large new houses were said to 'bristle with . . . respectable establishment figures'. (fn. 141) They also included the photographer and designer Cecil Beaton (1904-80), who was born at no. 21 Langland Gardens, a 'small, tall red-brick house of ornate but indiscriminate Dutch style', and lived from 1911 to 1922 at no. 1 Templewood Avenue. The literary forger Thomas Wise (1859-1937) lived at no. 25 Heath Drive from 1910 and the writer Leonard Huxley (1860-1933) at no. 16 Bracknell Gardens from c. 1917; Leonard's son Aldous, the novelist, was there from 1917 to 1920. (fn. 142)

After the First World War building continued in all areas, usually as infilling. Four houses were squashed in between Fitzjohn's Avenue and Spring and Shepherd's paths in 1922, another house (no. 1) was added to Fitzjohn's Avenue in 1925, and five others were built behind existing houses from 1936 to 1938; 11 houses were added to Maresfield Gardens in 1920, from 1925 to 1928, and in 1937-8. Another six were built in Redington Road between 1920 and 1927, including the neo-Georgian no. 81, designed by Sir Edward Maufe, and Hill House (no. 87), a red-brick house 'in the style of Mies van der Rohe', designed in 1938 by Oliver Hill with gardens by Christopher Tunnard. (fn. 143) Individual houses were built in Heath Drive in 1922 and 1933 and on former heath in West Heath Road in 1927 and 1932, the latter, Sarum Chase, 'unashamed Hollywood Tudor'. (fn. 144) In Bracknell Gardens a few houses were built in 1920, 1928, and 1936 and flats in 1937. Greenaway Gardens was built in 1914 through the grounds of Frognal Park, which was demolished soon afterwards; the new road had six houses by 1920, four more in 1923-4, and another one in 1934. (fn. 145)

Priory Lodge and Frognal Hall, threatened in 1899, (fn. 146) finally succumbed in the 1920s. They were replaced by nos. 96-98 Frognal and nos. 3-9 Frognal Gardens, by E. B. Musman, in 1923 and by Frognal Way, which has been described as the 'showpiece of interwar Hampstead housing' and also as exhibiting styles ranging from neo-Georgian to Hollywood Spanish-Colonial and South African Dutch. (fn. 147) The first house was built there in 1924 and at least five others were added from 1928 to 1935, including no. 7 by Oswald Milne, no. 13 by C. H. B. Quennell, no. 11 in 1925 by Albert Farmer, no. 5 in 1930 by Adrian Gilbert Scott for himself, no. 4 in 1934, no. 20 in 1934 for Gracie Fields, the singer, and no. 9, the Sun House, by Maxwell Fry in 1935. (fn. 148) The last, Fry's first London building, and an 'object lesson in faÆade composition', was one of the most important embodiments of the modern, international movement of the 1930s in Hampstead. Houses were also built on the east side of Frognal, between University College school and Frognal Way, in 1934. No. 66, north of Frognal Way, was designed by Connell, Ward & Lucas and built in 1937 of reinforced concrete 'in the extreme idiom of the day' as an attempt to 'épater les bourgeois'. (fn. 149) Unlike most of the new houses, which were 'charming', it was considered out of character with the district's brick and Georgian architecture. (fn. 150) On the western side of Frognal, Frognal Priory was replaced in 1937 by Frognal Close, six large semi-detached houses but in a modern style by E. L. Freud, Sigmund's son. (fn. 151) The Manor House, the easternmost of the demesne houses in Frognal Lane, was demolished in 1938 and three houses (nos. 59, 61, and 63 Frognal) were built by D. E. Harrington, the architect who lived at no. 61, to complete the frontage, no. 65 having been built by the owner, Miss W. B. Acworth, in 1934. (fn. 152)

The remaining large area of open ground lay between Finchley Road, Lymington Road, and the western boundary of the estate. Alvanley Gardens had been constructed there by 1922 and, although a cricket ground on the western side survived, c. 15 houses were built between 1922 and 1927. On the western side of Finchley Road, backing on Alvanley Gardens, nos. 341-59 (odd) and Dunrobin Court existed by 1930 and other blocks were built in 1934 (probably Mandeville and Hillside Courts). (fn. 153) Farther south, a major change from 1934 to 1938 was the rebuilding of nos. 191-217 Finchley Road to house John Barnes and St. John's Court flats. (fn. 154) On the east side of Finchley Road, Palace Court was built in 1926 south of the junction with Frognal Lane, Frognal Court in 1934 at no. 160, and Bracknell Gate at the junction of Frognal Lane and Bracknell Gardens in 1933. (fn. 155)

