On the west side of
West End Lane, Charles Spain bought 5 acres and between 1829 and 1838 built York Villa.
Oaklands Hall was possibly built due to a sale of land behind York Villa in 1860:
To be sold, pursuant to a Decree of the High Court of Chancery, made in causes of Lance v. Aglionby, and Lance v. Elyard, with the approbation of the Master of the Rolls, by Messrs. Farebrother, Clark, and Lye, at Garraway's Coffee-house, Change-alley, Cornhill, on Tuesday, the 7th day of August, 1860, at twelve o'clock at noon : A. valuable freehold iuclosure of building land, situate in West-end-lane, Hampstead, about midway between the Edgware and Finchley Roads, sloping down from Westend-lane, to which it has a frontage of above 800 feet, and extending back for a depth of about 1056 feet to the rear of Royston Hall, Royston Lodge, and other residences and grounds in the Edgware-road and abutting on the grounds of York Villa and West End House, the whole containing 17A. SB. OF. The Hampstead and City Junction Railway passes close to the property.
London Gazette
During the 1860s, Oaklands Hall, an elaborate Gothic mansion, was occupying the site. Oaklands Hall was leased from Charles Spain from 1861 to 1872 by Donald Nicoll MP - owner of a gentlemen's outfitter's in Regent Street.
The three West Hampstead stations were in place by 1888. Nicoll owned portions of the Little Estate to the north and west, which together formed a 23 acre estate which he called
West End Park.
Nicoll was a director of the Metropolitan and St John's Wood railway from 1864 to 1872 and, in anticipation of its plans, laid out a road (Sherriff, then called Nicoll, Road) on the line later taken by the railway, for which he received substantial compensation.
He then sold
West End Park to the London Permanent Building Society, which was connected with Alexander Sherriff, a fellow MP and railway director, who gave his name to the northernmost road on the estate.
Oaklands Hall was occupied by Sir Charles Murray until 1878, when it was offered for sale, and in 1883 houses were built in Dynham and
Cotleigh Roads on its site.
Builders, including A. Rathbone of
Mill Lane and Julia Bursill, had erected 123 terraced houses there by 1893, in addition to completing the frontage on
West End Lane. A library was built in
Cotleigh Road in 1901.
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Cannon Stream The Cannon Stream was, before it was sent underground, a tributary of the Westbourne River. Decca Studios Decca Studios was a recording facility in Broadhurst Gardens. Kilburn Grange Park Kilburn Grange Park is a three hectare open space adjacent to Kilburn High Road. Oaklands Hall On the west side of West End Lane, Charles Spain bought 5 acres and between 1829 and 1838 built York Villa. The Elms The Elms - also known as Elm Lodge - stood at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Willesden Lane. The Grange The Grange was a large mansion situated on Kilburn High Road until the turn of the twentieth century. The Railway The Railway pub is a standard Victorian pub with a musical secret. West End House West End House, once in open countryside, became surrounded by railways. West End Park West End Park was created from fields known as the 'Little Estate'. Abbots Place, NW6 Abbots Place runs from Priory Road to West End Lane and Abbey Road. Acol Road, NW6 Acol is not an acronym, but a village in Kent that gave its name to Acol Road, NW6. Albion Mews, NW6 Albion Mews is one of the streets of London in the NW6 postal area. Ariel Road, NW6 Ariel Road was formed from the 1885 combination of Ariel Street and Spencer Terrace. Eresby Road, NW6 Eresby Road ran from Kingsgate Road to Kilburn High Road with a turning for Kingsgate Place about halfway down. Gascony Avenue, NW6 Gascony Avenue is an east-west road lying both sides of Kingsgate Road, NW6. Quex Road, NW6 Quex Road is an important road in NW6 linking the Edgware Road and West End Lane. The Terrace, NW6 The Terrace is one of the streets of London in the NW6 postal area.
The name "West Hampstead" was a 19th century invention - the original name was West End.Lacking its own supply of spring water and situated away from the main roads, medieval West End barely qualified as a hamlet until a few country houses were built here from the 17th century onwards. The tendency for
West End Lane to become impassably muddy after heavy rain further enhanced the hamlet's isolation.
By 1815 West End was still exceptionally quiet – so much so that its inhabitants claimed to have heard the cannon fire at Waterloo. The construction of the Finchley Road in the 1830s brought few additions to a population that consisted of a handful of squires and some farm labourers, gardeners and craftsmen. By 1851 West End had one inn and two beershops.
Railways were the prime stimulus of growth in many country corners of modern London but few places were transformed as wholly as West End. With the arrival of the Hampstead Junction Railway in 1857, the Midland Railway in 1868 and the Metropolitan and St John’s Wood Railway in 1879, the new suburb of West Hampstead spread in all directions.
Rapid development in the 1880s and 1890s swept away the large houses and the streets were laid out in today's pattern. A local estate agent in Kilburn claimed that he coined the name ‘West Hampstead’, for one of the local railway stations. Public amenities such as street lighting, gas and electricity were provided and much of the frontage to
West End Lane was developed as shops.
Some of the new estates were the work of big developers like the United Land Company, whose inclination was to build fairly densely, and during the latter decades of the 19th century parts of West Hampstead became increasingly working-class in character, with policeman, travelling salesmen and railwaymen mixing with clerks and artisans. Engineering workshops operated near the railway lines.
Twentieth-century building was limited mainly to interwar blocks of flats in the north of the district, often in place of Victorian houses that had already become run-down.
The West Hampstead ward now has relatively few families and a great number of young single people. A large proportion of homes are privately rented and fewer than a quarter of adults are married, compared with more than half for the country as a whole. This socio-economic profile is evident in the upmarket cafés that have lined
West End Lane in recent years.
Famous West Hampstead residents have included the singers Dusty Springfield, Joan Armatrading, Olivia Newton John and Jimmy Somerville, author Doris Lessing, actresses Imelda Staunton and Emma Thompson, and the playwright Joe Orton, who lived on
West End Lane with his lover Kenneth Halliwell from 1951 to 1959. Stephen Fry has also lived here.
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