Gloucester Crescent, Camden Explained

Gloucester Crescent is an 1840s Victorian residential crescent in Camden Town in London which from the early 1960s gained a bohemian reputation as “the trendiest street in London” and "Britain's cleverest street" when it became home for many British writers, artists and intellectuals including Jonathan Miller, George Melly, Alan Bennett and Alice Thomas Ellis.^{[1] [2]}

It runs off the nearby Oval Road. Many of the homes on the crescent are Grade II listed buildings including no. 23, the terraces nos. 3 to 22 and 24 to 29, and nos. 60 and 61.

The London branch of the School of Sound Recording is located in The Rotunda at 42 Gloucester Crescent.

In popular culture

The former home of playwright and author Alan Bennett at 23 Gloucester Crescent is the setting for The Lady in the Van based on his experiences with the eccentric woman known to him as Miss Shepherd who lived on Bennett's driveway in a series of dilapidated vans for more than fifteen years. Fairchild/Shepherd's story was first published in 1989 as an essay in the London Review of Books. In 1990 Bennett published it in book form. In 1999 he adapted it into a stage play at the Queen's Theatre in London which starred Maggie Smith who received a Best Actress nomination at the 2000 Olivier Awards^[3] and which was directed by Nicholas Hytner. The stage play includes two characters named Alan Bennett. On 21 February 2009 it was broadcast as a radio play on BBC Radio 4, with Maggie Smith reprising her role^[4] and Alan Bennett playing himself. He adapted the story again for the 2015 film The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith reprising her role again, and Nicholas Hytner directing again.

Principal photography for the film version The Lady in the Van (2015) began at 23 Gloucester Crescent^{[5] [6]} in 2014. The film was shot in and around Bennett's old house in Camden Town, where the real Miss Shepherd spent 15 years on his driveway. According to director Nicholas Hytner, they never considered filming anywhere else.

In 2018 William Miller, son of Sir Jonathan Miller, published Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups based on his memories of growing up on Gloucester Crescent in the 1960s and the famous residents and visitors he encountered.^[7]

The biographer Claire Tomalin published her autobiography A Life of My Own (2017) which included much detail of her life on Gloucester Crescent where she has lived since the 1960s.^[8]

Notable residents

• No 19: One of the founding professors of the Guild Hall of Music George Thomas Palmer from early 1880's to 1930
• No 22: the writer and essayist Alice Thomas Ellis lived here from 1960 to 2001 with her husband the publisher Colin Haycraft until his death.^{[9] [10] [11]} Since 2001 the house has belonged to photographer and film director Malcolm Venville.
• No. 23: writer Alan Bennett and vagrant Margaret Fairchild lived at the Grade II listed building – Bennett in the house, and Fairchild in a series of dilapidated vans parked on the driveway, as immortalised in Bennett's memoir, stage play and film.^[12]
• No. 36: from 1843 the artist and etcher Lionel Percy Smythe.^{[13] [14]}
• No. 55: the journalist and musician George Melly (1926–2007) from 1964 to 1971.^[15] The writer Nina Stibbe wrote a hugely successful memoir, Love, Nina, about working as a nanny for the journalist Mary-Kay Wilmers and her then husband, film-director Stephen Frears who had bought the house from Melly in 1971.
• No. 57: since 1963 the home of author Claire Tomalin and her husband journalist Nicholas Tomalin^[9] (and later, Claire's second husband Michael Frayn).^{[16] [17]}
• No. 63: the polymath Jonathan Miller (1934–2019) and his family from 1961.^{[18] [10] [19]}
• No. 68: the artist Walter Sickert and member of the Camden Town Group was living here in 1912.^[20]
• No. 69: Ursula Vaughan Williams, widow of Ralph Vaughan Williams; theatre director Max Stafford-Clark.^{[12] [21]} The current owner is William Miller, son of Jonathan Miller who lived three doors away at No. 63.
• No. 70: Catherine Dickens after her separation from her husband Charles Dickens in 1858.^[22]

