Liddell Road was named after an old West Hampstead estate.
Liddell Road, a road tucked in behind the railway, has long been an industrial estate.
In the middle of the 2010s, it became the centre of disputed redevelopment plan to replace businesses with a primary school, private flats and office space.
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Brondesbury Brondesbury was originally "Brand’s manor" - a small hamlet in Middlesex. 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. Decca Studios Decca Studios was a recording facility in Broadhurst Gardens. Earlsfields Between Thorplands on the east and Shoot Up Hill on the west lay several fields called Earlsfields. 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. The Railway The Railway pub is a standard Victorian pub with a musical secret. 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. West End Park West End Park was created from fields known as the 'Little 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. The Mansions, NW6 The Mansions is a residential block on the north side of Mill Lane. 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.
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