We recently reported on the proposals, after hard and persistent campaigning, for more toilets at underground stations. Locally the inconvenience at best, and health dangers at worst, of lack of public toilets has been recognised by KOVE (Kilburn Older Voices Exchange).
KOVE are campaigning for better public toilets in Kilburn and will be holding a procession down Kilburn High Road:
Do you want better public toilets in Kilburn?
Join KOVE for a procession down Kilburn High Road to support this vital issue and mark World Toilet Day. We’ll have placards, or bring your own!
Saturday 23rdNovember 1.30-2.30pm
Meet in Kilburn Library (Camden side: 12-22 Kilburn High Road NW6 5UH (upstairs room) from 1pm. Light refreshments and socialising at start and end.
Camden Council are installing a Changing Places
toilet at Kilburn Library. These facilities provides sanitary
accommodation for people with multiple and complex disabilities who have
one or two assistants with them which will make the library a more
inclusive space.
KOVE said:
Our campaigning efforts are aimed at creating a more
inclusive and age friendly Kilburn. We believe in empowering older individuals
to actively participate in shaping local policies and decisions, ensuring their
perspectives are heard and valued. Some of our initiatives include the upcoming
World Toilet Day march, the Kilburn bench audit, campaigns for increased safety
on and around Kilburn High Road and the Loos for Kilburn campaign.
There have long been complaints about the state of Kilburn High Road, one of London's main arteries and shopping streets, and the failure of the responsible local councils to cooperate on the many issues involved,
Now Camden Council, Brent Council and the City of Westminster have launched a joint consultation on improvement plans. They say:
Kilburn is a busy place with shops, restaurants, local services and lots of
public transport links. Camden, Brent and Westminster Councils want to improve
road safety and air quality along the High Road, maintain bus journey times and
make it easier to catch public transport.
We also want to upgrade how the high street looks and feels.
This is your chance to share your ideas on our
proposals and help shape the future of Kilburn. Your views matter to us on this
scheme because we want you to enjoy being in Kilburn, to have a safer and more
pleasant place for everyone to walk, shop and visit, to breathe cleaner air and
for businesses to flourish.
The first consultation event will be at the Kilburn Grange Park Festival today:
Consultation events
We'd love to chat to you at one of our events
below:
13 July, 2024: Kilburn Grange Park Festival (12pm - 6pm)
17 July, 2024: Kilburn Playhut in Kilburn Grange Park (12pm
- 2pm)
22 July, 2024: Online Q&A Meeting (6-7 pm)
1 August, 2024: Kilburn Library (10am - 12pm)
And look out for pop-up events on Kilburn High Road,
in the pink gazebo, throughout July and August! Consultations ends August
23rd
To take part in the Consultation and for further information go to LINK.
Plans below. Click on bottom right for full page view.
Thank you for joining me again for the final part
of this Kilburn local history series.
1. New flats in Cambridge Road, opposite Granville
Road Baths, c.1970. (Brent Archives online image 10127)
In Part 6 we saw the major rebuilding that took place, particularly in South
Kilburn, between the late 1940s and the 1970s. Many of the workers on the
building sites were Irish. The new wave of Irish immigration to Northwest
London, which reached its peak in the 1950s, was quickly transforming the area.
As well as abundant work, Kilburn offered plenty of cheap accommodation, and a
bustling High Road with cultural and eating establishments, many of them
catering for the Irish population, who soon represented a majority in the area.
‘County Kilburn’ was dubbed Ireland’s 33rd county
2. Kilburn's Irish culture – an Irish Festival
poster and Kilburn Gaels hurling team. (From the internet)
The Irish community, close-knit and mutually
supportive, hit the headlines in the negative way in the 1970s, when Kilburn
became a focal point for “the Troubles” in London. On 8 June 1974, an estimated
3,000 came out onto the streets of Kilburn for the funeral procession of
Provisional IRA member Michael Gaughan. An Irishman, who had lived in Kilburn,
Gaughan was imprisoned for an armed bank robbery in 1971 and in 1974 died as
the result a hunger strike. Gaughan’s coffin, accompanied by an IRA guard of honour,
was taken from the Crown at Cricklewood through Kilburn to the Catholic Church
of the Sacred Heart in Quex Road, before being flown to Dublin for another
ceremony and funeral.
