Stamford Cottage, No 114 Heath Street, Hampstead, London Borough of Camden
Author(s): Peter Guillery
No. 114 Heath Street, the residential upper storeys of which are known as Stamford Cottage, was built as half of a pair with No. 112 Heath Street in the early 18" century. This small speculation was then on the northern margin of Hampstead, then a rapidly growing resort for Londoners. The houses are timber framed, with a brick north wall that originally looked out to the Heath next to a passage that survives as Stamford Close. They were each about 15ft (4.5m) square, originally no more than three rooms each in two storeys and garrets. They have both been extended to the rear, No. 114 at some time in the late 18" century. This extension is also timber framed, incorporating a staircase alongside narrow back rooms, and ovolo-moulded joinery, much of which survives. The house was further extended across Stamford Close, behind a later 18"-century house of comparable scale at No. 116, the latter rebuilt in the late 1930s. Nos 112 and 114 Heath Street are among a handful of early buildings along Heath Street that are reminders of the modest scale and vernacular architectural character of much of Hampstead's 18"-century development. Proportionally few buildings of this nature survive anywhere in London, and they are rare in Hampstead by comparison with the more substantially built large houses of the same period. Small timber speculatively built 'vernacular' houses such as these were once widespread in and around 18"-century London, occupied by artisans and labourers. Rather than being suggestive of rura l or village-like qualities, they should be understood as urban in character. In the local context of Hampstead they reflect aspects of the influence and proximity of London that are not normally held to the fore.
- Report Number:
- 137/2000
- Series:
- RCHME
- Pages:
- 113
