The Hampstead Underworld begins resurrection at St John-at-Hampstead graveyard
THE HAMPSTEAD UNDERWORLD
A personal account of pre-war Vienna’s last outpost in the 1970s
by Adam Daly
INSTALMENT 1/3: A BIT OF HISTORY
A personal account of pre-war Vienna’s last outpost in the 1970s
by Adam Daly
INSTALMENT 1/3: A BIT OF HISTORY
Chapter Six, Note from the publisher: we have kept Adam Daly's style of writing throughout.
The ‘Big Ideas’ Driving Me Through The Soil Of Hampstead Into The Ether Of Extremes.
Hampstead is a sentimental name for a sentimental place in a way. Literally meaning ‘Homestead’ it reeks of homeliness. An old spelling, Ham’stede, gives it a slightly less sentimental connotation, conjuring up an image of a meaty stallion perhaps, of the kind that would have been ridden by highwaymen once. But whatever the name, and whatever there is in the name, there are or have been many aspects of the place that to my mind have nothing whatever to do with sentimentality, or tweeness, or gentility, or picturesqueness - or mere quaintness.
One writer, whose name escapes me, referred to Hampstead as ‘Toytown’ some years ago and I have to admit this description is certainly accurate as far as it goes. Hampstead as it has become and been since the 1980’s, definitely fits that description. The affluent and rich have also been embedded in the place for centuries. But I reckon I’ve also shown beyond all shadow of a doubt already, that Hampstead hasn’t been completely monopolized by the affluent. Far from it! And at one time there was a large and solid artisan class living there either in workingmen’s cottages and farmhouses - or else literally in slums which weren’t finally cleared until the late 19th Century, by the London County Council after it was first established.
Not many people would equate Hampstead with slums - including the late Christopher Wade no doubt! But it is a well-documented fact. And so the place had at one time - much more than nowadays I’d say - a wide and diverse mix of social classes, and ethnicities, of both genders, with quite differing degrees and kinds of cultivation. Extraordinary personalities and minds of all kinds have flourished in Hampstead throughout its long history. And that above all else, is what had made it so interesting - along with its strikingly singular geography, position, and height. And many seminal events or episodes in History have occurred in - or been associated with - Hampstead: The Peasant’s Revolt, for example.
The ‘Big Ideas’ Driving Me Through The Soil Of Hampstead Into The Ether Of Extremes.
Hampstead is a sentimental name for a sentimental place in a way. Literally meaning ‘Homestead’ it reeks of homeliness. An old spelling, Ham’stede, gives it a slightly less sentimental connotation, conjuring up an image of a meaty stallion perhaps, of the kind that would have been ridden by highwaymen once. But whatever the name, and whatever there is in the name, there are or have been many aspects of the place that to my mind have nothing whatever to do with sentimentality, or tweeness, or gentility, or picturesqueness - or mere quaintness.
One writer, whose name escapes me, referred to Hampstead as ‘Toytown’ some years ago and I have to admit this description is certainly accurate as far as it goes. Hampstead as it has become and been since the 1980’s, definitely fits that description. The affluent and rich have also been embedded in the place for centuries. But I reckon I’ve also shown beyond all shadow of a doubt already, that Hampstead hasn’t been completely monopolized by the affluent. Far from it! And at one time there was a large and solid artisan class living there either in workingmen’s cottages and farmhouses - or else literally in slums which weren’t finally cleared until the late 19th Century, by the London County Council after it was first established.
Not many people would equate Hampstead with slums - including the late Christopher Wade no doubt! But it is a well-documented fact. And so the place had at one time - much more than nowadays I’d say - a wide and diverse mix of social classes, and ethnicities, of both genders, with quite differing degrees and kinds of cultivation. Extraordinary personalities and minds of all kinds have flourished in Hampstead throughout its long history. And that above all else, is what had made it so interesting - along with its strikingly singular geography, position, and height. And many seminal events or episodes in History have occurred in - or been associated with - Hampstead: The Peasant’s Revolt, for example.