In 1930 the area had a few warehouses and workshops near the railway west of Finchley Road and was inhabited by skilled workers 'or similar', while the rest of the district around Frognal was middleclass and wealthy. (fn. 156) It still had distinguished residents like the politician John Sinclair, Lord Pentland (1860-1925) at no. 18 Frognal Gardens, the civil engineer Sir Owen Williams (d. 1969) at no. 16 Redington Road, both in the 1920s, Ramsay MacDonald, the prime minister, at no. 103 Frognal 1925-37, and Morris Ginsberg (1889-1970), the sociologist, at no. 35 Redington Road in the 1930s. (fn. 157) Publishers, long attracted to Hampstead, included Sir Geoffrey Faber (1889-1961) at no. 1 Oak Hill Park in the 1930s and 1940s and Sir Stanley Unwin (1884-1968), who lived opposite him from the 1930s and formed a company to buy the war-damaged Victorian houses in Oak Hill Park from the Neave family; he failed, and built no. 4 for himself. (fn. 158) Musicians included Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) at no. 42 Netherhall Gardens 1912-21, Cecil Sharp at no. 4 Maresfield Gardens 1918-24, and the conductor Warwick Braithwaite in Fitzjohn's Avenue c. 1935. (fn. 159) Stephen Spender, the poet, grew up at no. 10 Frognal, at the Finchley Road end, in an 'ugly house in the Hampstead style, as if built from a box of bricks', and from 1942 to 1944 lived in a flat next to the fire station in Maresfield Gardens, where he and the writer William Sansom (1912-76) were temporary firemen. Other writers included Rafael Sabatini (d. 1950) at no. 27 Fitzjohn's Avenue in the 1920s and Stella Gibbons (b. 1902) at no. 67 1930-2. The last home of the Victorian artist Henry Holiday (d. 1927) was no. 18 Chesterford Gardens and the fashionable painter Philip de Lészló (1869- 1937) lived and worked at no. 3 Fitzjohn's Avenue from 1922. (fn. 160) The demesne estate, which included part of cosmopolitan Swiss Cottage, housed its share of political refugees in the 1930s, among them the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), in Mandeville Court, no. 383 Finchley Road, in 1938 (fn. 161) and the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (d. 1939) at no. 20 Maresfield Gardens from 1938. Freud's daughter Anna, a children's psychoanalyst who opened a clinic there in 1952, maintained his rooms intact until her death in 1980; the house was opened as the Freud Museum in 1986. (fn. 162) Gen. Charles de Gaulle lived from 1942 to 1944 in no. 99 Frognal. (fn. 163)

Not all the writers and artists could afford expensive houses. Stella Gibbons lived in one room and many large houses were converted to flats or bedsitting rooms. Others housed institutions, like Havelock Hall, the Baptist training college on the corner of Fitzjohn's Avenue and Akenside Road in the 1920s, which later became the Marie Curie hospital. In Fitzjohn's Avenue no. 7 became a hostel for mothers and babies in 1933, no. 33 a foster home in 1937, and no. 47 a school in 1947. (fn. 164)

Among the areas badly damaged during the Second World War was Broadhurst Gardens, where 168 council flats were planned in 1948 although work was not begun until 1953 and completed in 1956, the architect being Richard Nickson. (fn. 165) The council acquired a few large houses in Fitzjohn's Avenue, which it converted into flats during the 1950s and 1960s. (fn. 166) The most controversial post-war development was at Branch Hill, a sparsely populated area where the L.C.C. decided to purchase 13 a. in 1951. It retreated in the face of local and government opposition, since most of those waiting for council houses in Hampstead could be accommodated in the Chalcots developments and there was a possibility of adding the Branch Hill Lodge grounds to the heath. In 1965 Lord Glendyne sold the house and 11 a., described as the last important open site in Hampstead village, to Camden L.B. for the house to become an old people's home and with a covenant limiting building in the grounds to semi-detached houses. The council, anxious to house those on its St. Pancras waiting list, produced in 1978 a scheme for 42 houses designed by Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth, built in concrete in pairs with flat roofs and stepped brick paths, possibly 'the most expensive council houses ever built'. (fn. 167) Plans for the redevelopment of a 50-a. site bounded by Finchley Road, Lymington Road, West End Lane, and Broadhurst Gardens, most of which lay within the old demesne estate, were announced in 1963 by the Second Covent Garden Property Co., with Hampstead council as the comprehensive development authority. The existing railway lines and warehouses were to continue, alongside private and council flats to house 6,000. (fn. 168) In 1987 the original shabby Finchley Road frontage remained but a new stone-clad L.E.B. building replaced the old power station in 1975 (fn. 169) and in the late 1970s Norfolk Mansions was built in Lithos Road and a housing estate of red-brick terraces grouped around new roads, Dresden Close and Wedgwood Walk, was built south of Lymington Road. (fn. 170) The death of Sir Percy Maryon-Wilson in 1965 provoked political conflict when freeholds of the area to the south, between Broadhurst and Fairhazel Gardens and Goldhurst Terrace, became available. Camden L.B.'s wish to buy them, supported by a tenants' association, was twice vetoed by the government, and in 1972 they were sold to Bryston Property Group. (fn. 171)

