As Rocque's 1775 map shows, the cluster of houses here is known as North End. British History Online 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 earl of Clarendon {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 Obsessional: "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 Melbourne Argus, 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 Bodleian in Oxford holds "Assorted personal papers of Lord Clarendon, including .. historical notes on his home Pitt House, Hampstead".
From the National Archives: "Hampstead MBC. Open Space (Pitt House, Hampstead Heath) Compulsory Purchase Order 1953".
The maps of the area that we have found (1865, 1912, 1957) 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 source 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 another photo, dated 1926 (the top photo) which shows quite a lot of work having taken place since the previous photo.
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