"My Hampstead has involved very different ‘narratives’ that even challenge the very idea of Narrative itself."
Awaiting resurrection at St John-at-Hampstead church and graveyard..
Not to mention The Bolingbroke Conspiracy - in 1444 - which is not so well-known since it’s rarely touched upon by Historians, on account of its exceedingly dark and forbidding nature. All kinds of movements and groupings have sprung up and assembled in Hampstead over the centuries, from the Kit Kat Club through the Romantics and Aesthetes to Gothicists and Diabolists to the left-wing Intellectuals of the Fabian Society etc. as well as all the more outlandish Bohemian coteries of the general sort that I’ve been examining thus far. Occultists of every sort have always been drawn to Hampstead, from the Ancients Druids to the Emin. Gerald Gardner - the Wiccan Warlock - had his ashes scattered on the Heath near Kenwood. And I might follow suit when my time comes! Although I’d sooner be just left on a monumental slab, on Parliament Hill, anointed with potent preservatives, as I slowly rot away before the birds and animals come for me. And with any luck, my last few earthly remains may undergo the serendipitous equivalent of a Tibetan sky-burial.
"I’d hate to live in Hampstead now, even if I could afford to, as the people there by and large are execrable vulgarians."
Adam Daly at The Coffee Cup
Dream on, Adam! There’d be no end to objections and obstacles, official and unofficial. But the Heath means more to me now than the rest of Hampstead - although it too has been spoiled to some degree by meddling authorities over Time. I’d hate to live in Hampstead now, even if I could afford to, as the people there by and large are execrable vulgarians and philistines and pompous twots. But I could still perhaps be laid to rest there one day, assuming I won’t live forever. I could tell the narrative(s) of Hampstead along many lines. It’s been a place of pilgrimage and settlement. It’s had an agricultural heritage. It’s been carved up by aristocrats and landed gentry. It’s had its fair share of Priories. It’s most famously been a magnet for artists, writers and intellectuals as well as the affluent upper middle classes. It’s been a Spa, fed by local springs. The River Fleet has its source on the Heath. It’s boasted loads of clubs, societies, galleries and museums. It’s the Highest Point of London: 443 feet above sea-level, topping The Great Northern Heights. It boasts beautiful Restoration, Queen Anne, Georgian, Regency, Victorian and other buildings. It’s world-famous as a gem among London Inner Suburbs and a major social and cultural ‘hub’. It has a huge roll-call of well-known inhabitants over Time. It hasn’t been gashed by railway lines or industry. It has had some special theatres, cinemas, bookshops, antique-stores, pubs, cafes, and bars - even if few survive today. And so on, and so on. But I don’t especially wish to tell most of these stories, partly because they have already been told and partly because MY Hampstead has involved very different ‘narratives’ that even challenge the very idea of Narrative itself. My story, or anti-story, is essentially one of ‘spots’, as I put it.
By this I mean there are some very particular points or sites in Hampstead that have struck me with such force in various ways and at various levels, that they have acquired an especial significance for me, that has grown ever since. And they aren’t necessarily Historically important spaces as such, or even beautiful - that is not the point. They might be missed completely by lots of other people. But as I’ve gone through my life, they’ve come to resonate with me profoundly, like sacred sites, which may also be profane - or both, or neither. They’ve connected me with something outside myself, in the space and beyond it. The solar plexus is the source of Power. And knowledge, important as it is in many ways isn’t essential for one to become aware and even acutely aware of such connections. Although I’ve built up my knowledge since through research. But one can be very powerfully struck by the felt singularity of a place at first, without at that stage knowing anything about it. And Hampstead always felt extremely special, if not unique to me, from childhood onwards. In antiquity the Hill would have been visible to the travellers from afar with the Chilterns twenty miles away to the north-west, and Crystal Palace a shorter distance to the south. So it would have stood out long before there was any real development there, as a Beacon closest to the skies, and to the gods of the skies, in the eyes of religious mystics, and seers, and others, traversing the landscapes beyond Londinium or Lunewich - which was later to become arguably The Greatest City on Earth, if that means anything.