3. Michael Gaughan's funeral procession in Quex
Road, June 1974. (Image from the internet)
The maximum publicity stirred by the IRA only
confirmed the general belief that Kilburn was becoming a focal point for the
Irish republicans, and their meeting place was Biddy Mulligan’s pub at 205 High
Road. Dating from about 1862, the pub on the corner of Kilburn High Road and
Willesden Lane was originally called the Victoria Tavern. It became Biddy
Mulligan’s in the 1970s, named after the character of a female Dublin street
seller performed by 1930s Irish comedian Jimmy O’Dea.
4. Sinn Fein's Kilburn Branch, marching through
Cricklewood in the 1970s. (Brent Archives image 317)
As claimed by Ulster loyalists later, Biddy’s
attracted ‘militant Irish extremists, far left activists, revolutionaries and
their sympathisers’. Leaders of Sinn Fein in London said they collected about
£17,000 a year in Kilburn – a lot of it came from the pub collections and went
across the Irish sea to fund IRA activities. On 21 December 1975 the pub was
shaken by an explosion from a holdall left at its doorstep by members of the
Ulster Defence Association, who said they wanted to stop the spread of IRA in
England. It was the first time the UDA struck outside Northern Ireland. Out of
90 people who were in the bar at the time, a small number were hurt, but no one
was killed. The perpetrators were quickly arrested and put in prison.
5. The former Biddy Mulligan's pub in 2009. (From
the internet – picture by Ewan Murray, on Flickr)
The pub remained ‘Biddy’s’ for a few years, then it
traded as an Aussie sports bar called the ‘Southern K’. It closed about 2009
and today the building is a Ladbrokes betting shop.
The look and feel of Kilburn is changing fast –
Woolworths, at 100-104 Kilburn High Road, which was a big feature of the area
since 1920s, closed in 2008 and is now Iceland. The elegant 1930s Art Deco
building at 54-56 Kilburn High Road is Primark – part of the usual mix of shops
found on any major high street in the country.
6. The Lord Palmerston in a
c.1900 postcard, and as Nando's, 2017. (www.images-of-london.co.uk/ Anne Hill)
The Lord Palmerston, 308 Kilburn High Road, is
another example of how Kilburn has changed over time. It originally operated as
the Palmerston Hotel when it opened in 1869, and served as a terminus for
several horse bus services. In 1977 the pub re-opened as the Roman Way, in
deference to the road’s historic roots. Now it is a branch of Nando’s. The Cock
Tavern, The Old Bell, the Sir Colin Campbell, North London Tavern, Earl of Derby
and others continue the area’s tradition of historic pubs, which we saw in Part 2, but now alongside
Italian, Japanese, Thai, Afghani, Persian, Turkish, Indian, Moroccan, Burmese
eateries on the High Road.
7.A collage of some of Kilburn's historic public houses. (Photos and
collage by Irina Porter)
From the 1970s onwards the Irish population started
to move out of the area, and immigrants from the Caribbean, Middle East and
Asia started to come in. The area is now multicultural - in 2017 the vicar of
the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart in Quex Road said that he regularly welcomed
64 different nationalities to mass. The Maida Vale Picture House at 140 Maida
Vale (1913) is now the Islamic Centre of England.
“The window logs Kilburn’s skyline. Ungentrified,
ungentrifiable. Boom and bust never come here. Here bust is permanent. Empty
State Empire, empty Odeon, graffiti-streaked sidings rising and falling like a
rickety roller coaster. Higgledy-piggledy rooftops and chimneys, some high,
some low, packed tightly, shaken fags in a box. Behind the opposite window,
retreating Willesden. Number 37. In the 1880s or thereabouts the whole thing
went up at once – houses, churches, schools, cemeteries – an optimistic vision
of Metroland. Little terraces, faux-Tudor piles. All the mod cons! Indoor
toilet, hot water. Well-appointed country living for those tired of the city.
Fast-forward. Disappointed city living for those tired of their countries.”
