History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

While looking through some Hampstead Council Minutes I was surprised to find a discussion about German field guns on Fortune Green in West Hampstead.  At the end of WWI in 1918, the British Government had captured thousands of German guns. By April 1920 the War Office had distributed 3,595 field guns as well as other munitions to towns across Britain and the Commonwealth for display as trophies and additional war memorials. But this was controversial, as people were still recovering from the huge wartime losses. Some towns declined the offer, in others people protested and took direct action by pushing the guns into rivers and ponds. (Trophy guns were not offered by the Government after the Second World War). In June 1921 Hampstead Council accepted the offer of four guns, two to be positioned on Fortune Green and two to be kept in store. The cost to install them on concrete bases and produce a plaque was estimated at £161, this was later lowered to £64. The local Labour Party oppos...

In our previous blog story, we told how the locals fought to save West End Green in the 1880s. http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-fight-for-west-end-green.html Here we reveal the struggle of residents some ten years later, to stop the nearby Fortune Green being built on by speculators. They realised how important it was to save open spaces as public recreational land, in the face of the overwhelming development going on all around them in the late 1880s and 1890s. The Early History of The Green The derivation of the name is unknown. Fortune Green is clearly shown on early maps such as Rocque’s (1746) and was much larger than it is today. In the early nineteenth century, three cottages were built on the Green, next to the ‘Prince of Wales’ beershop, which stood roughly where is now a kitchen and bathroom showroom on Fortune Green Road. Prince of Wales pub on Fortune Green   Like West End Green, Fortune Green was part of the ‘waste’ of the manor of Hampste...