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Pitt House

Categories: Property

Pitt House

As shows, the cluster of houses here is known as North End. gives the village's history and here is what it says about Pitt House: "In 1762, when North End contained 17 houses, 3 cottages, and 2 inns, Dingley's house, called in turn Wildwoods, North End, and Pitt House, was set in 2½ a., mostly on the southern side of the village, and included a coach house, stabling, garden, grotto, wilderness, and four other houses. Politically ambitious, Dingley invited William Pitt the elder to North End in 1763. Asserting that no ague was ever known there, he made considerable alterations {possibly including the gateway}, building a new wing and a gymnasium for Pitt's children by 1766, when Pitt first moved in. Pitt returned during his illness in 1767 ...

"Most of Dingley's estate, including Pitt House, was bought in 1787 by Abraham Robarts, another banker, who sold it in 1807 to John Vivian, solicitor to the Excise. Robarts and Vivian apparently occupied Pitt House... In 1841 Pitt House was occupied by a clergyman who kept a boarding school...

"Pitt House, in 1869 a two-storyed building with a central doorway and a side bay, was later enlarged by the addition of a billiard room and in 1899 Sir Harold Harmsworth, later Viscount Rothermere, bought it and added a storey, also moving the Georgian doorcase to the side bay. He sold it in 1908 and it was occupied during the First World War by Valentine Fleming, M.P., and his sons the writers Ian (d. 1964) and Peter (d. 1971), and from 1924 to 1939 by the {1877-1955}. ...

"Pitt House, used by the army and then left empty, was sold in 1948 to an investment company, which demolished it in 1952 and replaced it with a house of the same name; the L.C.C. acquired 3 a. of the garden in 1954."

From : "Mr and Mrs Valentine Fleming {Ian Fleming's parents} buy Pitt House, Hampstead Heath (1909). Mrs Fleming buys Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea (1923)." Ian was born in 1908 so this suggests that for his first 15 years, while not away at boarding school, he lived in Pitt House.

From the , Saturday 27 March, 1926, page 8 : “.. Lord Clarendon .. had a tea party .. to which I went, at Pitt House, Hampstead. This is a charming old house recently bought by the Clarendons… The Great Lord Chatham {Pitt the Elder} lived there for several years during his illness, in close retirement ..”

And we found reference to a second such tea party in 1928. There are also many references to Lord Clarendon's collection of paintings held at Pitt House.

The holds "Assorted personal papers of Lord Clarendon, including .. historical notes on his home Pitt House, Hampstead".

From the : "Hampstead MBC. Open Space (Pitt House, Hampstead Heath) Compulsory Purchase Order 1953".

The maps of the area that we have found (, , ) do not tally with each other in terms of where the buildings were/are so it is difficult to pin Pitt House down precisely.

At its this photo is captioned "Burglars broke into Pitt House, Hampstead, the home of the Earl of Clarendon, during the night and stole a valuable Van Dyck entitled "Ferdinand the Cardinal." It looks as if the photo was used for a 4 July article in the "E. News" and that their source for the photo was the "Sport and General Agency" which had a date of 1910 on it.

There is (the top photo) which shows quite a lot of work having taken place since the previous photo.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Pitt House

Commemorated ati

Pitt House Gateway

1882 - not the date of this plaque which is, from the look of it, much more r...

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William Pitt's house

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1708 - 1778, Prime Minister, lived in a house ...

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Other Subjects

Round Hill House

Round Hill House

In living memory this was "very run down and some kind of Labour Party social club."  Elsewhere: "The Sydenham and Forest Hill Social Club ... was in Round Hill House from the 1930s until, I suppos...

Building, Property

2 memorials
Mulalley & Co Ltd

Mulalley & Co Ltd

Building firm set up by the O'Malley family in 1972, based in Woodford Green.

Group, Property

1 memorial
Acton Hill House

Acton Hill House

 Mill Hill or Acton Hill House was built for Richard White in the early 1800s on farmland.  Much of it was demolished in 1877 but part remains as 11 Avenue Crescent. See Mill Hill Estate for more i...

Building, Property

1 memorial
Guardian Angels Church & School

Guardian Angels Church & School

The church on the Mile End Road was opened in 1903, the school, shown in this picture, behind the church, in 1896. Both funded by the Howard Family of Norfolk.

Building, Education, Property, Religion

1 memorial
Norwich Place / York House

Norwich Place / York House

Built as the town house of the bishops of Norwich. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 King Henry VIII and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk exchanged properties: Suffolk gave up Suffolk H...

Building, Property

1 memorial