Druids climbing Primrose Hill in 2017 [Lars Christiansen]

THE bill was estimated by French sculptor Pierre-Joseph Chardigny to be around one million francs – but for the money, Primrose Hill would be getting a “colossal statue of Shakespeare to celebrate the tercentenary of his birth”.

It was in 1854 when Chardigny made his outlandish proposal, and in a new edition of his book on the story of Primrose Hill, historian Martin Sheppard recounts some of the crazier-sounding ideas that the Hill has attracted down the centuries.

Chardigny claimed that visitors to the UK were bemused that there was no statue honouring the Bard “on a scale to match the colossal statues of St Charles Borromeo in Italy or Peter the Great in Russia”.

His answer was to build a 100ft sculpture and place it on top of a stone plinth on the summit of Primrose Hill.

Visitors would be able to climb inside the work, made of iron forged using a process the sculptor had invented. An interior staircase would lead people through various floors decorated with reliefs of scenes from the Bard’s plays – while a platform in the statue’s head would offer grandstand views.

This is but one fascinating vignette Martin uncovers in his updated edition: the original published in 2013 was richly detailed but, according to the author, considered to be on the academic side: this new, slimmer offering takes the reader through a potted history of highlights of the neighbourhood Martin calls home.

The name was first record in 1586, mentioned in a ballad called A Sweete and Courtly Songe of the Flowers that grow on Prymrose Hill.

William Blake’s The Sun at his Eastern Gate, 1820. He had a vision of the sun on Primrose Hill

“No copy of the work survives but we know of its existence as it was registered with the Stationers Company,” he explains.

The Tudors enjoyed its natural aspect outside the city sprawl – Henry VIII pinched land from the monasteries during the Reformation and carved out a deer park for hunting immediately to the south of the Hill. A century later, in the aftermath of the English Civil War, officers from the New Model Army were given plots on what are now the southern slopes and Regent’s Park in return for their war service: it led to a rapid deforestation of the area, as they sold off timber and sought land to use to grow food.

Around two decades after the fall of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, the Hill became notorious after the discovery of the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a Protestant magistrate.

“It was claimed Godfrey had been murdered because he had been about to disclose details of a plot to kill the King,” writes Martin.

“This sensation was highly sensitive at a time when feelings were running high at the prospect of a Catholic, King Charles’ brother, James, succeeding to the throne.”

Sylvia Plath on Primrose Hill, photographed by Ted Hughes in 1960

As well as romantic visions of the pastoral fringes of the city, Martin explains it has always attracted people who believe there is something special about the Hill.

In 1792, the Welsh bard Edward Williams – using his bardic name of Iolo Morganwg – stood at the summit and proclaimed that Druids were Welsh. It has made the Hill a pilgrimage for Druids today – they can be found on its summit on the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox.

And as it drew Morganwg, it also attracted William Blake. As he imagined London as Jerusalem, he wrote: “The fields from Islington to Marylebone, to Primrose Hill and St John’s Wood, were buildeed over with pillars of gold, And there Jerusalem’s pillars stood.”

He also said: “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill…’ to the diarist and one of the founders of London University, Henry Crabb Robinson.

The Chalk Farm Tavern

With such a rich and varied backstory, it seems churlish that the Hill has attracted fairytales when the reality is so fascinating.

Martin moves quickly to dismiss some urban myths: the Hill was not formed by dumped spoil for the railway cuttings nearby – though perhaps some bumps here and there are tell-tale signs that the odd cartload did find itself fly-tipped.

Instead, it is the product of the melting glaciers of the last Ice Age, which stopped around Alexandra Palace and then whooshed as rivers through north London as the climate warmed, carving hills and valleys hidden beneath our urban sprawl today.

In the 1700s, Primrose Hill’s proximity to the growing fashionable stretches of the West End saw it become somewhere to spend a day.

Its summit offered views and to serve the thirsty walkers, the area’s first building not directly linked to farming was established – the Chalk Farm Tavern, on a site now occupied by the longstanding Greek restaurant, Lemonia.

The name did not have anything to do with chalk – instead, it is derived from an old English word for a “cold hut” or dwelling.

The tavern became renowned as the meeting place for numerous duels, a heavily wooded area behind the building were frequented by those who had scores to settle.

“Many of the quarrels [were] often in trivial points and fuelled by drinking,” writes Martin.

Martin Sheppard

“The reasons for challenges included being pushed off the pavement, the use of an insulting nickname, the failure to keep an appointment, a quarrel between two dogs and the disparagement of the Navy.

“While only a few of the disputes were fought over women, two piano journeymen fought a duel about tuning.”

But it was also a place of non-violent arguments – in 1794, the famous London Corresponding Society, a crucial vehicle for thought during the Enlightenment, saw up to 3,000 gather for a meeting that had been moved from Store Street due to magistrates threatening to bar it.

“Addressed by leading radical John Thelwall, it passed a series of resolutions,” adds Martin. They include a statement that said “political power was held in trust ‘for the benefit of the community; yet the rights themselves are reserved by the people and cannot be absolutely parted with by the people to those who are employed to conduct the business of the state”.

The tavern would gain a reputation for hosting sporting events, and one bill Martin has dug up reveals the tavern as hosting a show starring Monsieur Davitzer, the “Great Wizard” and a two-act “romantic ballet of action” based on Frankenstein.

It wasn’t universally popular. Lobbying by Chalcot Square residents asked magistrates to rescind the tavern’s licence. Soon after, its gardens were sold off for development.

And development did stalk the Hill before it garnered protection as a park in 1842.

“The hill attracted grandiose proposals,” says Martin. As well as the outsized Shakespeare monument: “Grand villas and giant statues, to a replica of the Parthenon, a pagoda and a pyramid taller than St Paul’s Cathedral” were suggested.

And what about primroses, which today are lacking from the slopes?

“The likely explanation for their disappearance is that they flourished in the hedgerows and ditches which had once divided the hill into fields,” he muses.

“When, in the 1840s, these hedges were cut down and the hill became a single piece of grassland, the primroses quickly disappeared without their damp and shady habitat.

“The large numbers of visitors and the Victorian passion for picking and pressing flowers cannot have helped.”

• Primrose Hill. By Martin Sheppard, Troubadour, £9.99