8. Three scenes from Kilburn High Road in 2020,
still with a W.H.Smith connection! (Photos by Irina Porter)
The 1970s was not all doom and gloom, and music
provided one of the bright spots. The band ‘Kilburn and the High Roads’ (local connection unknown!) and its singer Ian
Dury were one of the inspirations for the later punk rock movement. In a
comment on Part 3, Wembley Matters reader Trevor shared with us his
recollections of growing up in Kilburn and taking part in the The Jam’s video for their song
‘When You’re Young’ in 1979. This was filmed in Kilburn Square shopping
precinct and in Kilburn High Road (with Woolworths!). The bandstand is in
Queen’s Park, and the 12-year old Trevor is wearing a red and blue jacket.
Another famous 1970s singer/songwriter who has
lived locally was Cat Stevens. He became a Muslim in 1977, having found his
spiritual home through reading the Qur’an, and changed his name to Yusuf Islam.
His many charitable works in promoting education, peace and mutual respect
between faiths since then have included setting up the Islamia Primary School
in Salusbury Road in 1982, the first full-time Muslim primary school in
England. For more about musicians and
music businesses in Kilburn, visit North-West London Music Maps, by Dick Weindling.
Kilburn had 10 cinemas in the last 110 years, but
today only one remains, and that is part of the cultural focal point of modern
Kilburn, at 269 Kilburn High Road. The building dates from 1928, when it was
opened as the London headquarters of the Foresters’ Friendly Society, which
provided financial help to members in need. In the 1930s it had a music and
dance hall, on occasions hired by Oswald Mosley’s fascist ‘Blackshirts’, who
used to meet in the area. During the World War II it served as an air raid
shelter and a food distribution point.
9. The Foresters’ Hall and Tricycle Theatre, late
20th century. (Images from the internet)
The Foresters’ stayed in the building until 1979,
when they sold it, and moved into a small office nearby. The building was being
used by local community organisations, when it was discovered by Shirley Barrie
and Ken Chubb, who founded their theatre performance Wakefield Tricycle Company
and were looking for permanent premises. In 1980 Tim Foster Architects
re-designed the theatre, but in 1987 the building was destroyed by fire and the
re-building took 2 years. In 1998 a new cinema was opened next to it, which
also offered extra rehearsing space.
10. The opening plaque on what is now the Kiln
Cinema, in Buckley Road. (Photos by Irina Porter, 2020)
11. The 60s/70s South Kilburn today, with Crone Court
and the OK Club (left) and Dickens House (right). (Photos by John Hill, and from
Facebook on the internet)
Despite the hopes of planners, and like the Chalkhill and Stonebridge estates elsewhere in Brent, the South
Kilburn estate of typical 1960s brutalist style high density housing, in low
rise flats and 11 concrete tower blocks, did not deliver an ideal
neighbourhood. In 1988, unemployment in South Kilburn was 20%. The estate was
plagued by crime, shootings, gun and drug trade. There was ongoing rivalry with
gangs from the nearby Mozart Estate, just across the borough boundary in
Westminster. Several high-profile police raids in 2007 and 2011 and the
shootings of innocent by-standers as the gangs wage their wars against each
other continue to contribute to the adverse reputation of the area.
12. Network Housing's Kilburn Quarter, in a computer
image and 2020 photograph. (Internet / Irina Porter)
In 2004 Brent Council started working on a 15-year
plan of drastic demolition of much of the estate and creating a new living
environment, at a cost of £660 million. The demolition of the old estate
started in 2014 with two of the 18 storey housing blocks, to be replaced with 4
‘smart’ blocks and amenities for the local community. Several different housing
associations and architects are involved in the project, which so far has
resulted in an overall loss of council housing, as many of the flats are for
private sale. Despite the council’s efforts to improve the quality of the area,
it continues to be plagued by problems connected to its history of gang
violence and drug dealing, as well as issues with maintenance of the newly built homes and
cladding for fire safety regulations.
One effort aimed at engaging with young people on
the fringes was the Signal Project in 2004. The mural they sponsored under the
bridges at Kilburn Station brought together graffiti artists and the local
community. The subjects painted reflected Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, H.G. Wells’s
‘War of the Worlds’, the Gaumont State and Kilburn’s Irish heritage, and it won
Time Out magazine’s best mural award in 2006.
