Town of Hampstead history

Keats (1795-1821) lived in Wentworth Place. (It is now called Keats House). Keats wrote the poem Ode to a Nightingale in the garden of the house.

In 1871 the Metropolitan Board of Works purchased Hampstead Heath and kept it as a public park.

Hampstead Garden Suburb was created after 1907.

In 1911, Côte St Luc Realties was set up in order to help consolidate all the land of the proposed site.

As major elements of the plan, the town has renovated an old bank building on Main Street as the new police station, supported the Hampstead Train Station Committee with the restoration of the 1912 train station, and supported the building of a bypass road to alleviate downtown traffic congestion.

On February 19, 1914, Bill 59 was passed, and the Town of Hampstead was officially incorporated.

The first building was built in 1916, and is the present site of Hampstead’s town hall.

The Town’s fire station was built in the 1920’s.

By-law 16, passed in 1923, created very strict building standards, consequently a building inspector was hired.

The Town also approved the construction of apartment blocks along the 52.8-acre stretch of land on Côte St Luc Road, annexed in 1925.

By February 1927, many of the restrictions in by-law 16 were eased in order to allow the Town to offer prospective residents many of the expected amenities.Allowing a previously built one-storey school to add a second and third storey.

The Queen Mary United Church was built in 1931 to serve their needs.

On February 4, 1935, the Town of Hampstead reached an agreement with the Montreal Tramways Company.

Located just west of the Golan Heights, on the northern Hula Valley, Kiryat Shemonah was founded in 1949, growing out of a sizable Maabara, from the Hebrew “Avor”, transit.

In the late 1960’s the Town Office moved to the basement of Hampstead Baptist Church on S. Carroll Street.