London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good morning to you, London Walkers, one and all. It’s March 8th, 2025. International Women’s Day.
Calls for an epigraph. How about this?
“When man substituted God for the Great Goddess he at the same time substituted authoritarian for humanitarian values.”
Amen Elizabeth Gould Davis.
Or how about three epigraphs? These two are compliments of Wilma Scott Heide.
“The only jobs for which no man is qualified are human incubator and wet nurse. Likewise, the only job for which no woman is or can be qualified is sperm donor.”
And “…we whose hands have rocked the cradle, are now using our heads to rock the boat.”
And a heads up, you do know that tomorrow afternoon – March 9th – Isobel is doing her Suffragists, Suffragettes – Deeds not Words walk.
Ok, moving on. Another London Walks announcement.
Andy Hotels has just rolled out a second Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels Walk. It’s called More Luxury Hotels – Their Stories and Secrets. Here’s I say about it.
LASHINGS OF LUXURY, LIBERALITY AND LICENTIOUSNESS – ROUND II
Andy Hotels has written two books on London’s luxury hotels – on The Savoy and on Brown’s (indeed, he’s the resident historian of Brown’s Hotel). So two completely different Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels walks – well, it was meant to be. It was always on the cards – face cards all of them. The first Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels Walk – Round I takes in The Savoy. This walk – Round II – pays a visit to Browns (and Dukes, Claridge’s and the Connaught – the four Mayfair and St James’s aces). Different hotels, different neighbourhoods, different stories. Different secrets. Different walks.
They’re not prequel and sequel. They’re kith and kin but different. Two very different peas in the pod, as it were.
And here’s what Andy Hotels says about it.
Join Andy Hotels on a walk featuring Dukes, Brown’s, Claridge’s, The Connaught and beyond. This is a stand-alone walk that takes off where its sibling left off. It reveals the glitter and the glamour, the tales and the tricks, the famous folk and the foibles of another handful of the capital’s most frightfully famous lodgings.
Find out where Ian Fleming was shaken and not stirred; the secret hotel tunnel used by royals; the wine cellar where the Yanks clubbed together during the war; the only American president to be married overseas; Mark Twain strolling down the street in his bathrobe to take a dip in the pool where Queen Elizabeth learned to swim; the hotel dining club where prime ministers and generals met behind closed doors; the public palace that became Yugoslavia for the day; and the five-star features of a fortress inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice. And much more besides!
This walk can be enjoyed on its own or as a tasty accompaniment to The Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels – Round I.
In the most recent instalment of London Calling I said next time out we’d stop by the Captain’s House in Church Row in Hampstead. Well, this the next time out. And as promised, we’re stopping by the Captain’s House.
Church Row is of course the grandest street in Hampstead. It’s an almost perfectly preserved early Georgian ensemble. And the Captain’s House figures on Hampstead walk because it’s the most distinctive – by far the most distinctive – of the 30 or so houses in the street.
It’s the most distinctive and it’s called the Captain’s House because it’s the only house in Church Row made out of weather boarding. White weather boarding. All the other houses are brick. And it has, uniquely, that distinctive overhanging storey. It’s unmissable. And utterly charming. Catches the eye. Is really pleasing to look at. It’s worth a trip to Hampstead just to see the Captain’s House.
And as it happens, on the walk we get three looks at it. A today look at the actual house. And two 19th-century looks at it. Two 19th-century looks because I bring along two very find old prints of the street. So we can see it as it looked in the middle of the 19th century and 30 years later. Two different vantage points and, yes, two different – slightly different – eras. The extraordinary thing about looking at those prints there on Church Row is it hasn’t changed a bit in 150 years. Well, there is one change: automobiles instead of the horse-drawn vehicles that we see in the prints. And of course the people we see in the old prints are dressed significantly different from how we’re attired today.
And those sightings just get the ball rolling. The name – the Captain’s House – chimes of course with the Admiral’s House, the flagship of great Hampstead houses. And there’s the echo with Romney’s house, Hampstead’s other extraordinary, quite breathtaking weatherboarded house. So important, its role, in Hampstead’s history.
But out on the walk, that’s pretty much as far as I get with the Captain’s House. It’s Hampstead. The place is an embarrassment of riches. There’s too much to see. Too many stories to tell. Time constraints and all that. On the walk I just can’t dig deeper into the individual history of the Captain’s House.
Where I do have time – and elbow room – is here, on the London Calling podcast.
So for what it’s worth, here’s a snapshot of the Captain’s House and its residents way back when. Well, several snapshots. I put the Captain’s House on the Cat Walk and had it parade its stuff.
