Welbeck Mansions

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History

Today, Welbeck Mansions consist of 42 popular and much sought after flats due to their ideal central location to West Hampstead and surrounding suburbs. The block has a feeling of luxury benefiting from the nearby diverse cosmopolitan of smart shops, trendy restaurants and stylish wine bars.

Famous Residents of Welbeck Mansions

Welbeck Mansions have attracted a host of famous residents over the years. Victor “Vicky” Weisz was a German-born political cartoonist who worked for numerous UK newspapers and journals in the 1930s and 40s. Principal character in Last of the Summer Wine, Peter Sallis lived at Welbeck Mansions in the 1960s.
Colin Blunstone, one of Britain’s most respected and popular vocalists with The Zombies was also a resident of the block during the 1980s.

Across the Road

The south side of the Inglewood Road marks the site of Poplar House, which was originally a small 18th Century building called the White House. This property was enlarged in about 1800 by Josiah Boydell, an eminent painter and engraver, who lived in the house from 1783 – 1808. Boydell exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1772 and 1799 and took an active part in local life. In 1848-49 Poplar House unexpectedly became a monastery, the home of Father Dominic Barberi and the Passionists. This was a Roman Catholic Order devoted to missionary work. Their mission here was to the Irish workers. The Lotter family took over the house in 1851 and stayed until shortly before its demolition in 1891.

We Know Mansion Blocks

The first mansion blocks were built in the early 19th Century, providing luxurious residences for the growing urban upper middle classes. As the Industrial Revolution spread throughout Europe it brought about a population boom in the major cities, and mansion blocks were devised to provide luxurious housing for
wealthy white collar workers. As the centre of the cities became increasingly crowded the blocks provided this growing class with housing that boasted impressive entrances, generous elevations and balconies reminiscent of mansions. They were a particularly popular innovation in polite Parisian society. In spite of their popularity on the continent, Londoners were initially sceptical about this new style of accommodation. In the 1850s a spacious mansion flat would set back the buyer somewhere in the order of £50-200 per annum, but the idea of living in such a communal manner was entirely contradictory to the dominant Victorian social ideals of the age. Firstly, and most importantly, apartment dwellings were simply not considered ‘proper’, but it was not just a case of old English snobbery. There was also widely held fear that this new type of residence would increase the risk of burglary and the spread of infection and disease.
By the 1880s London society had gradually warmed to the idea and the decade was marked by a flurry of mansion block construction across the city.

We Know West Hampstead

In Medieval times the hamlet of West End was first established as a small - and rather poor - conurbation set on the vacant strip of land nestled between Hampstead and Kilburn. Some years later in the early 18th Century, as Hampstead became an increasingly popular resort for wealthy Londoners on retreat, many of the residents of West End found employment serving in the grand houses and estates. It was not until the latter half of the 19th Century that the village really started to grow. The arrival of the railway in the 1850s brought a new source of employment and transport access and by the 1890s the suburbs of London were gradually creeping towards
Willesden and Cricklewood. During a 20 year period West End experienced a population explosion - up from 8,000 in 1881 to 30,000 in 1901. It was also during this time that West End picked up a new name - West Hampstead.