Beckford’s Estate Beckfords, belonging to the family of the same name, consisted of 15 acres north of Mill Lane and west of Fortune Green Lane. Canterbury House In the last half of the nineteenth century, a white house called Canterbury was built on the then southern fringes of West End. Cedars A local West Hampstead builder, Thomas Potter, constructed Cedars in 1878. Cholmley Lodge Cholmley Lodge, a two storeyed stuccoed house, was built in 1813. Cock and Hoop The Cock and Hoop Inn was standing on the corner of West End Lane and Fortune Green Road by 1723. Flitcroft Flitcroft was a 50 acre estate at Fortune Green and West End, named after its owner in the 18th century. Hillfield By 1644 Hillfield was already mentioned in parish records. Jacksfield Jacksfield was one of the smaller but well-documented copyhold estates in the West Hampstead area. Lauriston Lodge Lauriston Lodge, now the site of Dene Mansions, was a large house in West Hampstead. Poplar House Poplar House was occupied by one of the first developers of West Hampstead, Thomas Potter. Potter’s Iron Foundry In the nineteenth century, many West Hampstead people had jobs in Potter’s Iron Foundry. Ripley House Jeremy Jepson Ripley built a house and coach house after 1814, with a large garden north of Lauriston Lodge. Sandwell House Sandwell House was owned by three generations of the Wachter family. The Black Lion The Old Black Lion was established in 1751 as a beer house. Thorplands Thorplands was an estate south of Mill Lane. Treherne House Treherne House was built in the mid eighteenth century, West End Hall West End Hall (once called New West End Hall) was one of the mansions of West End (West Hampstead). West End House West End House, once in open countryside, became surrounded by railways. Woodbine Cottage Woodbine Cottage was situated at the south-eastern corner of the Flitcroft estate. Ariel Road, NW6 Ariel Road was formed from the 1885 combination of Ariel Street and Spencer Terrace. Dennington Park Road, NW6 About 1881 Dennington Park Road was constructed on the line of Sweetbriar Walk, the old path to Lauriston Lodge. Holmdale Road, NW6 Holmdale Road runs from Mill Lane to Dennington Park Road in West Hampstead. Inglewood Road, NW6 Inglewood Road, NW6 was one of the last roads to be built in West End, West Hampstead. Mill Lane, NW6 Mill Lane forms the boundary between Fortune Green and West Hampstead. Ulysses Road, NW6 Ulysses Road is one of a series of streets named after the Trojan War. Welbeck Mansions, NW6 Welbeck Mansions, flats notable for their ironwork balconies, were built north of Inglewood Road in 1897.
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.