By this I mean there are some very particular points or sites in Hampstead that have struck me with such force in various ways and at various levels, that they have acquired an especial significance for me, that has grown ever since. And they aren’t necessarily Historically important spaces as such, or even beautiful - that is not the point. They might be missed completely by lots of other people. But as I’ve gone through my life, they’ve come to resonate with me profoundly, like sacred sites, which may also be profane - or both, or neither. They’ve connected me with something outside myself, in the space and beyond it. The solar plexus is the source of Power. And knowledge, important as it is in many ways isn’t essential for one to become aware and even acutely aware of such connections. Although I’ve built up my knowledge since through research. But one can be very powerfully struck by the felt singularity of a place at first, without at that stage knowing anything about it. And Hampstead always felt extremely special, if not unique to me, from childhood onwards. In antiquity the Hill would have been visible to the travellers from afar with the Chilterns twenty miles away to the north-west, and Crystal Palace a shorter distance to the south. So it would have stood out long before there was any real development there, as a Beacon closest to the skies, and to the gods of the skies, in the eyes of religious mystics, and seers, and others, traversing the landscapes beyond Londinium or Lunewich - which was later to become arguably The Greatest City on Earth, if that means anything.
"I accept the Heath has to be ‘managed’. But I still miss the old ‘look’ it once had when I was first exploring it in my early teens."
Illuminating the resurrection at St John-at-Hampstead
There were according to Archaeologists and Historians settlements as far back as the Me-solithic Period eight thousand years ago. And various tumuli and knolls may indicate ancient burial-grounds. Although few skeletal, and other, remains have been found in digs. Some Druids probably settled there around three thousand years ago and might have held open-air Parliaments - possibly on Parliament Hill itself. Although that could have been so named because Guy Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators planned to watch The Houses of Parliament burn down from that site, in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, which failed of course due to a tip-off. And as for ritual sacrifice there is no clear evidence of them happening. But I used a Druid sacrifice as the central thread in my book The Grimoires Of Ham’stede, though it was of course entirely fictional. Hampstead received mention in The Doomsday Book, when it was little more than a pig-farm. The Charter was written in the Reign of King Edgar in 886.
The place remained a rural hamlet revolving around agriculture for many centuries thereafter. And further development only really became possible, after the Middlesex Forest was cleared in the 17th Century. Then it became a Spa-Village, attracting people to it for treatments as well as to ‘take the waters’. And by the late 19th century with the suburban expansion of London, it became a metropolitan suburb. And in the 20th century it became ‘Hampstead Town’, which essentially it remains today. The Tube - which came in 1907- connected it to the city and west end for the first time as the railways could never be extended over the Heath due to the very uneven lie of the land. Though there had been horse-drawn coaches before coming from Hounslow Heath in the main. But they’d gone north of London usually and were targeted by highwaymen until the coming of steam - most famously Dick Turpin and Claude Duval. Hampstead isn’t famous for any one particular product -like Lavenham wool, e.g. - and it was more a place for farming, artisanry, and retailing. There were no animal-markets as such. But it had a solid working population as well as its toffs and squires and Lords of all they surveyed: where there’s muck, there’s brass! And politically it has swung all ways at different times. Its most enduring feature is known as ‘the Bagshot Sands’ which were displaced from Surrey in pre-historic times, during a Geological shift. And so there are to this day high sandbanks on the Heath, which were quarried by one of the Lords of the Manor, Thomas Maryon Wilson, who intended to build an Estate of neo-classical Villas in groves on East Heath. He failed in the end - the dispute was the most notorious of its kind in Victorian England - and in 1871 an Act of Parliament was passed, forbidding in perpetuity any further developments on the Heath. So the Heath has been saved in that sense as lowland moorland with trees, bushes and shrubbery. But it’s still been altered in various ways by the LCC, the GLC, and the CCL, which currently owns it. Kenwood is separate, belonging to English Heritage, and containing The Iveagh Bequest. It used to belong to Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice - famous for his opposition to slavery.