13. Some views of the street art murals under the
bridges at Kilburn Station. (Irina Porterx3/ John Hill)
In recent years Kilburn has been regarded as on the
way up – as have been many London locations which are within easy transport
links to Central London. The long-suffering South Kilburn estate is not without
its crime problems, and occasionally developers cause an uproar too, as in the
case of the Carlton Tavern, a pub in Carlton Vale on the border of Kilburn and
Westminster. This dated from 1921 and was the only building on this part of the
street to survive the Blitz during the Second World War. In 2015 it was bought
by an Israeli property developer and demolished overnight, without permission,
while being considered for Grade II listing.Westminster Council ordered the developer to rebuild the public house,
recreating the exact facsimile, which has been done, but as of October 2020 it
still has not re-opened.
14. The Carlton Tavern, after its 2015 demolition,
and in 2020 after being rebuilt. (Internet / Irina Porter)
Brent was chosen to be London’s Borough of Culture
for 2020, and one of its highlights was to be a summer festival on Kilburn High
Road, with a mile-long street party. Unfortunately this was cancelled due to
the Covid-19 situation. Kilburn does, however, have two Brent Biennial artworks by
British-Filipino artist Pio Abad, just
off the High Road in Willesden Lane and Burton Road. There is also the premiere
of Zadie Smith’s debut play, ‘The Wife of Willesden’ at The Kiln theatre to
look forward to as part of the delayed LBOC 2020 celebrations.
15. Pio Abad's two Brent2020 Kilburn artworks, and a
Borough of Cultures sign. (Internet / Irina Porter x2)
Whatever Kilburn’s future will bring us, I hope you
have enjoyed discovering its rich and colourful past, which this series will
remain as a record of.
A special thank you to local historian Dick
Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West
Hampstead blog
Thank you, Irina, for what has been a fascinating
series on Kilburn. Where will our local history journey take us next? If we
head west along Kilburn Lane to Kensal Green, then up the Harrow Road for a few
miles, we’ll come to …. Find out next week, when another writer joins our
“local history in lockdown” team, with a one-off article for you.
Welcome back! If you missed Part 5, please click on the “link” to read it. We’ll
begin this week with a look at some local homes.
1. Albert Road, South Kilburn, late 1940s. (From
“The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
By 1900, there was a growing divide in Kilburn
between the more prosperous north and the poor south. The conditions in some
areas of South Kilburn were dire – in 1881 a report was made to a meeting at
Kilburn Town Hall on the living conditions in Victoria Place, behind the Cock
Tavern. 161 people, including 84 children, lived in 26 small dwellings, which
were accessed from the High Road along a narrow passage, which went by the
pub’s urinal, the walls of which were covered in bad language.
In 1898 the Vestry reported on ‘houses let in
lodgings’ in Palmerston Road and Kelson and Netherwood Streets off Kilburn High
Road. Although they did not see any cases of ‘actual want or destitution’, many
of the residents kept hens as a source of food in winter when men were out of
work. Houses were in need of cleansing and the repair of plaster. ‘The total
number of souls in the 160 houses was 2264, of which 668 were children under 10
years of age, an average of a little more than 14 for each house, against 7 for
the rest of the Parish.’
Kilburn Vale, on the Hampstead side, had been
reported to be ‘in a most foul, unwholesome state, well before the turn of the
century’, and remained slums until the 1930s.
2. The Animal's War Memorial Dispensary building in
Cambridge Avenue, 2020.(Photo by Irina
Porter)
It wasn’t just people who needed better treatment. An
interesting memorial commemorating World War I is located at 10 Cambridge
Avenue. In 1931 the RSPCA bought this building for the Animals War Memorial
Dispensary, as a practical tribute to countless horses, dogs, donkeys, pigeons
and many other types of animals used by the army and who gave their lives for
their human masters. The dispensary was where ‘the sick, injured or unwanted
animals of poor people could receive, free of charge, the best possible
veterinary attention, or a painless death.’ By the mid-1930s, more than 50,000
animals and birds were treated at the Kilburn Dispensary. It closed in 2016.
The years between the First and Second World Wars
also saw the emergence of large-scale municipal housing, in particular the
Westcroft Housing Estate on the Hampstead side. In the 1930s some new
developments, in particular on Shoot Up Hill, took the form of mansion blocks
of flats. On the Willesden side of the High Road, however, there was little in
the way of housing improvements for people in Kilburn during the inter-war
years.
