The idea of squatters occupying empty houses in Hampstead seems, at first glance, to belong to a different universe from the one that exists today, where a modest terraced house in NW3 routinely changes hands for several million pounds and the neighbourhood’s reputation for wealth and exclusivity is so well established as to require no elaboration. But in the early 1970s, Hampstead was a place of sharper social contrasts, where substantial Victorian and Edwardian properties stood empty and decaying while families with children lived in overcrowded and insanitary conditions in the borough’s remaining pockets of social housing. The squatting movement that emerged during this period was a direct response to that contradiction, and its story illuminates a chapter in the neighbourhood’s history that the gleaming estate agents’ windows and designer boutiques of the present day have done much to obscure.
Squatting in 1970s London was not a marginal phenomenon. At its peak, an estimated thirty thousand people in the capital were living in squatted properties, occupying everything from council-owned houses earmarked for demolition to privately owned mansions left empty by absentee landlords. The movement was diverse in its composition and its motivations, encompassing families in genuine housing need, political activists who saw squatting as a form of direct action against an unjust property system, artists and musicians who used squatted buildings as studios and performance spaces, and countercultural communities who sought to create alternative ways of living outside the structures of conventional society. In Hampstead, all of these strands were present, and their interaction with the neighbourhood’s established residents produced a social drama of considerable complexity and lasting significance.
The Housing Crisis of the Early 1970s
The roots of the squatting movement lay in a housing crisis that had been building for decades. The destruction wrought by wartime bombing, the failure of post-war rebuilding programmes to keep pace with population growth, the decline of the private rented sector following the introduction of rent controls, and the inadequacy of local authority housing provision had combined to create a situation in which tens of thousands of Londoners were either homeless or living in conditions of severe overcrowding. The waiting lists for council housing in many boroughs stretched into years, and the private rental market, constrained by regulation and decimated by the conversion of rented properties into owner-occupied homes, could not meet the demand for affordable accommodation.
In the London Borough of Camden, which includes Hampstead, the housing situation in the early 1970s was particularly acute. The borough had inherited a legacy of Victorian and Edwardian housing stock that was in varying states of repair, and its council housing programme, though ambitious, could not keep pace with the needs of a population that included large numbers of low-income families, recent immigrants, and single people. The waiting list for council accommodation ran to several thousand names, and the average waiting time was measured in years rather than months.
At the same time, the borough contained a significant number of empty properties. Some were owned by the council itself, earmarked for demolition or renovation under schemes that were perpetually delayed by funding shortages and bureaucratic inertia. Others were privately owned, held by landlords who preferred to leave them empty — either because they were waiting for planning permission to redevelop, because the properties were subject to legal disputes, or because the economics of the rental market made it more profitable to hold vacant property as a speculative investment than to let it at the controlled rents that the law required.
The spectacle of empty houses in a borough where thousands of people were desperately seeking accommodation was politically explosive. It offended both the pragmatic instinct that said useful resources should not be wasted and the moral instinct that said shelter was a basic human right that should take precedence over property rights. The squatting movement drew its energy from both of these impulses, and its growth in the early 1970s reflected a widespread belief that the conventional mechanisms of housing provision had failed and that direct action was the only remaining option.
Occupied Buildings in NW3
The squatters who moved into empty properties in Hampstead during the early 1970s targeted buildings across the social spectrum, from modest terraced houses in the southern reaches of the neighbourhood to substantial detached villas on the slopes of the Heath. The choice of target was determined partly by opportunity — the presence of an empty building with an accessible point of entry — and partly by the political preferences of the squatters themselves. Some groups deliberately sought out high-profile properties in wealthy streets, calculating that the contrast between empty mansions and homeless families would generate maximum publicity and put maximum pressure on the authorities to act.
Properties on and around Hampstead’s main streets saw occupations during this period. Large Victorian houses that had been subdivided into bedsits and then left empty when their landlords withdrew from the rental market were particularly vulnerable to squatting, as were properties owned by developers who had obtained planning permission for demolition and rebuilding but had not yet commenced work. In some cases, squatters occupied buildings that had been empty for years and had deteriorated significantly, moving in with tools and building materials and undertaking repairs that the legal owners had neglected. In other cases, the squatted buildings were in reasonable condition, requiring little more than the restoration of services — water, gas, electricity — that had been disconnected when the previous tenants moved out.
The squatters themselves were a varied group. Some were families with children who had been unable to find affordable accommodation through conventional channels and who saw squatting as a last resort. These families typically sought to live as unobtrusively as possible, maintaining their squatted properties in good order, paying for services where they could, and avoiding confrontation with neighbours and authorities. Others were younger, more politically motivated individuals who saw squatting as a form of protest against the property system and who were more willing to engage in public confrontation. The relationship between these two groups was not always easy, and tensions between the pragmatists and the ideologues were a recurring feature of the squatting movement in Hampstead and elsewhere.
