Willow Cottages, Willow Road, Hampstead. London, NW3. These homes were originally inhabited by watercress gatherers, workers who harvested watercress from ponds on Hampstead Heath.
Contrary to appearances, this stucco terrace was built in the Victorian period, on the site of some previous almshouses. It has been variously dated: c.1840 (Cherry and Pevsner 226), to c. 1866 (listing text). As a start date, the earlier one seems more likely, since watercress beds were a feature of the streams flowing from the Heath in the earlier nineteenth-century (see Elrington). Now Grade II listed, the terrace consists of nine two-storey cottages , numbered 33-41, with steps up to the entrances and semi-basements below. In the middle here is no. 37, with the name coming plaque between this house and no. 38. According to the listing text, the "neo-Georgian doorcases and doors with arched heads" at numbers 33-37 were added later, in the twentieth century. The end cottage has attractive rusticated quoins. — Jacqueline Banerjee.
Photograph and caption by George P. Landow. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Sources
Camden, Willow Cottages. British Listed Buildings. Web. 28 July 2014.
Cherry, Bridget, and Nikolaus Pevsner. London: North. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Elrington, C. R., ed. "Hampstead: Economic History."' A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989): 111-130. Web. 28 July 2014.
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Last modified 28 July 2014