The place remained a rural hamlet revolving around agriculture for many centuries thereafter. And further development only really became possible, after the Middlesex Forest was cleared in the 17th Century. Then it became a Spa-Village, attracting people to it for treatments as well as to ‘take the waters’. And by the late 19th century with the suburban expansion of London, it became a metropolitan suburb. And in the 20th century it became ‘Hampstead Town’, which essentially it remains today. The Tube - which came in 1907- connected it to the city and west end for the first time as the railways could never be extended over the Heath due to the very uneven lie of the land. Though there had been horse-drawn coaches before coming from Hounslow Heath in the main. But they’d gone north of London usually and were targeted by highwaymen until the coming of steam - most famously Dick Turpin and Claude Duval. Hampstead isn’t famous for any one particular product -like Lavenham wool, e.g. - and it was more a place for farming, artisanry, and retailing. There were no animal-markets as such. But it had a solid working population as well as its toffs and squires and Lords of all they surveyed: where there’s muck, there’s brass! And politically it has swung all ways at different times. Its most enduring feature is known as ‘the Bagshot Sands’ which were displaced from Surrey in pre-historic times, during a Geological shift. And so there are to this day high sandbanks on the Heath, which were quarried by one of the Lords of the Manor, Thomas Maryon Wilson, who intended to build an Estate of neo-classical Villas in groves on East Heath. He failed in the end - the dispute was the most notorious of its kind in Victorian England - and in 1871 an Act of Parliament was passed, forbidding in perpetuity any further developments on the Heath. So the Heath has been saved in that sense as lowland moorland with trees, bushes and shrubbery. But it’s still been altered in various ways by the LCC, the GLC, and the CCL, which currently owns it. Kenwood is separate, belonging to English Heritage, and containing The Iveagh Bequest. It used to belong to Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice - famous for his opposition to slavery.
"One can be very powerfully struck by the felt singularity of a place first, without at that stage knowing anything about it."
Pondering at The Coffee Cup
I accept the Heath has to be ‘managed’. But I still miss the old ‘look’ it once had when I was first exploring it in my early teens. Parts of it have gone forever. And I don’t think that was an entirely necessary process. The recent re-introduction of sheep near the so-called - and falsely named - Queen Boadicea Mound on East Heath is little more than a councillor’s sop to the sentimental Bourgeoisie. It might still have some wild and remote ‘spots’ where one can see nothing but nature and barely hear the distant hum of city-traffic. But a fair amount of its wonderful old roughness has been smoothed away over the years, and cosmeticized like Parklands. I don’t mind protected swards, and occasional fencing off of delicate and vulnerable patches. But the officious cleansing and neatening of parts of the Heath has invariably stemmed from a prim and anodyne mentality that I utterly abhor.
The Battle for the Commons is a live issue in our time, not just an issue at the time of the Enclosure Act two centuries ago. The Theft of the Commons has been ongoing in its many different forms and contexts throughout our History in truth. In the distant past powerful bodies such as the Monarchy, the Church, the Nobility, Administrations, and the merchant-classes posed the biggest threats of all to common land - which technically belongs to ‘We The People’, for our use rather than ownership, and occupation as such. But once it’s parcelled off to owners, then that ceases to be possible - rambling rights being a convenient ‘fob-off’ compromise. And The People were not constitutionally recognized as an entity, till the late middle ages. But the main threat to all common land nowadays is coming from the Private Corporate sector, far more than the Governmental sector. And I stress the word ‘Corporate’. This model of Advanced Neo-Capitalism, is very far removed from the good, old-fashioned, ‘entrepreneurial’ model of the past - where certain individuals in the main, became the ‘captains of industry’, running their own companies, with one particular product or service.