3. Warwick Lodge, Shoot Up Hill, a 1930s mansion
block of private flats. (Photo by Irina Porter)
The overcrowding and living conditions in South
Kilburn meant that many people lacked basic amenities for washing, and the
opening of Granville Road Baths in July 1937 was a welcome addition to local
facilities. Willesden Council bought a terrace with cottages and stables at the
rear, and the baths were specially designed for the confined site –
nevertheless, providing not only a 100ft x 33ft swimming pool with diving
boards of a competition standard, but also private slipper baths (where people
could have a bath for a small fee), lockers, cubicles and a public laundry with
a washing machine. A superintendent lived in a flat on the premises.
4. Granville Road Baths, and a Leon Kossoff painting
of the swimming pool. (Images from the internet)
The baths became a subject of paintings by artist
Leon Kossoff in 1960s, who had his studio in Willesden. They continued to be a
popular local facility until demolished in 1990s, and now the space is occupied
by Len Williams Court.
Whatever Kilburn lacked in home comforts, there was
no shortage of places of entertainment, and we’ll take a tour of some of the
grander venues over the years. The Kilburn Theatre Royal, which occupied the
former Kilburn Town Hall building in Belsize Road, operated as a cinema from
1909 to 1941, known as the Kilburn Picture Palace and Theatre of Varieties. In
later years the building housed Shannon’s Night Club, a warehouse and a Decca
Recording Studios in 1990s. It is currently used as offices.
5. A Theatre Royal poster, and the Kilburn Empire,
early 1900s. (Images from the internet)
The Kilburn Empire, opened in 1906 at 9-11 The
Parade (the triangle of Kilburn High Road and Kilburn Vale), offering music
hall, circus and films (the great escapologist Houdini performed there in
1909). It remained a cinema under various names until 1981, was then used as a
religious building, and a paint-ball game centre, until demolished in 1994 to
make way for the Regents Plaza Hotel.
6. The Grange Cinema c.1930, and as a Christian
centre in 2018. (Old image from internet, photo by John Hill)
7. Kilburn's Gaumont State Cinema, c. 1970. (Brent
Archives online image 427)
The biggest jewel in Kilburn’s crown was the Gaumont
State Cinema, which opened on 20 December 1937. Owned and commissioned by the
Hyams brothers and designed by the famous cinema architect George Coles, it
seated 4,000 people, had a separate dance hall and a restaurant. It was the
largest cinema in Europe at the time, and remains the third largest ever built
in the UK. The 120 feet (37 metres) high tower inspired by a 1930s New York skyscraper,
housing its own radio studio, could be seen for miles and immediately became
the local landmark. The opulent interior reflected the trends of the day and
included a Wurlitzer organ on a rising and revolving platform, which remained
one of the largest fully functioning Wurlitzer organs in Britain well into 21st
century, and one of the few remaining in its original location.
From the opening performance which starred Gracie
Fields, George Formby, Larry Adler and Henry Hall and his band, the Gaumont
State became a popular entertainment venue, hosting variety, pantomimes,
circus, ballet and concert performances in addition to film screenings. Over
the years it featured such acts as Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Ella Fitzgerald, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Who and many
others.
8. Bill Haley (1957), John Lennon and Mick Jagger
(1963) at the State. (Brent Archives 433, 9036 & 9034)
In 1980s the building became Mecca Bingo. In 2007
it closed and was under the
threat from developers. Eventually it was bought by Ruach City Church, 70 years
to the day after the original opening of the Gaumont State. The building has a
Grade II listed status.
(You can find more information on music venues in Willesden on Music Maps here
- https://www.notjustcamden.uk/maps/ )
During the Second World War Kilburn suffered some
bomb damage, but not on a massive scale, which is lucky, considering the
concentration of railway lines in the area. The first raid hit the area around
Kilburn High Road on the Brent side in September 1940. 1944 was one of the
worst years, with V1s arriving later that year to hit West End Lane, Ardwick
Road, Burgess Hill and Fortune Green Road, as well as the Willesden side of
Shoot Up Hill. The writer, George Orwell, had to rescue his books and other
belongings from the flat in Mortimer Crescent, where he had written “Animal
Farm”, after that was destroyed by a V1. In January and March 1945 two V2
rockets brought greater devastation damaging hundreds of houses on Hampstead
and Willesden sides – the latter being in Dartmouth Road.
