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| Belsize Park | |
|---|---|
.jpg) The Washington public house on England's Lane | |
  Belsize Park Location withinGreater London | |
| OS grid reference | TQ273845 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | NW3 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°32′50″N0°10′04″W / 51.54722°N 0.16778°W /51.54722; -0.16778 | |
Belsize Park is a residential area ofHampstead in theLondon Borough of Camden, in theinnernorth-west ofLondon, England.
The streets are lined with Georgian and Victorian villas andmews houses. Some nearby localities areHampstead village to the north and west,Camden Town to the south-east andPrimrose Hill to the south.There are restaurants, pubs, cafés, and independent boutiques in Belsize Village,[1] and on Haverstock Hill and England's Lane.Hampstead Heath is close by, andPrimrose Hill park is a five-minute walk from England's Lane.
Belsize Park is inthe Hampstead and Highgate constituency whose presentMP isTulip Siddiq.
The name is derived from Frenchbel assis meaning "well situated". The area has many thoroughfares bearing its name:Belsize Avenue, Belsize Court, Belsize Crescent, Belsize Gardens, Belsize Grove,Belsize Lane, BelsizeMews, Belsize Park (the road),Belsize Park Gardens, Belsize Place, Belsize Square, and Belsize Terrace.
The Manor of Belsize dates back to 1317, when as a subdivision to the Manor ofHampstead it was left to theRoman Catholic monks ofWestminster Abbey.[2] The original manor consisted of a number of subdivided farms, which were rented out for income. After theReformation,King Henry VIII returned the estate to theAnglican Dean of Westminster Abbey. By 1600, including themanor house ofBelsize House there were at least three other properties on the estate, with diplomat and courtierSir Isaac Wake (1581 – 1632) having a substantial property built on the west side of the main London to Hampstead road. Inherited by his daughter and her husband,Charles West (1626–1687), the fifthBaron de la Warr, by 1714 it had passed through various hands into the ownership ofWilliam Paget, the6th Baron Paget, who had a substantial formal garden constructed.
The name Belsize Park comes from the 17th-century manor house and parkland (built byDaniel O'Neill for his wife, theCountess of Chesterfield) which once stood on the site. Rebuilt in 1663, it was sublet by 1721, when the parklands opened as pleasure gardens for those looking to escape the dirt and grime of the City of London, with concerts, singing, dancing and country sports such as fishing and racing. In 1722 magistrates were instructed to act to stop riotous behaviour, although the parkland remained open until 1745. Belsize House was rebuilt in 1746, after which additional large country houses were built on the surrounding farmlands for wealthy lawyers and merchants.
Between 1679 and 1714, the number of houses on the estate had increased from 8 to 14, and by 1808 there were still only 22 recorded. However, the formal division of the estate in 1808 into eight separate parcels of land, based on the structure of the underleases of the estate's formal houses[clarification needed], allowed the church to maximise its income, by allowing additional substantial houses to be built on the lands. This income allowed the church to have Belsize House rebuilt in 1812 for additional letting income. The wealthy leaseholders soon enabled themselves[clarification needed] to purchase the freehold from the church, allowing the accelerated development of Belsize as a Victorian country urban[clarification needed] suburb of London. One of the new landowners, George Todd, redeveloped what was known as the White House in 1815 as a substantial Georgianstucco villa withportico and two lodges. Known as Belsize House. It was later sold toMatthew Forster (1786–1869), theWhig MP forBerwick-upon-Tweed, as Belsize Lodge; it was demolished in 1937.
Victorian development started along the main London to Hampstead road from 1815 through the works of Edward Bliss, a self-made man who had leased and then bought the Newman's House land, on the west side of Haverstock Hill north of England's Lane. Bliss not only built properties to lease out, but also allowed construction subleases. In 1829Eton College advertised villa-sized plots on Haverstock Hill. The college then started developing an axis road to Finchley Road, naming it afterQueen Adelaide. Development halted in the 1830s due to the proposal for the lines of theLondon and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) to be built through Belsize Park, but Eton College successfully lobbied for the railway to be tunnelled underground viaPrimrose Hill, which was then designed and engineered byRobert Stephenson. All the 38 houses on the Newman's House land had been built by 1830.
The passing of theEcclesiastical Leases Act 1842 allowed all church lands to be let on long term construction leases, which unlocked the accelerated urban development of Belsize Park. The opening in 1851 ofHampstead Road railway station on the L&BR prompted William Lund in 1852 to agree a 99-year construction sublease on the former Forsyth estate. He proposed developments to the west of Haverstock Hill, although his plans were curtailed by construction issues associated with building over both thePond Street sewer and the L&BR tunnel. In 1852 Charles James Palmer, aBloomsbury-based solicitor bought the lease of Belsize House. In 1853 he proposed demolition of the main house, with Daniel Tiley taking the lead role in constructing Belsize Square and associated properties. Palmer commissioned architectJames Piers St Aubyn to designSt Peter's Church. In 1864 the church bought back the lease on the undeveloped backlot of the Bliss lands. Tiley gained agreement from Palmer and Eton College to buy the construction lease from the church, and hence extend development south of Belsize Square to connect with the college's estate. Mimicking the then fashionable styles of Kensington and Bayswater, between 1851 and the late 1860s he built over 250 8-10 bedroom semi-detachedstucco houses with large porticos, aimed at the middle classes. The church undertook a similar agreement in 1857, reacquiring full control over the portion of Todd's lease north of Belsize Lane in 1865, and again selling it to Tiley. With construction almost complete, fashion changed and Tiley went bankrupt in 1870.