The Battle for the Commons is a live issue in our time, not just an issue at the time of the Enclosure Act two centuries ago. The Theft of the Commons has been ongoing in its many different forms and contexts throughout our History in truth. In the distant past powerful bodies such as the Monarchy, the Church, the Nobility, Administrations, and the merchant-classes posed the biggest threats of all to common land - which technically belongs to ‘We The People’, for our use rather than ownership, and occupation as such. But once it’s parcelled off to owners, then that ceases to be possible - rambling rights being a convenient ‘fob-off’ compromise. And The People were not constitutionally recognized as an entity, till the late middle ages. But the main threat to all common land nowadays is coming from the Private Corporate sector, far more than the Governmental sector. And I stress the word ‘Corporate’. This model of Advanced Neo-Capitalism, is very far removed from the good, old-fashioned, ‘entrepreneurial’ model of the past - where certain individuals in the main, became the ‘captains of industry’, running their own companies, with one particular product or service.
"I reckon Highgate has been better preserved than Hampstead. Yet it’s not just to do with buildings, land and business."
Resurrection Now!
By and large, they were honest, and loyal to their countries of origin, not basing their ‘operations’ abroad. They paid their taxes, and were resistant to Globalization in the neo-corporate sense. They gave to charity, and were decent citizens contributing well to Society in general. In short, they represented the ‘good’ face of Capitalism. But the more modern, global corporate ‘player’ is a completely different breed of animal, in most cases. In my considered opinion, such persons by and large, both represent and embody what I would call - brutally paraphrasing that old queer fish Ted Heath - ‘the unacceptable arse of Capitalism!’. Their only loyalty is to Global Capital - and their share of it. Taxes are only for ‘the little people’, i.e. the rest of us. They register their Businesses off-shore. They have foreign properties galore. They have illegal tax-havens. They aim to buy up as much global ‘real estate’ as they can, and actually use little of it. They play the markets, like cruel gods having sport with commodities, currencies, people - and even whole countries - whether as representatives of global corporations; or just ‘individuals’ like George Soros, who was one of the many original architects of this whole modus operandi, and is still operating today, destroying in order to profit, and bizarrely, calling himself a ‘Socialist’, with a Quantum Physicist’s understanding of International Finance.
"They play the markets, like cruel gods having sport with commodities, currencies, people - and even whole countries."
Author Adam Daly
The new era of speculative finance has detached itself from the productive base of the global economy and become a Law unto itself, as the leading players pull the Strings of Fate - barring incontrollable randomness - and have world-governments in their pockets effectively dictating Legislation in their interests. And so to work my way back from the General to the Particular here, I would submit that the Corporation of the City of London - which owns and manages Hampstead Heath and much else besides - is today a classic example of exactly the sort of global-reaching capitalist organization I’ve just been describing. It’s over a thousand years old, and presides over one of the greatest Financial and trading centres in the world, and has vested interests in many areas. It was at its peak Historically, during the period known as ‘The Anarchy’ - when the East India Company, founded in the 17th. Century, spread its corrupt and treacherous tentacles around the world advancing the colonial ambitions of the British Empire. During the next two centuries, both organizations were, arguably, the most powerful in the world. So although the East India Company was wound up eventually, the old City Corporation soldiered on, then adapted itself to modern Capitalism. It might not be the largest and most powerful Body of its kind, in the world today - but it knows in its DNA just how to survive and thrive, in the most ruthlessly competitive, and crookedly Cabbalistic, conditions of recent, and contemporary Capitalist practice. Its avaricious claws and wings may have been clipped - but it still holds onto its assets like a giant clam to a coral reef. And to me, it seems almost supernally strange to think that Hampstead Heath is one of those assets.
The Heath isn’t strictly in The City, or Square mile. And it isn’t a premises, or a precinct - like an Institution, or a building-complex, or property of that general kind. It is a piece of land, approximately 800 acres, which is largely for common use, is protected by Law, but is ostensibly run on behalf of The People and the Local Community by a Geographically and Institutionally remote Body. Even if it’s done some good things for the Heath, that I would not dispute, including the recent drainage of the ponds, to prevent contamination and assist irrigation, it surely should be run by a more local, ‘grass-roots’ Body, in so far as it needs running at all. Even the GLC was pretty corrupt, and profited from the handover when it was abolished. And a whole gamut of disputes has arisen over ‘Boundary-Laws’, and the ‘re-purposing’ of old, and much-loved buildings like Jack Straw’s Castle - named after a local farmer involved in the Peasant’s Revolt rather than the more recent bloodless Labour M.P. - which highlight all the wider and deeper feuds affecting conservation and development everywhere nowadays. But in a place like Hampstead they have an especial resonance and poignancy, because it really is a rather unique place.
