Here’s a wonderful picture of Jean Spaul on the balcony of Pam and George’s flat in Reddington Road, where she stayed for a couple of months.
Pam and George bought this flat after they stopped living in Gerrard Street. The flat was in a rambling house called The Wabe in Hampstead that had been divided into apartments in the 1950s.
The house was originally designed in 1903 by William Garnett, a celebrated mathematician and educationalist in a mixture of styles — everything from Arts and Crafts to Art Nouveau to Scottish Baronial.
William Garnett was particularly fond of the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll from which the name of the house, The Wabe, comes from.
In 1913 William Garnett sold the house to the Yorkshire industrialist, Harold Ellis, and his wife Mina Hubbard. She was a fearless Canadian explorer, famous for her successful expedition to map Northern Labrador by canoe. The couple entertained in style throughout the first War. Mina espoused the cause of Women’s Suffrage, and as a result Emmeline Pankhurst was a frequent guest for tea. Furthermore Mina invited the acclaimed and notorious Isadora Duncan to dance at the house to raise funds for the cause. Other guests over the years included H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling.
The actor Tom Conti and his wife restored the house to a single dwelling in the late ’80s.
So nice!