Other residents included the novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach;^{[23] [24]} writer Susannah Clapp;^[22] poet and playwright Louis MacNeice^[22] and the Labour MP Giles Radice.^[12]

Murder

Edith Eleanora Humphries was murdered at 1 Gloucester Crescent on 17 October 1941. She was found in her night clothes with her throat cut and was taken to hospital but died soon after. Her murder is unsolved. ^[25]

References

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Notes and References

1. Moran . Joe . Joe Moran (social historian). Early Cultures of Gentrification in London, 1955–1980 . Journal of Urban History . November 2007 . 34 . 1 . 101–121 . 10.1177/0096144207306611 . 143646613 . 27 November 2021.
2. News: Bennett . Alan . 'The Stringalongs' . 27 November 2021 . . 24 February 1994 . en.
3. Web site: The Lady in the Van . Telegraph.co.uk . 2016-12-26.
4. Web site: Review: In 'The Lady in the Van,' Maggie Smith Dazzles Yet Again . The Atlantic . 2016-01-22 . Christopher Orr . 2017-03-31.
5. Web site: Tucker . Reed . Why a playwright let a homeless woman live in his driveway for 15 years | New York Post . Nypost.com . 2015-11-28 . 2016-12-26.
6. Web site: The Lady in the Van Press Conference in Full – Maggie Smith & Alan Bennett . YouTube . 2015-10-13 . 2016-12-26.
7. William Miller, Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups, Profile Books (2018)
8. [Claire Tomalin]
9. https://www.pressreader.com/ The remarkable story of the cleverest street in Britain
10. https://www.theoldie.co.uk/blog/britains-cleverest-street Jonathan Miller says farewell to Britain's cleverest street
11. 97587 . Clare . Colvin . Clare Colvin . Haycraft [née Lindholm], Anna Margaret [pseud. Alice Thomas Ellis] . 2011 . 2009 .
12. https://www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2018/10/22/a-love-letter-to-gloucester-crescent/ My love letter to Gloucester Crescent: Author William Miller on what it was like growing up in the bohemian NW1 enclave – Kentish Towner website
13. http://barnsleyartonyourdoorstep.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/7.-Lionel-Percy-Smythe-RA-and-Alice-Gunyon.pdf Lionel Percy Smythe – Barnsley Art on Your Doorstep (2014)
14. • No 39: the British television journalist and broadcaster Joan Thirkettle (1947-1996) who notably worked for ITN for over 20 years Profile of Lionel Percy Smythe (1839–1918) – Royal Museums Greenwich Collection
15. https://www.ninastibbe.com/almost-famous/ Almost Famous: website
16. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/claire-tomalin-memoir/ Life and times in NW1: The hard, privileged life of a literary biographer
17. https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/book-review-gloucester-crescent-by-william-miller-1.470384 Book Review: Gloucester Crescent by William Miller
18. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/gloucester-crescent-and-a-trip-down-memory-lane Gloucester Crescent, and a trip down memory lane
19. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/DMNz18vC_CrONr21thz6MQq40wY/appointments Jonathan Wolfe Miller – Companies House database
20. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/david-hayes-a-history-of-camden-town-1895-1914-r1104374 The Camden Town Group in Context – A History of Camden Town 1895–1914 – Tate
21. http://vaughanwilliams.uk/letter/vwl3696 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Alan Bush – Letter No.: VWL3696 – The Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams database
22. Kate Bassett, In Two Minds: a Biography of Jonathan Miller: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, Oberon Books Ltd (2012) – Google Books p. 124
23. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/24/gloucester-crescent-by-william-miller-review-my-dad-jonathan-miller-and-me Gloucester Crescent by William Miller review – my dad Jonathan Miller and me
24. News: Deborah Moggach: 'I'd like to die listening to Wodehouse' . . 28 June 2019.
25. Book: Finn, Pat . 2019 . Unsolved 1941 . UK . Independent . 978-1096467809.