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

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

51.5388°N -0.1457°W

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. https://www.ninastibbe.com/almost-famous/ Almost Famous: website
  15. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/claire-tomalin-memoir/ Life and times in NW1: The hard, privileged life of a literary biographer
  16. https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/book-review-gloucester-crescent-by-william-miller-1.470384 Book Review: Gloucester Crescent by William Miller
  17. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/gloucester-crescent-and-a-trip-down-memory-lane Gloucester Crescent, and a trip down memory lane
  18. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/DMNz18vC_CrONr21thz6MQq40wY/appointments Jonathan Wolfe Miller – Companies House database
  19. 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
  20. http://vaughanwilliams.uk/letter/vwl3696 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Alan Bush – Letter No.: VWL3696 – The Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams database
  21. Kate Bassett, In Two Minds: a Biography of Jonathan Miller: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, Oberon Books Ltd (2012) – Google Books p. 124
  22. 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
  23. News: Deborah Moggach: 'I'd like to die listening to Wodehouse' . . 28 June 2019.
  24. Book: Finn, Pat . 2019 . Unsolved 1941 . UK . Independent . 978-1096467809.