Qualla: Fenton House, Hampstead

Fenton House, Hampstead: Introduction

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tilman2007, CC BY-SA 4.0. The date 1693 is inscribed on the chimney breast, and the brick walls that surround it are consistent with that age. Fenton House has been standing on the western side of Hampstead Grove for over three hundred years — through the expansion of London from a city into a metropolis, through the development of the heath below it, through two world wars. It is a detached house with a walled garden large by any London standard, containing a sunken garden, a kitchen garden, and an orchard where around thirty varieties of apple trees still flower and fruit as they have for centuries. The National Trust holds it now, as it has since Lady Binning bequeathed it in 1952.

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Image: Tilman2007 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fenton House, Hampstead: The Riga Merchant's Mark

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Newmarcchan11, CC BY-SA 3.0. The house takes its current name from Philip Fenton, a merchant who traded from Riga on the Baltic coast and bought the property in 1793. In the 19th century he ordered the remodelling that shaped much of what visitors see today: alterations to the interiors and roof, the additio...

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Image: Newmarcchan11 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fenton House, Hampstead: The Instruments

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Newmarcchan11, CC BY-SA 3.0. Upstairs, Fenton House holds the Benton Fletcher collection of early keyboard instruments — harpsichords, spinets, virginals, clavichords, and early pianos gathered by Major George Henry Benton Fletcher and donated to the National Trust in the 1930s. What makes this collection un...

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Image: Newmarcchan11 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fenton House, Hampstead: The King and His Mistress

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Newmarcchan11, CC BY-SA 3.0. Among the paintings at Fenton House are portraits of King William IV and Dorothea Jordan, the Irish actress who was his mistress for twenty years and bore him ten illegitimate children before he ended the relationship to marry a royal. The house also holds portraits of two of the...

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Image: Newmarcchan11 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fenton House, Hampstead: High Ground, Old Garden

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Newmarcchan11, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hampstead's elevation above the rest of London gives Fenton House a particular relationship with the city below. The heath that stretches to the south and east has been common land for centuries, protecting the view across London's skyline. The walled garden, large enough to feel...

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Image: Newmarcchan11 | CC BY-SA 3.0