{"id":19502,"date":"2026-10-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19502"},"modified":"2026-10-09T12:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:08:30","slug":"hampstead-old-and-modern-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19502","title":{"rendered":"Hampstead, Old And Modern – 1990"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing my walk in Hampstead on Sunday 9th April 1990. The previous post was More Hampstead – 1990<\/a> and ended at The Mount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Holly<\/a>\n<\/div>
Holly Mount, Holly Hill, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-63<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hampstead is a hilly part of North London and Hollybush Steps up beside the house at the start of The Mount lead to another street with ‘mount’ in is name, Holly Mount which leads on to Holly Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My picture is from the corner where Holly Mount meets Holly Hill, looking back down Holly Mount and on the left is the Holly Bush pub, with beyond that Hollybush House, with Hollybush Steps just out of sight around the corner. There is an awful lot of ‘Holly’ in that last sentence and this area of hillside was in earlier times covered with holly bushes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But apparently the area was until the mid-nineteenth century known as Cloth Hill as its abundant springs made it a good place for washing clothes including laundries serving the Royal Household in Whitehall. Perhaps they hung their washing to dry on the holly bushes. But when the area was further developed and gentrified in the early Victorian era they chose to remember the holly rather than dirty washing. Ian Visits web site<\/a> has a detailed illustrated article on the alley and Holly Mount. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Grade II listed Holly Bush pub is a fine pub I’ve visited on several occasions. It was built in the 1790s as a stable block for the home and studio of portrait painter George Romney, but in 1807 was converted to provide catering for Hampstead Assembly Rooms. By around the middle of the nineteenth century it had begun to be used as a pub, but was apparently not fully licenced until 1928. In 2010 it was bought by Fullers and is a pub whose restaurant and drink prices reflect its situation in one of the most affluent areas of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Mount<\/a>\n<\/div>
Mount Vernon, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-65<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Slopes lead up from Holly Hill to yet another mount in Hampstead, Mount Vernon, which gets its name from Major General Charles Vernon MP (1791-1810) who owned land here. The blue plaque is for Sir Henry Dale (1875\u20131968)<\/a>, a pharmacologist and physiologist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Otto Loewi for his work on acetylcholine as agent in the chemical transmission of nerve pulses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the street is another blue plaque on the corner with Holly Walk, to the rather more famous Robert Louis Stevenson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"St<\/a>\n<\/div>
St Mary’s, RC, Church, Holly Walk, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-53<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The church was first established here by a French Catholic priest Abb\u00e9 Jean-Jacques Morel (1766\u20131852) who fled here from the French Revolution but it only had a church building here from 1816 and even then it looked nothing like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

London had had a week of huge anti-Catholic riots in 1780, the Gordon Riots, and after a week of widespread destruction the army were brought in and around 500 rioters were killed and many injured and arrested. In 1816 anti-Catholic feeling was still running high and at first the church was built to look like another Georgian house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 1850s feelings had quietened and the law had changed to allow Catholic churches to ring bells and William Wardell designed this facade with its bell tower, statue of the Virgin and Child and a massive doorway. Abb\u00e9 Jean-Jacques Morel died in 1852, the year it was finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"House,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Sun House, Frognal Way, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-21<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Various streets in the area share the name Frognal – and rather to my surprise simply because they were developed where a lot of frogs lived and croaked. Much of the area is private streets where Google Streetview does not go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sun House at 9 Frognal Way is Grade II* listed, as “a pioneer work of the Modern Movement in the UK<\/em>“, designed by Maxwell Fry and built in 1935-6. “Fry was a founder member of the MARS Group which did much to forward the cause of the new architecture<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a difficult house to photograph from the street as it it largely hidden behind trees and now also I think behind tall gates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"House,<\/a>\n<\/div>
House, Frognal, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-25<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

66 Frognall is another Grade II* listed modern house, designed by Colin Lucas with
Amyas Connell and Basil Ward in 1937-8, on the corner with Frognal Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"House,<\/a>\n<\/div>
House, Frognal, Hampstead, Camden, 1990, 90-4g-11<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another photograph of the Grade II* listed 66 Frognal showing the entrance at its north end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d had enough of Hampstead and had other places to go – I had taken many more pictures than I’ve so far put on line, and perhaps some time I’ll go back and scan more. But Hampstead still seems to me a place of its own, not really a part of the real London I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing my walk in Hampstead on Sunday 9th April 1990. The previous post was More Hampstead – 1990 and ended at The Mount. Hampstead is a hilly part of North London and Hollybush Steps up beside the house at the start of The Mount lead to another street with ‘mount’ in is name, Holly Mount … Continue reading Hampstead, Old And Modern – 1990<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[1336,25801,25794,25797,298,25785,25802,3672,25793,25795,25803,25800,25790,6442,25788,25789,25787,25784,25783,976,17,1343,4248,25791,25782,83,25792,25786,25799,25798,433,25796],"class_list":["post-19502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-1336","tag-66-frognal","tag-abbe-jean-jacques-morel","tag-bell-tower","tag-camden","tag-cloth-hill","tag-colin-lucas","tag-facade","tag-french-catholic-priest","tag-french-revolution","tag-frognal","tag-frognal-way","tag-george-romney","tag-hampstead","tag-holly-bush","tag-holly-bush-pub","tag-holly-bushes","tag-holly-hill","tag-holly-mount","tag-house","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-maxwell-fry","tag-mount-vernon","tag-old-and-modern","tag-peter-marshall","tag-sir-henry-dale","tag-spriangs","tag-sun-house","tag-virgin-and-child","tag-walk","tag-william-wardell"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19503,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502\/revisions\/19503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}