History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

West End Green sits in the centre of what was originally the village of West End. The open space was used by the villagers for as long as they could remember. But in 1871 John Culverhouse, a general contractor and developer who had worked for Sir John Maryon-Wilson the Lord of Hampstead Manor, was granted permission by the Manor Court to enclose the Green after paying about £650 for the land. Five years later he fenced the space using six-foot boards, but the locals promptly tore them down and burnt them. In 1881 Culverhouse offered to sell the Green to the Vestry (the local council) for £800. They approached the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW), the forerunner of the London County Council, for funding but the Board refused. Then in June, the Vestry heard that the ‘Home for Incurable Children’ were negotiating for the purchase of the Green and were willing to sell part to the Vestry. Some Vestrymen said the title to the land was bad, but they nonetheless resolved to buy a portion at...

St James Mansions on the corner of West End Lane and Hemstal Road, were built in 1895. We look at the history of the building and a few of the people who lived there a hundred years ago. Before the development of today’s roads, Charles William Clark bought a plot of land and in 1872 he built ‘The Beacon’, a large house and grounds. Clark was an artist and designed the house himself. It was unusual and described as, ‘an exact representation of a ruin on the coast of England showing more than one period of architecture, a monument of human eccentricity, a castle-like dwelling with lofty battlements and turrets.’   Charles died at the house in 1889, and his widow Antonia stayed on until 1894 when she sold it to the developer Edward Jarvis Cave. He and his sons built many of the mansions blocks in West Hampstead, Finchley Road and Maida Vale. The house was demolished, and St James Mansions were built on the site.   St James Mansions today (Dick Weindling, Jan 2021) James Hug...

In 1915 The Foreign Office were contacted by the British Consul General in Barcelona about a poor boy in Granollers near Barcelona, who had received an advertisement written in Spanish, from an astrologer called Professor Zazra shown in a turban and Indian dress, requesting money for a horoscope. A resident of Granollers forwarded the advertisement to the Consul General and asked for action to be taken against Prof. Zazra.  The Foreign Office in London took the matter seriously and raised the complaint with the Home Office who asked Scotland Yard to investigate. This advert by Prof. Zazra appeared in numerous newspapers. The police went to 90 New Bond Street and found that Zazra, ‘The Chief Mystic of the Hindu School of Predication’, was an Englishman called Arthur Drew Clifton. They warned him that unless he stopped advertising, he would be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act (1824). The police described him as a very shrewd man and one not easily scared, but he complied (for a time...