History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

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...

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...