Sir Rich'd Steele's Cottage, Hampstead Road.

Sir Richard Steele's Cottage, Hampstead Road. "In 1829, the Romantic landscape painter John Constable (1776-1836) enlisted a talented young engraver named David Lucas (1802-1881) to produce a series of mezzotints from his images of the English countryside. The results of this collaboration were published as English Landscape Scenery, a series of skillfully rendered plates that translate the dramatic atmosphere of Constable’s paintings - particularly the cloudy skies - into a velvety palette of light and dark." - http://www.davidsongalleries.com/artists/lucas/lucas.html This is a late reprint (and hence heavily coloured) of the badly worn Plate 30 for English Landscape Scenery - a mezzotint on steel, London, 1855, based on a painting first exhibited in 1836. "Until the 19th century, the only building on the Hampstead portion of the Chalcots estate, apart from the two farmhouses in England's Lane, was Steele's Cottage, where Sir Richard Steele the essayist stayed in 1712 to evade his creditors. The house, which stood on a mound on the west side of Haverstock Hill and was depicted, among others, by Constable, was also where Sir Charles Sedley, the poet and wit, had died in 1701. As the White House, it gave its name to the surrounding field but by 1755 it was described as a cottage. In 1811 there were only six houses on the whole estate." - 'Hampstead: Chalcots', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp. 63-6. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22640. Date accessed: 07 August 2006.