Tag Archives: sarah siddons

An actress on the village green

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SHE SITS THERE MOTIONLESS, day after day and year after year, watching the traffic on Westway either rushing past or crawling along in a traffic jam. In her heyday, before being captured in stone, instead of the noise of motor vehicles, she would have enjoyed the sound of the applause given by audiences in dimly lit theatres. She was the actress Mrs Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), and her carved stone statue stands facing the elevated Westway in Paddington Green, just west of the Edgware Road.

Mrs Siddons

Paddington Green used to be part of an expanse of ancient wasteland located in an area now bounded by the Regents Canal, the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, and Edgware Road, but now much of this wasteland has been built upon. Writing in 1867, John Timbs noted:

“Paddington Green, now inclosed and iron-bound, was the green of the villagers, shown in all its rural beauty in prints of 1750 and 1783. Upon a portion of it were built the Almshouses, in 1714; their neat little flower-gardens have disappeared. South of the green is the new Vestry -hall. At Dudley Grove was modelled and cast, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt, the colossal bronze statue of the Duke of Wellington … it is thirty feet high, and was conveyed from the foundry, upon a car, drawn by 29 horses, Sept. 29, 1846, to Hyde Park Corner.”

Dudley Grove was in Paddington. What is now left of the wasteland consists of St Mary’s churchyard and next to it a small grassy area, still known as ‘Paddington Green’, and marked as such on a map drawn in 1815. It contains the statue of Mrs Siddons. The first written record of the Green is dated 1549. The Green contained a mediaeval chapel, now long-since gone. It has been replaced by St Mary’s Church, which was built in the Georgian style, in 1788. It was designed by John Plaw (1745-1820), who emigrated from London to the North American Colony of Prince Edward Island in 1807. His church in Paddington was later modified in the 19th century but restored to its original shape (a Greek Cross in plan) in 1970 under the guidance of the architect Raymond Erith (1904-1973), amongst whose other creations was the current form of the Jack Straws Castle pub in Hampstead.

The present church is the third in the area, which was halfway between the ancient villages of Paddington and Lilestone. The old Manor of Lilestone (or ‘Lilystone’) included the present Lisson Grove and extended as far as Hampstead. The earliest church was taken down in about 1678. The second church, which replaced it, can be seen in old drawings. It was a simple edifice with a single aisle and a small bell tower at one end. Edward Walford, writing in the 1880s, described it as:

“… not unlike the type of country churches in Sussex…”

The poet and preacher John Donne (1572-1631) preached his first sermon in the first church in 1615 and the painter William Hogarth (1697-1764) was married to Jane Thornhill (c1709-1789) in the second in 1729 without her parents’ knowledge.

Next to the western end of the church there is a single-storied rectangular, brick building decorated with trompe-l’oeil grisailles, one of which depicts Mrs Siddons. Today, this houses the Phileas Fox Nursery School. Built on the site of the old, now demolished, vestry hall (parish council meeting place), this building, the  church hall,  in a late Georgian style was designed by John Quinlan Terry (born 1937), an architect of the ‘New Classical’ style favoured by Prince Charles, and built in 1978-81.

Apart from the statue of Mrs Siddons on Paddington Green, most of it is surrounded by buildings or roads built either at the end of the 19th century or long after. At the eastern side of the Green there is what looks like a pair of either early 19th or possibly 18th century houses. The reason Mrs Siddons is commemorated on the Green is that she is buried in the adjoining St Mary’s Churchyard. Her gravestone is contained within a cast-iron enclosure that looks like a small cage. For some time, the actress lived in Paddington in a house which used to stand in the area around Westbourne Green, which is near the current Westbourne Park Underground station.  

Mrs Siddons was highly acclaimed as an actress by many. The critic James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) had reservations as he remarked in his autobiography:

“Want of genius could not be imputed to his sister, Mrs Siddons. I did not see her, I believe, in her best days; but she must always have been a somewhat masculine beauty; and she had no love in her, apart from other passions. She was a mistress, however, of lofty, of queenly, and of appalling tragic effect. Nevertheless, I could not but think that something of too much art was apparent even in Mrs Siddons; and she failed in the highest points of refinement.”

Although the poet and playwright Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), shared Hunt’s opinion about her, others held her in higher regard.

The statue of Mrs Siddon in Paddington Green was sculpted by the French sculptor Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud (1858-1919). In the 1880s, he moved to London from France and lived south of the Thames in Brixton. His Mrs Siddons, based on a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was unveiled by the actor Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) in 1897. It was the first statue of a woman, who was not royal, to be put up in London.

Paddington Green, like its close neighbour Paddington Station, figures in the history of London’s transportation. For, it was from here that the coachbuilder George Shillibeer (1797-1866) ran London’s first omnibus service to The Bank of England in 1829. He had got the idea from Paris, where he had been asked to design carriages that could carry up to 24 passengers at any one time.

The Paddington Green police station building stands a few yards east of Paddington Green. Constructed in 1971, this used to provide local policing services as well as an interrogation centre for terrorist suspects. Suspects accused of terrorist activities were brought here for questioning from all over the UK. Although it was refurbished in 2009, the station was closed in 2018. The building’s future is in the hands of property developers, who plan to build new housing on its site.  

