Frognal

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Frognal is the name of one of the most historically significant streets in the London borough of Hampstead , Camden borough . It was also the name of a former settlement in the area.

Origin of name

The name is probably derived from the name "The place of frogs" (Eng. "The place of the frogs"). This part of Hampstead was originally an agricultural area with many bodies of water that were home to numerous frogs .

course

The road begins on Finchley Road and runs from there in a largely northerly direction to Frognal Rise. Its cross streets are - from south to north - Arkwright Road, Frognal Lane, Frognal Way, Church Row , Redington Road, Oak Hill Park and Frognal Gardens.

history

In the 15th century there was a large manor house on the site of today's Frognal. Because of its good climatic conditions, Frognal grew into an estate with several buildings in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. This settlement was in the area where the streets of Frognal and Frognal Lane meet today. In the early 19th century, the original Frognal settlement began to grow.

Frognal Close

On the west side of Frognal (Street) - between Arkwright Road and Frognal Lane - is Frognal Close, a row of houses designed in 1937 by the architect Ernst Ludwig Freud , a son of Sigmund Freud .

Known residents

The poet Stephen Spender, born in 1909, grew up in house number 10 . In his autobiography, he describes it as an "ugly Hampstead-style house, as if from a construction kit".

The union of lots 31 and 31A served as Hampstead's largest open-air theater in the 1950s, when one garden housed the stage and the other garden housed the audience.

The horn player Dennis Brain, who died early, lived in building number 37 and the watercolourist Kate Greenaway died on November 6, 1901 in the neighboring house number 39 .

The houses number 49 and 51 were designed in 1895 by the architect Reginald Blomfield , who then lived in house number 51 himself.

Across the street was the Priory Lodge until the 1920s , where Dr. Samuel Johnson lived and wrote much of his The Vanity of Human Wishes. Above the lodge was the spacious Frognal Hall, which Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley lived in until his death on March 19, 1804.

The Austrian actor Adolf Wohlbrück , who called himself Anton Walbrook in England, lived in house number 69 . The "father of plastic surgery", Sir Harold Gillies, resided in the neighboring building at number 71 .

Located below the present number 94 Old Mansion (dt. Old House ) was built in 1700. Its original garden stretched from Mount Vernon to Church Row .

The singer Kathleen Ferrier lived in building number 97 from 1942 until her death on October 8, 1953, and the neighboring Frognal House was the home of French General Charles de Gaulle and his family from 1940 to 1942 .

The houses, built around 1745 and now numbered 103 to 109, were originally a single building and known as Frognal Grove . Its entrance was at number 105, houses number 103 and 107 formed its side wings and number 109 housed a stable. In the late 19th century, another house (number 111) was added to the Frognal Grove complex.

The most prominent resident of the house with today number 103 was the politician Ramsay MacDonald , in 1924 the first Labor - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was. He lived in the house from 1925 to 1937. His son Malcolm MacDonald , who also went into politics, also lived there. In the 1950s the house was inhabited by the American screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart , who immigrated to England during the McCarthy era .

The painter George Sheringham lived at number 106 .

The neighboring numbers 108 and 110 are among the oldest houses in Hampstead. In the 18th century they were merged and for a long period housed a pub , the name of which was changed several times. In the part of the building with number 108, the Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina lived in the 1950s and the British musician Sting in the 1980s . The poet and Punch editor Eduard George Knox lived at the neighboring number 110 from 1945 until his death on January 2, 1971 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hidden London: Frognal, Camden (accessed January 15, 2016)
  2. ↑ Christopher Wade: Buried in Hampstead . Camden History Society, 2nd Edition 2007, p. 80, ISBN 978-0-904491-69-2

literature

Coordinates: 51 ° 33 ′ 15 "  N , 0 ° 10 ′ 56"  W.