Of the original eight parcels of land defined by the church in 1808, the three leased to Thomas Roberts remained substantially undeveloped throughout much of the Victorian era. South End Farm continued as a farmhouse, whilst althoughRosslyn House was sold in 1816 to the undertenant, it remained in place with its formal gardens until the house was demolished between 1896 and 1909. In 1855 Henry Davidson exchanged his lease for life of the Rosslyn House lands for a 99-year building lease. Due to issues associated with construction over the L&BR tunnels, in 1859 he sold Rosslyn House and its extended formal gardens to Charles Henry Lardner Woodd. Woodd decided to sublease the house out for income. Its occupiers until 1893 includedSir Francis Freeling (1764–1836), Secretary of theGeneral Post Office, andGeneral Sir Moore Disney. Davidson developed his part of the Rosslyn lands, undertaking a mixed development of large semi-detached properties similar to Belsize Park, slowed by a lack of labour due to both the substantial development of the neighbouring Maryon Wilson land and the 1860s housing rush. Woodd endeavoured to keep the ever-encroaching tide of housing from coming too close to Rosslyn House, permitting development only on the fringes of the formal garden, such as the housing by the local architectHorace Field on the south side of Wedderburn Road. It was only after Woodd's death in 1895, and the sale of the house to developers by his widow the following year, that development took place on the north side of Wedderburn Road and elsewhere on the garden and site of the house. At 19-21Lyndhurst Road (1898) the development incorporated the gatehouse of Rosslyn House, designed for Woodd byS. S. Teulon, the architect ofSt Stephen's Church, Rosslyn Hill.[3]
Developing housing resulted in the need for improved transport facilities, includingHampstead Heath,Finchley Road, andSwiss Cottage stations. From 1873 William Willett (the father ofWilliam Willett the tireless promoter ofBritish Summer Time, who helped his father from 1881 onwards) took over the church's leases after the bankruptcy of Daniel Tiley. Willett redeveloped much of the former Eton College estate with newer, smaller but still substantial properties inspired byQueen Anne style architecture. By 1900, most of the residual country mansions and their gardens had been demolished, to make way for smaller terraced houses.
AfterWorld War I, the construction of blocks offlats began, and now a great many of the larger houses are also converted into flats. InWorld War II, a large undergroundair-raid shelter was built here, and its entrance can still be seen near the tube station at Downside Crescent. The area on Haverstock Hill north ofBelsize Park Underground station up toHampstead Town Hall and including part of aprimary school near theRoyal Free Hospital was heavily bombed. When the area was rebuilt, the opportunity was taken to widen the pavement and build further back from the road.
The lyrics of the international chart hit "Kayleigh" by rock bandMarillion in 1985 include the line "loving on the floor inBelsize Park". It is also in the short filmLes Bicyclettes de Belsize (although mainly filmed inHampstead Village), of which the title song was covered byMireille Mathieu,Engelbert Humperdinck, and others. Belsize Park is also referenced onSleeper's 1995 debut albumSmart in the song "Lady Love Your Countryside" with the lyrics "And we could spend our lives puking in Belsize Park".Cozy Powell's 1974 single "Na Na Na" suggests that "You're a wizard of Wembley Central, You're the J. S. Bach of Belsize Park".[citation needed]
The Belsize Park London Underground station features in the song "Paradise" by Coldplay, where in the video, the elephant can be seen taking a train from the station.[4]
TheCamden Town Group artistRobert Polhill Bevan and his wifeStanislawa de Karlowska lived at 14 Adamson Road from 1900 to 1925.[citation needed]
Kirsty MacColl's 2000 song "England 2 Colombia 0" features the line, "we went to a pub in Belsize Park and cheered on England as the skies grew dark..."[citation needed]
It is also the place of residence for the Jewish community targeted byHitler in the 1930s in the novelThe Morning Gift.[citation needed]
Novelist Peter Straub entitled his 1983 poetry collection "Leeson Square and Belsize Park" in part after his time in residence in the Belsize Park district of London. Belsize Park and the surrounding quarters were the setting for a long-running radio drama,Waggoner's Walk. This daily serial ran from April 1969 to May 1980 each weekday onBBC Radio 2. Belsize Park is mentioned in the Hitchcock thriller,Dial M for Murder (1954) by the lead character Tony Wendice, played byRay Milland, when coercing his accomplice C. A. Swann into murdering his wife.
Shooting of the late-night scene when Paltrow and Hannah walk down the street from the 1998 filmSliding Doors was filmed in Primrose Gardens (formerly Stanley Gardens) in Belsize Park.[citation needed]
There are records of aBelsize Park Rugby Club inNorth-West London since the 1860s. In 1871, Belsize was one of the clubs at the inaugural meeting of theRugby Football Union, and therefore pioneers of the game ofRugby Union. In 1878, Belsize moved to form Rosslyn Park RFC, becoming one of England's leading clubs. In 1971, Belsize Park RFC was re-established by a group of local players. The club is now one of the most central of allLondon Rugby Clubs, playing and training in Regent's Park. There are five regular teams playing every Saturday during the season as well as a touch rugby squad in the summer time.[citation needed]
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