PRIMROSE HILL and ST.JOHN’S WOOD
Welcome to PRIMROSE HILL!
Consertvation Area
Former accumulator, modern housing
THE ENGINEER PH.
The Primrose Hill History website details how the plot of land was bought by Calvert's brewers who already ran the Chalk Farm Tavern. It is assumed they also built The Engineer, which appears on local maps by 1849.
It points out that although the sign depicts the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel - and the pub includes the Brunel Bar - the designer of the nearby London – Birmingham railway was in fact Robert Stephenson, son of 'Rocket' designer George.
Princess Road
THE ALBERT P.H.
St.Mark’s Square
ST.MARK’s church
Diversion towards the church and REGENT’S PARK & LONDON ZOO
Return: Towards the West End along Outer Circle or Regent’s Park Broad Walk
REGENT’S CANAL, Northumberland branch.
Fe y Shang Princess
https://londonopia.co.uk/londons-floating-chinese-restaurant/
Outer Circle
ZOO
Back to the original route, through PRIMROSE HILL
JOSE RIZAL lived here
Along Regent’s Park Road
Former Manor House, inn, pub, now Greek restaurant
https://primrosehillhistory.org/?p=1291
Albert Terrace
ROGER FENTON, photographic studio
Roger Fenton is the most famous of the photographers of the Crimea War. He went out at the request of Prince Albert, and was there for several months during the spring and summer of 1855. He was a landscape painter before he became a photographer, so he had a trained eye, and was an early figure in what became the Royal Photographic Society. He was alert to telling details, and the use of stillness and shadow. In the Crimea, he avoided anything upsetting, though we know from his letters home that he saw plenty. He preferred to work obliquely, as in his fine photograph of 'the Valley of the Shadow of Death', littered with spent cannonballs, The difficulties of carting cumbersome photographic equipment about the rugged terrain and of finding light-proof premises for developing his photographs from glass plate negatives were eventually overcome, and he became adept at creating makeshift studios. After sailing back with his glass negatives under difficulty, his extraordinary vistas and portraits were exhibited in London later that same year. The work involved in the taking and making of this exhibition was prodigious. Fenton also produced some of the most ravishing still life photographs from his Primrose Hill studio. A magnificent photographer who well deserves his blue plaque.
Diversion N.: from Primrose Hill to Belsize Park, and on to Hampstead
Off to ST.JOHN’S WOOD
Along the roads
Across PRIMROSE HILL, the park
The nearest LU station is ST.JOHN’S WOOD
BRIDGE over railway lines
King Henry’s Road
Dr Bhimrao Ramji Amdedkar, (1891 - 1956), architect of Free India's Constitution
An architect of Free India's Constitution
Primrose Hill Tunnel East Portalls
Cross over Primrose Hill Road.
Nearby , to the N.
BELSIZE PARK
Elsworthy Road
ST.MARY THE VIRGIN Church
Musically, St Mary’s enjoys a unique place in the story of Anglican worship. In 1906, this is the church where Percy Dearmer (Vicar 1901-15) worked with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw to compile The English Hymnal. It was in Primrose Hill that congregations first sang many well-loved hymns such as ‘He who would valiant be’, ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ and ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’. Dearmer made St Mary’s the show-piece for liturgy according to the English Usage. Our worship continues to be full of music, colour and ceremonial.
WAR MEMORIAL
Conservation Area
A London love nest fit for a king: was this the house where Edward VIII seduced Wallis Simpson (and another mistress)?
More about EDWARD VIII https://www.lockdownuniversity.org/lectures/1267-edward-viii-a-wasted-life/transcript
Welcome to ST.JOHN’S WOOD!
Conservation Area
THE UNDERGROUND MAP says: “St John’s Wood was once part of the Great Forest of Middlesex with the name deriving from its mediaeval owners, the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitallers), an Augustinian order. The order took over the land from the Knights Templar in 1323.
After the Reformation and the Dissolution of monastic orders, St John’s Wood became Crown land, and Henry VIII established Royal Hunting Grounds in what became known as Marylebone Park.
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the area was agricultural.
Queens Grove
Woronzow Rd.
St.John’s Wood Terrace
St .MARYLEBONE ALMSHOUSES
Charlbert Rd
STUDIOS
De Walden Institute at 43-48 The area was developed by the De Walden Family
Site of barracks. The army, here?
“Cannon and great guns collectively, artillery," 1540s, an old, clipped form of ordinance (q.v.) which word was attested from late 14c. in the sense of "military materials, provisions of war;" a sense now obsolete but which led to the specialized meanings "engines for discharging missiles" (early 15c.) and "branch of the military concerned with stores and materials" (late 15c.). The shorter word was established in these distinct senses by 17c.
The Ordnance survey (1833), an official geographical survey of Great Britain and Ireland, was undertaken by the government under the direction of the Master-General of the Ordnance (the natural choice, gunners being thoroughly trained in surveying ranges and distances).
Research indicates that the area was predominantly woodland until the Roman period (circa AD 47). By the medieval era, the forest had been cleared for farmland, a usage that continued until the early 19th centur y. 1812, the site was developed into barracks for the Corps of Gunner Drivers.
The Corps was replaced by the Cavalry Riding Establishment in 1823 and in 1824 a Riding School was constructed on the site. The Cavalry vacated the premises in 1832, and the Recruit Depot for the Foot Guards moved in, leading to the construction of a barracks to the south of the Riding School.
The property was continuously occupied as a barracks until 2012, when the King’s Troop relocated to Woolwich
New development
