Hampstead Avenue

Hampstead Avenue is a street of the Billerica Garden Suburb in North Billerica, crossing Letchworth Avenue a short way north of Mason Avenue and running west to Ilford Road. It was laid out in 1914 for the Billerica Garden Suburb, Inc., the workers' housing company organized that June by the Rev. Charles H. Williams, pastor of the North Billerica Baptist Church, and planned by Arthur C. Comey with Warren H. Manning, and like Letchworth Avenue, Port Sunlight Road and Brentham Road it was named for an English model: the Hampstead Garden Suburb in north London, founded in 1907 by Henrietta Barnett and planned by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker. The 1983 survey of the area attributes many of the hip-roofed houses on Hampstead and Mason Avenues to Mr. Williams's company. At its corner with Letchworth Avenue stands one of the older Faulkner mill double houses, built between about 1875 and 1887.

A water main was laid in "Hampstead Road" by 1918, and the 1919 directory lists "Hampstead Avenue from B & M R R to byd Ilford (G C) N B." Its name was not fixed at first: town records call it Hampstead Road, Hampstead Avenue and even Hampstead Street. On February 14, 1920 the town accepted the laying out by the Selectmen of "Hampstead Avenue from Letchworth Road to Ilford Road" as a town way, one of the Garden Suburb streets whose acceptance the town had promised in 1916 "when satisfactory to the Board of Selectmen."

An article to spend $900 to gravel and tar Hampstead Avenue was dismissed at the annual meeting of February 1929. In 1931 the town voted $750 "to gravel and tar Hampstead Avenue, from Letchworth Avenue to Ilford Road, a distance of about 600 feet," and the highway surveyor reported it "excavated, graveled, and tarred" that year, its first hard surface; it was tarred again in 1932. Hampstead Avenue was not on the official map of 1831 and was not among the roads accepted in 2016. Its name has not changed since 1920.

References

1. Warren H. Manning Collection, Iowa State University: sketch map, Billerica Garden Suburb, North Billerica, July 29, 1914
2. Wikipedia: Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, founded 1907, for which the street was named
3. Annual Report 1918: water main extensions, Hampstead Road and Brentham Road
4. Annual Report 1920: Article 15, Hampstead Avenue from Letchworth Road to Ilford Road accepted as a town way
5. Annual Report 1928: article to gravel and tar Hampstead Avenue dismissed at the meeting of February 1929
6. Annual Report 1931: $750 voted to gravel and tar Hampstead Avenue from Letchworth Avenue to Ilford Road
7. Annual Report 1931: Hampstead Avenue excavated, graveled, and tarred
8. Annual Report 1956: list of accepted streets, Hampstead Rd. Letchworth Rd. to Ilford Rd. 2-14-20