Primrose Hill Residents

Primrose Hill Remembered

The Friends of Chalk Farm Library, 2001.

I remember as a child when sheep safely grazed on Primrose Hill, on the upper slopes. Uniformed gatekeepers patrolled the Park and the Hill daily, and at dusk they would blow on a whistle, giving you minutes to hurry out or be locked in for the night. The year 1939 changed this scene: ack ack guns replaced the sundial on top of the Hill: air raid shelters were dug out on the far side and the gates and iron railings all taken to make weapons for the war effort

This excerpt from Name Dropping Here and There by Dorothy Gwen Starling is typical of many personal accounts in a collection that provides a history of the Primrose Hill neighbourhood in the 20th century. There are other memories of the Hill in the same volume.