Mount Vernon House (originally Windmill Hill House) is a house in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

in the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St ...

. It has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) since May 1974. The garden wall is separately listed at Grade II. The house was built around 1726 and was altered in the early 19th century. It is rendered in stucco with a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

. The house occupies the site of a windmill. It was constructed between 1725 and 1728 by a local Hampstead timbersmith, William Knight. The surgeon William Peirce lived at the house in the 1770s. General

Charles Vernon Charles "Charlie" Gary Vernon is the bass trombonist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and serves as professor of trombone at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Education A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Vernon attended Brevard Colleg ...

leased the house from 1781 to 1800. The landscape painter

Edmund John Niemann Edmund John Niemann (1813–1876) was a prolific and highly successful British landscape artist working mostly in oils. Nine of his paintings are held in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Life and work Niemann was born in Islington, London in 18 ...

lived at Mount Vernon house in the 1850s. It was the residence of a Captain J.T. Campbell in the 1860s. Mount Vernon House was the residence of the Hospital Secretary of

Mount Vernon Hospital Mount Vernon Hospital is located in Northwood, an area of north-west Greater London. It is one of two hospitals run by The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. History The hospital was founded as The North London Hospital for Cons ...

from 1903 and subsequently served as the hospital's Nurses' Home. The tenure of the physician Henry Dale at the house is marked by a

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

blue plaque erected in 1981 on the garden wall of the house. Dale and his wife, Elen, lived at the house from 1919 to 1942 and entertained many fellow scientists and researchers at the house including Charles Best and his wife Margaret. Margaret Best attended a dinner at the house during the war with other partners of scientists including Margaret, the wife of

A.V. Hill Archibald Vivian Hill (26 September 1886 – 3 June 1977), known as A. V. Hill, was a British physiologist, one of the founders of the diverse disciplines of biophysics and operations research. He shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Me ...

, and Gertrude, the wife of

William Bayliss Sir William Maddock Bayliss (2 May 1860 – 27 August 1924) was an English physiologist. Life He was born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire but shortly thereafter his father, a successful merchant of ornamental ironwork, moved his family to a ...

. In his ''Companion Guide to Outer London''

Simon Jenkins Sir Simon David Jenkins (born 10 June 1943) is a British author, a newspaper columnist and editor. He was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1976 to 1978 and of ''The Times'' from 1990 to 1992. Jenkins chaired the National Trust from 20 ...

wrote that Mount Vernon House shares "with most of Hampstead's better mansions the characteristic of hiding behind both a high wall and a thick coating of ivy". The ''London: North'' edition of the

Pevsner Architectural Guides The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

also describes the house as "well hidden". The house was restored and once again became a private house with the residential conversion of the Mount Vernon Hospital site by property developers Marylebone Warwick Balfour and Sincere.

References

{{coords, 51.557, -0.180, display=title Grade II listed houses in the London Borough of Camden Houses completed in the 18th century Houses in Hampstead