Looked at every Census Return. The nine of them – beginning with the first ever census return – that was in 1841 – right through to 1921, the last census return that we’re able to access.
Aside here, that 1921 census return needs to be savoured. We won’t be seeing another one for 30 years. Instead of every ten years. Why is that? Here’s why. The 1931 Census Return was destroyed by fire. And there was no 1941 Census Return because of the war.
Now the general point – at no little risk of belabouring the obvious – the general point is houses were made for people by people. You can learn a great deal about a street, about a neighbourhood, about a place by looking at Census Returns.
So let’s start at the beginning. With 1841. Well, the beginning in the sense that 1841 was the year of the first census return. In 1841 Hampstead itself had already been around in one form or another for nearly nine centuries. And in 1841 the houses in Church Row were already ripening into a fine old age. They were coming up to their century and half mark.
But yes, 1841. Charles Dickens was 29 years old. A very youthful – she was still in her early 20s – Queen Victoria had only been on the throne four years. The United States comprised all of 26 states. Michigan had been the last one to join the party, that was in 1837. William Henry Harrison was the American president. The ninth American president. Although he wouldn’t be for long. He died on his 32nd day in office – April 4th, 1841. He was the first U.S. President to die in office. His was the shortest tenure in U.S. Presidential history. Over here, Sir Robert Peel was the Prime Minister. The French Revolution was still a living memory. The Battle of Waterloo was as fresh in the memory of the 1841 generation as 911 is in our experience and memory. The first baseball game was five years in the future. The first official soccer match – British football – was 22 years in the future. Toilet paper was 16 years in the future. It took nearly two weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
And so we come to William Nightingale. The first known occupant – together with his wife – of the Captain’s House.
He was a carpenter. He was 69 years old. So, born in 1772. Four years before the Declaration of Independence. Would have been a teenager when the French Revolution kicked off.
I don’t know about you, but thinking about William Nightingale sends a shiver up my spine. His are some of the many memories the Captain’s House houses.
Moving on, and I’m going to telescope here because I want to get to the plumbers – fast forward to 1881, Charles Kemp and his wife are living in the Captain’s House. She’s a dressmaker. Charles is the Inspector of Nuisances to the Parish of Hampstead. What a great job title.
I said the plumbers. We have to slam the brakes on here and back up a decade. And go next door. To No. 6 Church Row. The small, double-fronted house next to the Captain’s House.
In 1871 there are 13 people living in No. 6, next door to the Captain’s House. A plumber and his family. A baker and his family. A 70-year-old lodger who’s supported by parish relief. A police constable and his wife. No. 6 is a bigger house than the five-room Captain’s House, but it would have been crowded. That’s an occupancy rate of way over one person per room. And the really striking thing is, they’re all working-class people. No toffs. No ridiculously well-off upper middle-class or upper-class types. Which of course is the make-up of today’s Church Row. Things have changed. Times have changed.
But maybe the jumps-right-out factor in all of this can be summed up in that one word: plumbers.
Because from 1891 The Captain’s House is occupied, for at least years, by two generations of the same family of plumbers. First, the plumber Benjamin Shepherd and his family. One of whom was his son Francis Shepherd, who obviously took over his father’s plumbing business and is listed as the head of the household in the 1911 and 1921 census returns.
Plumbers aplenty, plumbers on tap there in Church Row.
That must have been a comfort to the neighbours. That said, one notes in passing that both generations of the Shepherd plumbing dynasty had lodgers in that five-room house.
The father of the Shepherd plumbing dynasty – Benjamin Shepherd – had a lodger named John Bennet. And John Bennet’s occupation? I’m glad you asked: John Bennet was a tea taster and expert. Nice work if you can get it. And Benjamin’s plumber son Frederic had a lodger named Ronald Coutts, who was a civil engineer. So, it must have been pretty crowded in the Captain’s House. Kind of like a Captain’s Cabin, if you will.
When I walk by the Captain’s House I always sneak a peek into that little front room. And you can’t help but wonder, was that room the plumbing business’s office and storeroom for pipes and wrenches and buckets and what not? Meaning a five-room house was actually a four-room house. A four-room house for a family and a lodger.
See what I mean? Changes the way you see Church Row, doesn’t it?
Well, that’s enough for today. Coming up, Remember the Alamo. Yes, trust me, there’s a London connection.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com –
home of London Walks,
London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do
to attract and keep the best guides in London –
you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating:
the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative –
is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor
(and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)…
well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar
and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note…
come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.