Camden News: Campaign | John Betjeman | Highgate Baptist Chapel vicarage

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Camden News - DAN CARRIER
Published: 23 October 2008

Highgate Baptist Chapel vicarage

Betjeman vicarage in flats battle

Campaign to save building

THE fight is on to save a Queen Anne vicarage lionised by poet John Betjeman from the wrecker’s ball.
The house, next door to the Highgate Road Baptist Chapel, has been earmarked by property developers for demolition. They want to replace it with a five-storey block of nine homes.
The church featured in one-time poet laureate Betjeman’s poem, Summoned By Bells. He spoke of taking a trolleybus through Kentish Town towards his home in Highgate West Hill – and penned the lines: “The old grey stone on Highgate Road” in its honour.
The last Baptist minister to live in the house has joined calls from conservationists for the plans to be dismissed.
Keith Baker, who served at the church for seven years in the 1980s and made the vicarage his family home, said its plight – and the church next door, currently being converted into luxury flats – was a sad demise for a house steeped in history. Mr Baker, now a minister in the parish of Stornoway on the Scottish west coast Isle of Lewis, said the vicarage should be saved.
“I was surprised to hear of the plans – I thought it should be preserved,” he added. “It had lovely original iron work and high ceilings. It appears they have made a complete mess of it.”
Dartmouth Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee chairman Stephen Benson said: “The developers say it is not capable of being restored – but we just do not accept that.”
Developers Trident and Apteral Development were unavailable for comment.

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