Page 24 - HGS Suburb News 151 - Autumn 2022

Your only have about 100 harvests left fed on grain and monoculture in there was not enough labour to
huge fields. Modern farming is part
and almost 40% of food produced
pick the fruit/veg so we need to
is left to waste, either in the fields,
introduce community service (not
of an inefficient, environmentally-
planet or rejected by supermarkets and damaging food supply system. national service) so university
students spend some of the
• Cut waste in your home and
by us the consumers. Meanwhile
summer working in the fields.
make sure all fruit and veg you
there has been an enormous
reduction in the number of
• Reduce your meat cosumption.
insects which are vital for both buy is loose and not in packaging Payment would be made by
reducing or writing off their
pollination and control of pests as • If you have a garden, plant one student loans by using some of
well as poisoning worms, earwigs
or two small fruit trees and have at
the UK’s current farm subsidy
needs and others crucial for preserving least one compost pile in the (£3.5 billion per annum).
• Increase the amount of agro-
garden. Make sure any compost
and enriching the top soil.
This has to stop. So what can
you buy is peat free and do not
forestry in farms which will greatly
you! we do? Here are some of my ideas: buy/use pesticides or herbicides. improve biodiversity and the
• Write to your MP and threaten
• If possible, rewild part of your
health of the soil.
to withhold your vote to save your
Let’s all take action NOW
grandchildren’s future unless they garden and try not to cut the whilst we can and secure a future
grass or hedgerows too often.
change the current environment • Last summer many farms left for our grandchildren and the
bill and the current planning laws some of their produce to rot as generations that follow.
PETER FALK nitrogen oxide; their roots bind and put a value on trees.
soils & riverbanks, they provide • Stop cutting down trees – it’s
all very well planting more trees
he generations since 1945 shade and shelter, recycle water, but it will be many years before the Early Suburb Houses
are guilty of destroying the are a vital habitat for wildlife and
Tenvironment and killing off a are a wonder and delight. Yet a foliage will compare to an existing
huge number of species. We are recent survey by the Woodland tree. We also need to stop all in the 1911 Census –
all complicit, as we have gorged Trust states that only 13% of the imports of non-treated wood as
on consumption, destroyed UK land surface is woodland and imports have been the major cause names or numbers?
habitats and left a mountain of within that figure half is non- of the myriad of tree diseases
detritus. If we continue to native (mainly commercial which have taken hold in the UK
consume and destroy what future conifer). The study estimates that since 1945. HGS HERITAGE TEAM
is there for our grandchildren? over 1000 ancient woods have • Reduce industrialised farming
Many of us consider that there is been lost or damaged over the which produces copious green- he HGS Heritage team have been working hard to match Suburb
nothing one person can do but as last 25 years and another 1200 house gases, erodes top soils, houses with the 1911 census records. However, our researchers
Greta Thunberg has said over and are currently under threat. pollutes land and rivers, causes Tencountered a few obstacles along the way…
over again everyone can help by Since 1945 there has been a wildlife and insect eradication and At the time of the 1911 census, some roads in Hampstead Garden
their own actions and if enough change in farming from smaller increases flooding. Since 1945 80% Suburb were fully-built, occupied and had numbers. This numbering
follow, the world can be changed. fields separated by hedgerows to of our orchards are gone, over system enabled us to match most of those houses to a 1911 census
In the UK, there are more huge fields of monoculture and half a million miles of hedgerows form. However, there are some gaps due to occupants having been
trees than 50 years ago but we over half a million miles of erased, herbicides and fertilisers away on census night, or, some (usually women) refusing to participate,
remain the least wooded country hedgerows have been removed. are now applied routinely multiple writing ‘NO VOTE NO CENSUS’ across the form itself.
1 estimate that due
in Europe. Trees are multitaskers, Some experts 16/08/2021 20:46 times a year, a huge increase in Then there were some roads only partially completed by April 1911
Litchfields_Suburb_News_Aug21_PRINT2.pdf
they soak up carbon and trap to the degradation of the soil, we livestock mostly kept indoors and (such as Hogarth Hill) and roads where the builders had not even
started. Of the approximately 130 roads in the Suburb, 90 have no
census records at all.
The biggest obstacle for the team were the roads where the houses
had been built and were occupied but only had names. Giving your
house a name seemed to be the fashionable thing to do for people
‘with a view’ – many of the houses on the right as you go down Erskine
Hill had names, while those on the left were content to use the
numbers allocated. Fortunately, we were able to put a number to some
of these named houses by matching the 1911 occupant’s surname to
those listed in one of the early Suburb directories, but, if your house
was built by April 1911 and it doesn’t have a corresponding census form
on the Virtual Museum website, the chances are the original occupants
gave their house a name such as ‘The Willows’ or ‘Oak View’ or
something similar. If you happen to live in one of these houses and you
know what it was called or who lived there in 1911 please let us know.
Hampstead Way is a special case. In 1911, the plots at the bottom
near the Finchley Road were built, occupied and numbered, the
C
numbering starting at the Finchley road end. Two years after the
M census, the numbering was reversed! Diligent work by Janice
Blackstaffe has managed to resolve this, so, for example, if you live at
Y
42 Hampstead Way don’t be surprised to find a census form for No.132
CM attached to the photo of your house on our website.
Do learn more about the early days of our wonderful Hampstead
MY
Garden Suburb by visiting the Virtual Museum at hgsheritage.org.uk
CY and looking at the 1911 Census and much more.
CMY
K
Hampstead Garden Suburb is our home
We have been selling and renting Hampstead Garden Suburb homes since 1989.
Most of our team live in Hampstead Garden Suburb and have a unique insight
into our special area. So we are not like any other estate agent you’ll come
across on the high street.
Contemplating selling or renting your property?
Call us or email us to find out how Litchfields can assist. MARILYN GREENE
020 8458 5000 | sales@ litchfields.com | litchfields.com

Submissions deadline for issue 152 is 1st November 2022 • Suburb News Co-Editors are Marie-Christine OʼCallaghan & Shelley-Anne Salisbury • suburbnews@hgsra.uk
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