By the end of the war there was an urgent need for housing,
and factory-built houses (popularly known as “prefabs”) which could be put up
quickly on cleared sites were a temporary solution, although a few of them
stayed until 1960s. On the Hampstead side there was a large prefab estate
around Lichfield Road and Westcroft Close. Willesden had large sites of them
elsewhere in the borough, but there were 28 prefabs around Christchurch Square,
Close and Terrace and 33 more in Christchurch Avenue.
9. The 1945 "Willesden Chronicle" article
and a Uni-Seco prefab of the type built at Priory Park Road. (Cutting from the local newspaper
microfilms at Brent Archives, photo from the internet)
A small prefab estate in Priory Park Road was the
first one to be built on a cleared bomb site. On 26 October 1945, the Willesden
Chronicle reported that work on the site began on 1 May, the houses were
erected quickly, but had to wait a while for fittings. It was well worth the
wait for the delighted occupants, who came from overcrowded homes in various
parts of the borough and ‘could hardly find sufficient superlatives’ to
describe the new dwellings of their own.
The wider aim of providing better housing in
Kilburn after the war was inspired by Patrick Abercromie’s 1944 Greater London
Plan. Obsolete industry, overcrowded and dilapidated slums were to be replaced
with housing and community facilities. Unfortunately, many Victorian buildings
also had to go. The housing conditions were particularly bad in Carlton / South
Kilburn. The Willesden Survey of 1949 stated that this was the area with the
highest average density in the borough, in some cases with 15 people in
two-storey houses. Many of the bigger houses, built in 1850s-60s for wealthy
families were being let as single rooms to boarders.
10. Willesden Council's original plans / perspective
drawing for the South Kilburn Redevelopment. (From “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
The South Kilburn redevelopment plan was drawn up
in 1948, covering an area of 87 acres between the main line railway in the
north, and Carlton Vale / Kilburn Lane in the south. Much of its new Council
housing would be in three or four-storey blocks of flats, and the first of
these were built on bomb-damaged sites at Canterbury Terrace and Chichester
Road.
11. Newly built Willesden Council flats at Canterbury
Terrace, 1949. (From “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
Under Willesden’s original plans, there would have
been plenty of green space, with a large area of school playing fields at the
heart of the redevelopment serving three schools. At the western end of the
playing fields would be a shopping area, providing all local needs, and a
community centre (possibly including a branch library).
12. Percy Road, South Kilburn, just before its
development in the 1960s. (Photos courtesy of John Hill)
However, as the scheme moved into the 1950s, and
was extended in 1963, taller blocks of flats began to form part of the plans.
Percy Road, in the photos above, ran south from Granville Road, opposite the
baths, across Carlton Vale and down towards Malvern Road. It was virtually
wiped off the map during the redevelopment, with the Immaculate Heart of Mary
R.C. Church (seen behind the playing children in the colour picture – entitled
“Last Days of Percy Road”) one of the few buildings to survive, and now Dickens
and Austen Houses would be behind you. The final phase of this part of South
Kilburn’s redevelopment ended in the 1970s.
13. Two views of Cambridge Road, from the early and
late 1960s. (Photos courtesy of John Hill)
The photos below show the western end of the South
Kilburn redevelopment in progress, with William Saville House (and William
Dunbar House behind it) already built in the first picture, while construction
is underway on Craik Court, which hides them in the later colour view.
14. Carlton Vale, in the mid and late 1960s. (Photos
courtesy of John Hill)
Further north, in the early 1960s, Kilburn Square
saw the replacement of its 3/4 storey Victorian terraced houses with a shopping
centre and market, along with a 17-storey block of flats labelled the 'pocket
skyscraper' (officially just numbers 11-90 Kilburn Square!).
15. Two views of the 'pocket skyscraper', from 1964
and c.1970. (Brent Archives image 236 / from the internet)
We will finish this series by looking at modern
Kilburn, from the 1970s onwards, next week. I hope you can join me then.
Irina Porter,
Willesden Local History Society.
A special thank you to John Hill,
for sharing his father’s 1960s photographs, and to local historian Dick
Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .
