Hampstead Garden Suburb: Arts & Crafts Idealism
Online Walking Tour
Hampstead Garden Suburb was the idea of Henrietta Barnett, the wife of Cannon Barnett, the vicar of St Jude’s Whitechapel. In 1896 Henrietta Barnett heard of the plans to extend the Charing Cross and Euston Railways to the fields of Golders Green that lay beyond her Hampstead weekend home.
To protect the land, she purchased it to create the Hampstead Heath extension. She appointed the architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin to plan a Garden Suburb for all classes to enjoy, with different types of housing, greens, tennis courts, allotments and preserved woodland – an antithesis to the life she had experienced in the East End.
Marilyn Greene, a qualified City of London Guide and Footsteps of London Guide, will take us through this leafy suburban paradise, tracing the early history and developments of Hampstead Garden Suburb. We will explore part of the Hampstead Heath Extension; Central Square with its two Grade I Lutyens’ churches; and the original quaint Artisans Quarter designed from 1907 by Parker and Unwin, aimed at bringing affordable housing to the working classes.