At the southern end of Fitzjohn's Avenue, St. Thomas More church was built in 1953, next to nos. 3-7, Holy Cross convent. (fn. 172) No. 6 was demolished c. 1965 and, with Marie Curie hospital's laboratories, was replaced by the Tavistock clinic, while the hospital, at the corner with Akenside Road, was replaced in 1969 by flats built for the Medical Research Council. (fn. 173)

Most of the private, and expensive, modern rebuilding has been in the northern part. Michael Lyell's design in the early 1960s of five sevenstoreyed blocks containing 65 'luxury' flats on the Oak Hill Park estate, which replaced the 19thcentury houses, won a Civic Trust award. (fn. 174) Oak Tree House in Redington Gardens had, by the 1980s, been converted to council flats. (fn. 175) In 1984 some 26 detached houses, designed by Ted Levy Benjamin, were built by Barratt in Grange Gardens on the site of the Grange. (fn. 176) Beaumont Gardens, neo-Georgian houses, also off West Heath Road, were built at the same time by Sutherland Paris Developments for a mainly foreign market. (fn. 177) In 1985-6 48 houses and flats, designed by Bickerdike Allen Simovic, were built on the site of Spedan Tower. (fn. 178) In 1987 the future of no. 9 West Heath Road, a 'strange and obsessive building', built in 1963 by James Gowan for Chaim Schreiber (d. 1983) of the furniture firm, was in doubt. (fn. 179) Elsewhere conversions of large houses to flats continued, the Fairhazel Gardens area being noted for the number of young, professional, and often single people who moved in during the 1970s. (fn. 180)

The central area, lacking large council estates, has undergone less change than some other parts of Hampstead. It continued to attract those involved in the arts, like Kathleen Ferrier (1912-53), the contralto, at Frognal Mansions, no. 97 Frognal, from 1942, Dennis Brain (1921-57), the horn player, at no. 37 Frognal, and Tamara Karsavina Diaghilev, the ballerina, at no. 108 Frognal in the 1950s, E. V. Knox (1881-1971), the editor of Punch, at no. 110 Frognal from 1945, (fn. 181) Hesketh Pearson, the biographer, at no. 14 Priory Road from 1950 to 1956, (fn. 182) and several more recent writers. No. 3 Oakhill Avenue, the home of the singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge, was in 1960 the headquarters of the Philharmonia Orchestra. (fn. 183) Anton Walbrook, the actor, died at no. 69 Frognal in 1967 (fn. 184) and Peggy Ashcroft, the actress, had in 1987 lived at Manor Lodge in Frognal Lane since the 1950s. (fn. 185) Politicians included Hugh Gaitskell (1906- 63), who lived at no. 10 Frognal in the 1940s and as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950, and Henry Brooke, Hampstead's M.P. and Home Secretary (later Baron Brooke of Cumnor) who lived at no. 45 Redington Road 1962-4. Sir Bernard Spilsbury (1877-1947), the pathologist, died at no. 20 Frognal and Melanie Klein (1882-1960), the Viennese-born psychoanalyst, lived her last years at no. 16 Bracknell Gardens. (fn. 186) She exemplified the European connexion established in the 1930s, which contributed so much to the atmosphere described by John Mortimer, the barrister and author, who lived in Swiss Cottage in the 1950s and 1960s: 'a sort of late Viennese melancholy, promoted by the large number of middle-aged refugees who sat drinking Kaffee mit Schlag in the Finchley Road tea-rooms . . . On summer evenings the crumbling terraces would come to life with the sound of exiled string quartets'. (fn. 187) In 1975 Compayne Gardens was 'distinctly cosmopolitan', with a Polish Jewish ex-serviceman's association at no. 71A and Maccabi House, a former Russian embassy, at no. 73. (fn. 188) No. 12A Greenaway Gardens was sold for use by the high commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago in 1970 and many houses in Templewood Avenue and Gardens had become ambassadorial residences about the same time. (fn. 189) The Sun House in Frognal Way belonged to the Indian high commission in the 1980s, when the high price of property increased the cosmopolitan character of the area, many wealthy residents coming from America, the Middle East, Africa, or Europe. (fn. 190)