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7
The physical features and general character of the Borough were
set out at some length in my Annual Report for the year 1914.
Briefly, it may be stated that Hampstead's position on a hill raises it
considerably above other parts of London. Tho height of the ground
at the foot of the Flag-Staff at the summit of the Heath is 438 feet,
while the lowest parts of the Borough are at Chalk Farm and Kilburn
Priory, the former 100 and the latter 101 feet above sea level.
Hampstead Hill is formed by a huge elevation in the bed of the
deposit known as London clay, which forms the whole of the mass up to
about 360 feet above sea level. This great cone of earth supports an
extensive cap of sand in places 80 feet thick, known as Bagshot sands.
Down below the London clay occurs deposits of gravel and sand
known as the Woolwich and Reading beds and Thanet sands, and
below all again the chalk. Few people realise that Hampstead Heath
is really a sandy waste, and that it is to the presence of its sandy cap
that Hampstead is indebted for the Heath itself. This sandy cap is
what is known as an "outlier" of a vast sheet of sand that extends
over a large portion of Surrey, Hants, and Berkshire. The Bagshot
sands are, for the most part, unfruitful from an agricultural point of
view, and Hampstead Heath has remained a Heath probably because its
fertility was insufficient to make it worth while enclosing.
The atmosphere is dry and bracing, and the prevailing winds
south-west and mild.
The Borough is one of the healthiest and most popular for
private residence of all the London Boroughs and adjoining districts.
MARRIAGES.
According to the return kindly furnished to me by the Superintendent
Registrar of Hampstead, it appears that 777 marriages were
registered in the Borough during 1919, as compared with 745 in the
preceding year.