Until the beginning of the 19th century, Paddington Green was a bucolic environment on the edge of what was then London. Now, surrounded by buildings and highways, it is a green but noisy oasis in a highly urbanised area.

Where judges might have walked

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A SHORT STEEP STAIRCASE leads upwards from Hampstead’s Branch Hill to a tree-lined avenue called Judges Walk. This overlooks a steep northwest facing declivity or valley that falls away sharply from Whitestone Pond. This was once the head of a tributary of the River Brent, whose mouth is at the River Thames at Brentford. Today, apart from much mud, there is little obvious evidence of the tributary. Judges Walk has not always had that name. It has also been known as Prospect Walk on account of the views that may be obtained from it, which must have been better in the past than now because the vegetation lining the path might have been less dense.

In days gone by, Judges Walk was a popular place for promenading. The historian of Hampstead, Thomas Barratt (1841-1914), writing in 1912 noted:

“Judges’ Walk is naturally much resorted to for the beauty of its view and its splendid grove of limes and elms.”

Until 1745, when Church Row became a street lined with better-class houses and the parish church was being rebuilt, it became a more fashionable place to promenade than Judges Walk.

How did Judges Walk get its name? William Howitt, author of “The Northern Heights of London” (published in 1869) wrote:

“This avenue derives its name from the tradition that during the great plague of London the judges removed from Westminster, and held their courts in this very airy spot.”

This derivation has been questioned both by GE Mitton in “Hampstead and Marylebone” (published in 1902), who commented that:

“… derivations of this sort are very easy to make up and entirely unreliable”,

 and by Barratt, who wrote:

“If, as tradition asserts, the judges held their courts here in the time of the Plague, that is good enough ground for the title; but as no actual proof of this has hitherto been brought forward it is at least open to doubt.”

However, he did not totally discount a connection of the path’s name with the judiciary. He suggested that:

“…since so many judges have lived in this charming locality and been accustomed to take their walks up and down its famous avenue, it is only natural and in the fitness of things that it should be called Judges’ Walk.”

A more recent historian of Hampstead, Christopher Wade (1920-2015), noted in his book “The Streets of Hampstead” (published 1984) that Judges Walk acquired its present name in the early 20th century, having previously had a variety of names including ‘Prospect walk’, ‘King’s Bench Avenue’, and ‘Upper Terrace Avenue’.  Like others before him, he was doubtful about the Great Plague theory. He seemed to favour an idea that the pathway was named after the nearby Branch Hill Lodge (at the bottom of the staircase mentioned above), which was once known as ‘Judges’ Bench House’. A house, long-since demolished, on the site of the present Branch Hill Lodge, the former home of the founder of the store chain John Lewis, was redesigned in 1745 by the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769) for the Master of the Rolls Sir Thomas Clarke (1703-1764). It was later occupied by at least other two senior members of the English justice system, Sir Thomas Parker (1695-1784) and then Alexander Wedderburn the Earl of Rosslyn (1733-1805) before he moved into his estate next to the present Rosslyn Hill.

Apart from the view from Judges Walk, which has been painted by the famous John Constable (1776-1837), who lived in Hampstead’s Well Walk, there is a building covered with wood cladding that can be seen be looking away from the declivity.  Entered from Windmill Hill, this house, whose foundations were laid in the late 18th century (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1379199), is currently named ‘Capo di Monte’, having previously been known as ‘Upper Terrace Cottage’ and ‘Siddons Cottage’. The actress Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) stayed there between 1804 and 1805. Barratt noted that the house:

“…was occupied by Woodburn the printseller ; also, in succession, by Copley Fielding the artist, and Edward Magrath, the first secretary of the Athenaeum Club.”

Years later it was home to the art historian Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) and even later of the broadcaster Marghanita Laski (1915-1988).  No doubt some of these residents of Capo di Monte strolled along Judges Walk to take the air and enjoy the view.

This vista, which we found to be somewhat obscured by the trees and bushes lining Judges Walk, even during winter when foliage is sparse, was described in a novel, “Interplay” (published 1908), written by the suffragette Beatrice Harraden (1864-1936), who was born in Hampstead:

“She sat in Judges’ Walk, and surveyed from there the stretches of wood and copse with their varying shades of green, relieved by delicate tones of red and enhanced in beauty by the sombreness of many trees which, even as ball-room belles, preferred to make a later and more consequential entrance into the scenes of splendour.”

The eastern end of Judges Walk is close to the reservoir on the top of which perches the small Hampstead observatory. Just east of this, and running along the west side of Heath Street, there is a small garden called Whitestone Garden.  I am do not know when this leafy spot, which contains a few benches and did not exist when I was a child in the 1960s, was created, but it is a welcome addition to Hampstead Heath.

In my retirement, I visit Hampstead frequently, and there is never a visit during which I fail to find something new (to me) of interest.  Judges Walk, along which I had never ventured until this year, is one of those many ‘discoveries’ that increase my fascination with this former village that has become surrounded by the relentless spreading of London.