Skip to main content

Stag hunts in Kilburn and Kensal Green Cemetery

As suburbs developed and spread into the country round London, rural pastimes could conflict with streets and houses. So far as the late nineteenth century hunts described below were concerned, it appears the object was a chase, ending with the capture not the death of the deer. But pursuing a deer or stag was unpredictable so far as the direction an animal might take.

            Feb 1850, stag hunt in Camden Town

In November 1878, around 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, shoppers in Kilburn were alarmed by the sight of a fine stag, running full tilt down the High Road, followed by a pack of dogs and several huntsmen. The chase began several miles away in Hendon where the stag had been kept on Mount Pleasant Farm. The first run was towards Stanmore, then the stag turned towards Willesden, ending up on Willesden Lane before turning south down the High Road. It got as far as Belsize Road where it ran towards the railway station which then had its entrance opposite the Priory Tavern. The porter slammed the station door but the animal, followed by five hounds, managed to get onto the tracks through a yard besides the station. They raced towards the railway tunnel where the station master and a few helpers secured the dogs. The stag halted but then ran into the railway tunnel. Emerging at Primrose Hill, it had to continue down the tracks as escape was impossible, the tracks being in a cutting with steep sides. The stag ended its run at Chalk Farm, where it was captured when it took refuge in the Round House engine shed.

In 1883 the large Kensal Green Cemetery was the site of another impromptu hunt that started near Uxbridge. The stag ran down the main road where it was chased into a florist shop and after jumping over a horse, bolted into the Cemetery with a hound named Darby at its heels. After being pursued by a group of locals, the animal stopped, seemingly exhausted. A butcher tried to lasso it, but when approached, the stag leapt over the heads of its would-be captors and made off round the graves. Eventually a group of huntsmen arrived and after about an hour’s chase inside the Cemetery, the stag left as it had entered, via the upper gates. After running across a dairy farm, it was finally captured. The local paper said the stag was named Richmond, ‘a well-known favourite celebrated for its splendid running powers.’

The following year, a deer was again chased to Willesden Lane but this time it went towards Christchurch Road, leapt over several gardens before crashing through a glass door into the home of Henry Taylor at No.6 Mowbray Road Brondesbury. It then bolted through another door but got caught in netting in the back yard where it was captured by pursuing huntsmen. The deer was taken to James Crook’s stables on Kilburn High Road and treated for cuts from the broken glass. 

This is the last mention of a hunt we can find so close to Kilburn, but they continued in the outer London suburbs until the spread of streets and houses made them impossible.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

False Arrest: the Allum and Hislop Case

Trinidadian Desmond Allum came to London to study law in 1958. He worked in hotel kitchens and the Post Office and studied law at night. He qualified and was called to the Bar in the summer of 1962 and then got a job with the Inland Revenue. In 1964 and 1965 he lived at 116 Greencroft Gardens in West Hampstead.  His friend George Hislop was born in Tobago. He played cricket for Trinidad and represented the West Indies at the Empire Games held in Cardiff in 1958. The following year he came to London to train as a teacher. In September 1962 he started work as a PE teacher at the Hillcroft Secondary School in Tooting Bec.  The Incident On the evening of 31 January 1963 Allum and Hislop had visited friends at 351b Finchley Road (now redeveloped as part of the JW3 Centre). They left and were walking down Finchley Road towards the underground station on their way to Balham. At 9.25pm they were stopped and questioned by two plain clothes detectives who asked them to turn out their po...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kilburn National Club

This popular music venue was at 234 Kilburn High Road, on the corner of Messina Avenue. Many famous musicians including Johnny Cash and David Bowie played there. We look at the original building which was the Grange Cinema, and what happened when the National closed and was taken over by two different church groups. Grange Cinema The Grange was a large mansion standing in grounds of nine and a half acres and with a frontage to Kilburn High Road. It was the home of Ada Peters the widow of a wealthy coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria . Following Ada ’s death in 1910, the property was sold. The new owner was Oswald Stoll, a major name in the entertainment world who had already built the London Coliseum in St Martin ’s Lane, near Leicester Square . Stoll wanted to erect another Coliseum theatre in Kilburn. In fact, progress overtook him and instead of a theatre, the 2,028 seat Grange cinema opened on 30 July 1914 . This remained the biggest cinema in Kilburn until th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Smith’s Crisps

This is the story of how Frank Smith and his friend Jim Viney, began in a small way in Cricklewood and built the large and successful company of Smith’s Crisps. Early years Frank was born in 1875, in Hackney. His parents had left their native Suffolk by the mid-1860s for London, where his father ran a fruiterer and florist business. By 1881 the family were living over their corner shop at 128 Stoke Newington High Street, moving to Kingsland Road by 1891. Frank started working when he was 10-years old and went with his father to Covent Garden each morning to buy produce for their shop. Frank married Jessie Minnie Ramplin in Southwark in 1902. The couple and their six-year old daughter Laura were living in Mona Road Deptford in 1911, when Frank gave his occupation as ‘commercial traveller, confectionery’. Soon after this he went to work for a wholesale grocer by the name of Carter, in Smithfield. Carter had a side-line making potato crisps and Frank saw great potential in the product and...
Post a Comment
Read more