The Cock and Hoop Inn was standing on the corner of
West End Lane and
Fortune Green Road by 1723.
Before the 1880s, this area was known as West End. The census shows a gradual population increase in West End from 212 residents in 1801 to 563 people in 1871.
Not much had changed in the intervening years. The few mansions were still occupied by wealthy tenants. Meanwhile workers’ cottages and tenements clustered round the Green with the local farmhouse, the Old Black Lion beerhouse (established 1751) and Cock & Hoop pub nearby. The three drinking establishments were still only serving to a total population of just over 500 in the 1870s.
In 1896 the authorities closed the Cock and Hoop when it was discovered that the named licensee, Mr Robinson, had been dead for four years.
The Cock and Hoop was pulled down and Alexandra Mansions built on its site in 1902.
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Cock and Hoop, West End Green, 1881
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Fortune Green was originally part of the district of Hampstead but became physically separated from it by the building of the new turnpike road (now Finchley Road) in the 1830s.The name of Fortune Green is derived from
foran-tune meaning in front of the tun, probably an inn in the area.
Originally Fortune Green was a patch of manorial waste, now in the north of the ward, where local residents had the right to graze animals, dig turf and play sports. The Green dwindled considerably in the 19th century when the lord of the manor granted enclosure rights for about a third of the area.
Lying on the south-west side of the
Finchley Road, Hampstead town council decided to build its overflow cemetery here in the 1840s.
The arrival of the Midland Railway in 1871 brought rapid development and many large houses were demolished in favour of higher density buildings. Victorian residential buildings display considerable variety in their design and detail and there are a number of large distinctive red brick mansion blocks, most of which have remained unaltered.
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