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Hampstead Ponds
Source of the Fleet. . Springs supplying London 1692.
Viaduct over one of the ponds on Parliament Hill, built as an approach road,
Lessees Hampstead Water Co. formed by founder of Bank of England. Taken over by New River in 1856 for Perpetual Rent New River Co. 11 acres 10,500,000 gall. Surface water for the surrounding district - only used for street watering and trade. 1835. Well and steam engine were put up. Well 1833. Between ponds 2 & 3 engine and engine house 1835. Used as a house and demolished. No.1 pond filled in 1892. Round house built still there in 1890
Highgate Ponds 245, 8 ponds, 15 acres 15,500,000 galls. Ponds were gravel pits, Promoted for water supply in 1690 by William Paterson founder of the Bank of England, Springs collected into ponds and then driven out of business by the New River Co. Highgate Hill reservoirs 1m. gall. New River Co. water pumped from Fortis Green
Merton Lane
Rural lane until the 1970s. Leading towards the Heath,
West Hill Park. Modern development a luxury estate by Ted Lew Benjamin & Partners, 1972-8, similar to those built by the same firm in Hampstead. Eleven types of houses and flats, clustered round little parks and courts; brick with pantiled roofs. Good landscaping by Derek Lovejoy & Partners.
Holly Court School
Millfield Lane
One of the earliest lanes in Highgate. Gate in the Middle Ages. Track from the City to the Great North Road House. Favoured spot for the affluent,overlooking Highgate Ponds
16 Weinreib House. Plain brick. House of c. 1960, attached to it a small house of 1985 by Doug Clelland.
32-33 Soviet Trade Delegation by Eric Lyons, 1957, concrete structure starkly exposed. Set back on the same site, behind long trees is their four-storey office block in the sleeker mode of the 70s; by Dinermann Coates, 1973, the horizontals emphasized by white mosaic at the back of a spacious garden, Pank, Goss Associates, 1968-9. Stepped-back brick walls, terrace to the first-floor living room. Main rooms held by powerful ceiling beams with exposed joists.
38a, Keats and Coleridge first met
Fitzroy Farm and Lady Southampton's dairy
Millfield Cottage, Farmhouse of Millfield Farm, 17th. Steeply pitched roof. Onthe Fitzroy Estate.
Millfield Place
2 spring and summer garden with camellias, rhododendrons, many flowering shrubs and unusual plants. Spring bulbs; herbaceous borders; small orchard; spacious lawns.
Parliament Hill
The name is not recorded until 1875.
The hill commands fine views, with the heights of Highgate seen to your left. There may have been and a gallows there or it could have been a Saxon Folk Moot – although finds there do not back this up. It is said to have been called Traitor's Hill because Guy Fawkes is said to have wanted to stand here when Parliament blew up. Perhaps it was named after the Parliamentary forces who, during the Civil War, planted cannon on it for the defence of London or perhaps it was called Parliament Hill because the Middlesex elections were held there.The site is also connected with Jack Cade. There are Old field boundaries on the hill and old hawthorn trees planted in 14th for sticks and handles. This was the area of Mansfield Dairy Farm, which had ½ acres in parish of St.Pancras. Following the Hampstead Heath Enlargement Act the London County Council managed it. Features in films 'Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, ‘Are You Ready for Love’
Tumulus ditch 16'x 20'. Firs had been planted on top in 1790. Called Boadicea's Grave concealed in treesand undergrowth but it is nothing to do with Boadicea. It is ten feet high and nearly forty yards across and issurrounded by a dry ditch. In 1894 there was a London County Council sponsored dig, which found artificial material, charcoal inside but no bone and nothing underneath. The charcoal was on the ground level and it looked as if fires had taken place there over a long period. Here were also pipes from the 19th, a wooden ditch and central ribs, china and pipes. The archaeologist concluded that it was Bronze Age – and possibly four thousand years old
Valley is the start of the Fleet River. 1884 meeting at the Holly Bush Tavern of the Committee for the Hampstead Heath extension. Very eminent people. Wilson wanted a lot of money. Money came from the City Parochial Fund and vestries, subscriptions and rates, £301,702. Decontamination Centre in Second World War
Boundary markers. The nature of the boundary markers changes briefly, but very significantly where the road named Parliament Hill opens on to the Heath. Here there is a joint stone for the two parishes and an unmarked wooden post described in the 1874 St. Pancras Report: a wooden post of St. Pancras Parish, marked 1851, in ditch.
1-3 Hampstead Hospital, became Hampstead General
77 George Orwell lived here for a while
Statue of ‘The Writer’ by Giancarlo Neri.