Nos. 85 & 87 Fordwych Road

These adjoining houses in West Hampstead, which were built in the 1890s, have an interesting history.

The Caerthillian Nursing Home first opened in No.87 about 1925, and ten years later expanded into the premises next door. The principal, Edith Wyatt was the daughter of one of the first owners of the houses.

This advert from 1938 mentions the recently introduced Minnittis Apparatus, which was a nitrous oxide gas and air mask to help the mother during delivery of the baby.

Before the NHS, middle class parents paid to have their children born in a private maternity home.

The writer Jackie Collins, sister of Joan, was born there in 1937 while her parents were living in Hillcrest Court at the top of Shoot-Up Hill.

Dusty Springfield (real name Mary O’Brien) was born at the nursing home in 1939. The O’Brien’s had lived locally in 104 Sumatra Road from about 1933 to 1938. Her birth certificate says Mary was born 16 April at 87 Fordwych Road. When her father registered the birth on 23 May 1939, he was living at 97 Lauderdale Mansions in Maida Vale, indicating the family had recently moved from Sumatra Road.

Here is Dusty with some famous friends (half of the Beatles and Tom Jones), in September 1966. Redferns, Getty Images

The Caerthillian Nursing Home closed about 1948/1950.

In the 1950s and 60s the properties became the Hotel Shem-Tov for Jewish refugees, run by Isaac Lenkiewicz and his wife, who fled Nazi Germany at the end of the 1930s. Their son Robert Lenkiewicz, an outstanding figurative painter, grew up in West Hampstead.

Nos.85&87 served as The Treehouse, a centre for vulnerable children, supported by the band Coldplay and part of Kids Company until the collapse of the charity in August 2015. Another charity, known as UP (for Unlocking Potential), took over the centre, renaming it The Corner House.

Today it is North Bridge House, a private nursery and pre-prep school. I wonder how many parents know about the previous occupants?

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