Gospel Oak - History

History

The name derives from an oak tree, under which parishioners gathered to hear an annual gospel reading when the area was still rural. Lords Mansfield, Southampton and Lisburne were the local landowners when development began in the mid-19th century. Plans were drawn up for elegant streets radiating from Lismore Circus but after two railway lines were extended across the area the first buildings were two- and three-story cottages for "navvies and quarrelsome shoemakers." Later the neighbourhood became more respectable and solidly residential - although in 1909 when John Betjeman's family moved to West Hill, Highgate they obviously felt that they were a cut above Gospel Oak:

Here from my eyrie, as the sun went down,
I heard the old North London puff and shunt,
Glad that I did not live in Gospel Oak.

St Martin's Gospel Oak designed by Edward Buckton Lamb is discussed by John Summerson in his Victorian Architecture in England (Norton 1970).

In 1938 Parliament Hill Lido was opened next to Gospel Oak station. At £34,000 this was the most expensive of the lidos built by the London County Council.

All Hallows Church by James Brooks is a notable late Victorian church. After World War II much of the original housing around Lismore Circus was demolished and a series of estates built for Camden London Borough Council. Today Gospel Oak is a socially mixed area with sizeable Jamaican, South American and African communities. Famous residents include Tony Blair’s former head of communications Alastair Campbell and his partner journalist Fiona Millar, Python Michael Palin and Richard Lindley. The area is covered by the Gospel Oak and Haverstock wards, with Gospel Oak to the north of Queen's Crescent Marketplace and Haverstock to the south. In 2009, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown toured the Kiln Place estate in Gospel Oak and was confronted by a resident who told him how she had been chased, and her property had been broken into and been set on fire by gangs of youths on the estate. Nevertheless, the area still remains a desirable compromise to fashionable areas such as Camden Town and expensive inner-suburbs like Belsize Park and Hampstead. The area is ethnically and socially diverse, and the marketplace and surrounding area is well known for its African, Jamaican, South American and Eastern European culture, and this is well reflected in the ethnic food stalls and clothes shops in the area.