History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

The North London Tavern on the corner of Cavendish Road and Kilburn High Road was originally the North London Railway Hotel, after the railway company that ran the service from the nearby station now called Brondesbury on the Overground. The name was shortened to the North London Hotel in 1895.   In the early hours of the morning of 12 June 1946 , Maurice Herbert the licensee, heard noises in the cellar and called the police. At 2.15am the pub was surrounded, and four men were found stealing 130 bottles of gin which they were about to load into a waiting van. PCs Ian Moir and Robert Wade saw two men climb onto the wall at the rear of the building. Moir said, ‘I shouted to them to come down. Davis fired two shots and they ran towards Cavendish Road. I followed them and Davis pointed the pistol at me. I threw my truncheon at him and grabbed him as he was climbing a fence. As we struggled he hit me on the head with the pistol butt’. PC Wade arrived and they arrest...

There have been over 60,000 burials in Hampstead Cemetery in Fortune Green Road since it was opened in 1876. But this sad story is about four bodies that were found above ground, the result of suicide and perhaps, murder. Alfred Chambers In 1884, the body of Alfred Pierpoint Chambers was discovered by a grave digger lying face downwards on the grave of his wife. Alfred was a photographer with a studio in Clapham. Alfred and Ellen were married in 1867, but since her death in 1882, Alfred had been very depressed. The post mortem revealed he had taken cyanide which was used in processing photographs. Henry Butterworth In December 1885, an inquest was held on Henry Butterworth, the owner of a chemist’s shop at 70 Tottenham Court Road. Today it is CEX electronics store, one of the few surviving original properties, immediately south of Goodge Street underground station. His widow Elizabeth told the inquest court that Henry had left home on the 26 November, saying he...

This unusual story from over 30 years ago looks at events which had links from Kilburn to both national and international events. There are similarities with John le Carr é ’s The Little Drummer Girl which was written in 1983 and made into a TV series shown on BBC last year. In 1986 Ann Marie Murphy was living in a terraced house in Mazenod Avenue Kilburn which the 32-year-old shared with two friends. Ann was born into the large family of lorry driver William and Kathleen Murphy who lived in Sallynoggin Park Dun Laoghaire, a small coastal town about eight miles south of Dublin. She left school at 14 and worked for ten years at the Glen Abbey tights and stocking factory at Blackrock, about two miles from her home. In October 1984 Ann and her friend Therese Leonard came to London and got jobs as chambermaids for the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane . They initially lived in the staff house in Earls Court . Therese met Jordanian Khaled Hasi whose flatmate was fellow countryman Ne...

Nellie Seymour was an attractive actress, one of many who made a living from the stage; it was a hard life, often moving with a company from town to town. If you were lucky, you found a role in a production that stayed in a theatre for a few months. One such was ‘Sergeant Brue’ by Owen Hall which premiered in London in 1904. A musical farce, the plot centres around the police sergeant of the title, who comes into £10,000 a year, on condition he remains in the force and is promoted to inspector. Nellie played Vivienne Russell, a society lady and one of the chorus .   The cast of Sergeant Brue, Nellie is seated in the centre (Marianne Colloms) The play was staged at the Strand Theatre and the Prince of Wales Theatre, running in London ’s West End until February 1905. The ladies are carrying unusual animal heads or masks which they had to wear at some point in the performance. One critic disparaged another prop, paper hoops, because the ladies were expected to jump thro...

In the late 1950s Veronica Murray, known as ‘Ronnie’, came from Londonderry to find work in London. She eventually worked as a prostitute on the streets and clubs of Soho, and in June 1958 rented a room at 58 Charteris Road in Kilburn. When Ronnie had not been seen by her friends in Soho for several days, one of them phoned her Turkish landlord Ratomir Tasic. A shocking sight awaited him as he entered her room on 19 December 1958 . Ronnie had been beaten to death and was lying across her bed. The murder squad detectives led by Superintendent Evan Davies, found that she had been hit several times on the head with an ornamental dumbbell. Some unusual circular marks were found on her body, but the fingerprints at the scene did not match any on file. The police released a photo of Veronica a few days later but this produced no suspects and the case went cold. Veronica 'Ronnie' Murray A year later on 11 October 1959 , Mrs Mabel Hill was celebrating her birthday in L...

This is the story of two racing drivers and their record breaking cars. Ernest Eldridge was born in 1897 at 13 Burton Road Kilburn and baptised at St Paul’s in Kilburn Square. The family lived in several local addresses; Gondar Gardens in 1901, and by 1921 they were in 17 Fairhazel Gardens. After a number of different jobs, his father became a financial bill broker and had enough money to send Ernest to Harrow for his education.  When War broke out Ernest left school and joined up, serving as an ambulance driver on the Western Front. He spoke very good French and after the War he lived in Paris. He liked the excitement of driving fast cars, and gambling with the chance of winning £60,000 at Monte Carlo – he lost on the turn of a card.  Ernest Eldridge (r) with rival John Parry-Thomas (l) Beginning in 1921, he made his name by driving huge modified cars fitted with aero engines at races in Brooklands, Paris and the Indianapolis 500. His Fiat with an aer...