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Here Mr. Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, whose attachment to Hampstead is said to have ‘amounted to a passion,’ was in the habit of taking up his summer quarters. Towards the latter years of the eighteenth century it was a favourite lodging-house for young gentlemen from the Inns of Law, the Toupees, and other sprightly youths of fashion, who affected Hampstead for the facilities the horse-course afforded of exhibiting their talents as curricle and hackney-coach drivers.

Gale, the antiquary, also lodged here, and on one occasion commissioned Signore Grisoni to make a drawing of the picturesque old church, an entry of which is preserved in the Trust Book.[49]

In 1754 Gale returned to the Chicken House, where he died. He was buried in the old churchyard. To the left of Rosslyn Hill, a little removed from the road, at the commencement of the bank, which shows the depth to which the hill has been cut down, stands the large red-brick mansion, occupying the site, and in part formed of, Vane House, a staircase of which is preserved.[50] It is now the Home for Soldiers’ Daughters, which was formally opened for their habitation by the Royal Consort, Prince Albert, on a summer’s day of 1860. A little beyond, on the same side of the way, is Green Hill, where, on the site of the late eminent publisher’s house (William Longman, Esq.[51]), stands the new Wesleyan Chapel, and, divided from it by Prince Arthur’s Road, Stanfield House, which preserves in its name that of the well-known marine painter, Clarkson Stanfield, who for some years resided here, never tired of tending his pretty garden, which has almost entirely disappeared. It is now the Institute and Public Library.