I reckon Highgate has been better preserved, for what that’s worth, than Hampstead, over the last few decades. Yet it’s not just to do with buildings, land, and business, etc. but with those more intangible assets, or qualities, that often go under the names of ‘Character’, or ‘Spirit’, or even ‘Essence’.
Hampstead has had all of these things, and they’re hard to define exactly.
The Heath isn’t strictly in The City, or Square mile. And it isn’t a premises, or a precinct - like an Institution, or a building-complex, or property of that general kind. It is a piece of land, approximately 800 acres, which is largely for common use, is protected by Law, but is ostensibly run on behalf of The People and the Local Community by a Geographically and Institutionally remote Body. Even if it’s done some good things for the Heath, that I would not dispute, including the recent drainage of the ponds, to prevent contamination and assist irrigation, it surely should be run by a more local, ‘grass-roots’ Body, in so far as it needs running at all. Even the GLC was pretty corrupt, and profited from the handover when it was abolished. And a whole gamut of disputes has arisen over ‘Boundary-Laws’, and the ‘re-purposing’ of old, and much-loved buildings like Jack Straw’s Castle - named after a local farmer involved in the Peasant’s Revolt rather than the more recent bloodless Labour M.P. - which highlight all the wider and deeper feuds affecting conservation and development everywhere nowadays. But in a place like Hampstead they have an especial resonance and poignancy, because it really is a rather unique place.
I reckon Highgate has been better preserved, for what that’s worth, than Hampstead, over the last few decades. Yet it’s not just to do with buildings, land, and business, etc. but with those more intangible assets, or qualities, that often go under the names of ‘Character’, or ‘Spirit’, or even ‘Essence’.
Hampstead has had all of these things, and they’re hard to define exactly.
"The Heath means more to me now than the rest of Hampstead"
NEXT 'THE HAMPSTEAD UNDERWORLD' INSTALMENT : THE DOWN AND OUTS
The Hampstead Underworld is an unpublished 400 page manuscript.
If you are interested in publishing it please contact this website under the WE menu.
The Hampstead Underworld is an unpublished 400 page manuscript.
If you are interested in publishing it please contact this website under the WE menu.
THE HAMPSTEAD UNDERWORLD
FURTHER READING LINKS
Adam Daly - Intro
Cast of Characters
Adam Daly - Locations
FURTHER READING LINKS
Adam Daly - Intro
Cast of Characters
Adam Daly - Locations
SHORT BIOG.
Adam Daly grew up in Hampstead. Is a middle class drop out. Mixed with local outcasts in Hampstead from an early age. Has done odd jobs, struggled as an author and now self publishes. 'The Outcast's Burden' is another one of his works. According to Paul Newman(1) "Adam Daly is a transcendental nihilist". Adam is also an occasional Sohoite.
(1) Paul Newman an English writer editor of Abraxas magazine, author of A History of Terror, Dead since 2013. Fondly remembered by Adam Daly.
Adam Daly grew up in Hampstead. Is a middle class drop out. Mixed with local outcasts in Hampstead from an early age. Has done odd jobs, struggled as an author and now self publishes. 'The Outcast's Burden' is another one of his works. According to Paul Newman(1) "Adam Daly is a transcendental nihilist". Adam is also an occasional Sohoite.
(1) Paul Newman an English writer editor of Abraxas magazine, author of A History of Terror, Dead since 2013. Fondly remembered by Adam Daly.
All photos by Pablo Behrens.
Free to use with a credit.
Free to use with a credit.