It is difficult, indeed almost impossible, to determine when Hampstead first became a separate parish, but there is no doubt that it was still a part of Hendon in the early years of the sixteenth century, for it can be proved that the rector of the mother church was then paying a separate chaplain, whose duty it was to hold services in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin that is supposed to have occupied the site of the present Church of St. John. It is, however, equally certain that before the end of the reign of Elizabeth, Hampstead had its own church-wardens, for in 1598 they were summoned to attend the Bishop of London's visitation.
At whatever date Hampstead seceded from Hendon, the chapelry of Kilburn seems to have been from the first included in the new parish, and the history of this chapelry is so typical of ecclesiastical evolution that it deserves relation here. The story goes that the first settler in the wilds of Kilburn was a hermit named Godwin, who some time in the reign of Edward I. built himself a cell on the banks of the little stream, the name of which, signifying the cold brook, is very variously spelt—the usual form being Keybourne, which rose on the west of the Heath, flowed though the district now known as Bayswater, fed the Serpentine, and finally made its way to the Thames, but has long since been degraded into a covered-in sewer. Shut in by a dense forest, of which Caen Wood is a relic, the lovely spot was an ideal retreat for meditation and prayer, but the recluse soon tired of its seclusion. He returned to the world, gave his little property to the all-absorbing Abbey of Westminster, by whose abbot it was a little later bestowed upon three highly born ladies named Christina, Emma, and Gunilda, who, fired with enthusiasm by the example of the saintly Queen Matilda, whose maids of honour they had been, had resolved to devote the rest of their lives to the service of God. Leaving behind them all their wealth, they took up their abode in the remote hut, but they were not left entirely to their own devices, for small as was the community it was raised to the dignity of a sisterhood of the Benedictine order, and a chaplain was soon sent to hold services and superintend the daily routine of the sisters' life. This chaplain was none other than the ex-hermit Godwin, and it is impossible to help wondering whether there may not perhaps have been some secret attachment between him and one of the fair maidens. His readiness to return to a place he had intended to leave for ever is certainly suggestive, but his conduct appears to have been in every way exemplary, and he remained at his post till his death. Meanwhile the three original occupants of the nunnery had been joined by several other ladies, a new chaplain was appointed, the little oratory with which Christina, Emma, and Gunilda had been content was enlarged into a chapel, and a considerable grant of land was bestowed upon the community, which continued to grow until what had been but an insignificant settlement had become an important priory, owning much property in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. Strange to say, however, this prosperity was presently succeeded by a time of great distress, for in 1337 Edward III. granted a special exemption from taxation to the nuns because of their inability to pay their debts. It would, indeed, seem that the sisters had not after all been able to manage their own temporal affairs successfully, but had been too generous to the many pilgrims who claimed their hospitality as a right, but very little is really known of the later history of the priory, except that when under the name of the Nonnerie of Kilnbourne it was surrendered to the commissioners of Henry VIII. its annual value was assessed at £74, 7s. 11d. The nuns whose lives had been given up to aiding the poor and distressed were now compelled to beg their daily bread, the rapacious king exchanged their lands for certain estates owned by the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem. Later, the site of the ancient priory was granted to the Earl of Warwick, and after changing hands many times it became the property of the Upton family, one of whom built the spacious church of St. Mary close to the spot where Godwin's little oratory once stood. Near to it is the headquarters of the hard-working sisters of St. Peter's, who carry on under the modern conditions of densely populated Kilburn the traditions of their gentle predecessors, the memory of whose old home is preserved in the names of the Abbey and Priory Roads. Not far away, too, rises the stately spire of the noble Church of St. Augustine, one of Pearson's finest Gothic designs, so that the whole neighbourhood would seem, in spite of all the changes that have taken place, to be still haunted by the spirits of those who withdrew to it so many centuries ago to worship God in solitude.
Although actual historical data relating to the bygone days of Hampstead are few, it is possible, with the aid of a little imagination, to call up various pictures of different stages in its long life-story which, even if not strictly accurate in detail, may serve to give a fairly true impression. When, for instance, Ranulph Pevrel brought his bride to the homestead of which he was the chief villein, the whole of the present Heath and the surrounding districts were wild uncultivated lands, with here and there a little clearing representing the sites of the future villages of Highgate, Hendon, Hornsey, Willesden, and Kilburn; whilst deep in the recesses of the woods were many bubbling springs, the fountain-heads of the Holbourne, the name of which is preserved in that of Holborn, also called the river of Wells, because of the many rills that fed it, but generally known as the Fleet, which gave its name to Fleet Road in Haverstock Hill, and Fleet Ditch and Fleet Street in London; the Brent, which joins the Thames at Brentford; the Tybourne, or double brook, so called because its two arms encircle the Isle of Thorney; and the Westbourne, of which the rivulet beside which Godwin built his cell was one of the many tributaries.
On the banks of these picturesque streams groups of pilgrims no doubt often halted to rest on their way from London viâ the Roman Watling Street, to worship at the tomb of England's first martyr at St. Albans, or at the nearer forest shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, of which there is known to have been one at Willesden, one at Muswell Hill, where the Alexandra Palace now stands, and one at Gospel Oak, which is supposed to owe its quaint name, of comparatively recent origin, to the fact that portions of the Gospel used to be read beneath a spreading oak at the ceremony of beating the bounds of the parish, discontinued since 1896.
It is also certain that the Highgate and Hampstead forests were a favourite hunting-ground of the civic authorities and wealthy citizens of London, but this, of course, would check rather than promote the opening out of the woodlands, and for more than a century and a half after the Conquest there was little or no building on the northern heights. Gradually, however, as the population of the city increased, attention was drawn to the many advantages enjoyed by Hampstead, of which its plentiful water-supply was the chief. There were many water-mills on the upper courses of the streams, whose 'clack,' according to a Norman writer of the twelfth century, was delightful to the ear, and almost from time immemorial the Heath has been looked upon as a paradise by the washerwomen of the neighbourhood, who long enjoyed certain privileges, including that of washing the linen of the royal family. What is now called Holly Hill used to be called Cloth Hill, because it was the public drying-ground, and even now it is sometimes used for that purpose.
It seems certain that the chalybeate wells of Hampstead were known to the Romans, but they were practically forgotten until the sixteenth century, when they were rediscovered, but little notice was taken of them until the close of the seventeenth century, when the value of their medicinal properties