Several squatted buildings in the Hampstead area became significant centres of countercultural activity. Occupied houses served as venues for concerts, art exhibitions, political meetings, and community events. Some functioned as informal social centres, providing meals, advice, and companionship for people who were excluded from mainstream social institutions. The creativity and energy that the squatting movement brought to otherwise derelict buildings was one of its most striking features, and it challenged the assumption that empty properties were merely a problem to be solved by demolition and rebuilding. The squatters demonstrated that these buildings were resources — capable of housing people, fostering community, and supporting cultural activity — that were being wasted by a property system that prioritised profit over use.
The Local Council’s Response
Camden Council’s response to the squatting movement was complex and, at times, contradictory. The council was Labour-controlled throughout the 1970s, and many of its members were sympathetic to the squatters’ underlying grievance — the failure of the housing system to provide adequate accommodation for all who needed it. At the same time, the council was responsible for upholding the law of property, and the presence of squatters in both council-owned and privately owned buildings posed legal and political challenges that could not be ignored.
The council’s initial response was cautious. Rather than seeking immediate eviction, which would have generated negative publicity and required the use of bailiffs and police, the council in some cases entered into negotiations with squatters who had occupied council-owned properties. These negotiations sometimes resulted in the granting of temporary licences, which gave the occupants legal permission to remain in the buildings for a specified period, usually until the council was ready to begin renovation or demolition work. The licence arrangement was a pragmatic compromise that acknowledged the reality that the buildings were being used and maintained by the squatters while preserving the council’s ultimate right to dispose of its property as it saw fit.
The council’s tolerance was not unlimited, however, and there were cases where eviction proceedings were pursued with vigour, particularly where squatters had occupied properties that were needed for imminent council purposes or where the occupation was causing problems for neighbouring residents. The eviction process itself was often protracted and contentious. Under the law as it stood in the early 1970s, squatting in a residential property was not a criminal offence — it was a civil matter, requiring the property owner to obtain a court order for possession — and the legal proceedings could take weeks or months to complete. During this time, the squatters had the right to remain in the building, and many used the interval to organise publicity campaigns, negotiate with the authorities, and prepare for the eventual confrontation.
The council’s approach evolved over the course of the decade. As the initial sympathy of some councillors was tested by the practical difficulties of managing a large and growing squatting movement, the emphasis shifted from negotiation to enforcement. The licensing arrangements became less generous, the eviction proceedings became swifter, and the council invested more resources in securing empty properties against unauthorised entry. By the late 1970s, the balance had tipped decisively in favour of enforcement, and the squatting movement in Camden, as across London, began to decline.
Property Values versus Housing Need
The squatting movement in Hampstead brought into sharp focus a tension that had always been latent in the neighbourhood’s social structure: the tension between the interests of property owners, for whom Hampstead’s housing stock represented a financial asset of enormous and growing value, and the needs of those who simply required somewhere to live. This tension was not new — it had existed since at least the eighteenth century, when the enclosure of common land and the development of the manorial estate had begun to transform Hampstead from an agricultural village into a suburban resort — but the squatting movement gave it a dramatic, visible, and politically charged expression.
For the property owners and established residents of Hampstead, the presence of squatters was, at best, an inconvenience and, at worst, an existential threat to the social character of the neighbourhood. The fear that squatting would depress property values was widespread, and it was reinforced by media coverage that portrayed squatters as dirty, destructive, and dangerous. The reality was more nuanced — many squatters maintained their properties to a high standard and were better neighbours than the absent landlords they had replaced — but the perception of threat was powerful and politically significant.
For the squatters and their supporters, the argument was straightforward. Empty houses and homeless people existed simultaneously, and the moral imperative was clear: the houses should be used to shelter the people. The fact that the empty houses happened to be located in one of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods made the moral case even more compelling, since the contrast between the wealth of the property owners and the poverty of the homeless was so stark. The squatters’ position was strengthened by the support of sympathetic professionals — lawyers, social workers, housing advisers — who provided legal representation and practical assistance, and by the broader political climate of the early 1970s, which was receptive to arguments about social justice and the redistribution of resources.
The debate over squatting in Hampstead was thus a microcosm of a much larger argument about the nature of property rights and their relationship to social obligations. The squatters challenged the assumption that the right to own property was absolute and unconditional, arguing that property rights must be balanced against the right to shelter and that the community had a legitimate interest in ensuring that its housing stock was used productively. The property owners responded that the rule of law required the protection of property rights even when — perhaps especially when — those rights were exercised in ways that others found objectionable. Neither side was entirely right, and neither was entirely wrong, and the tension between their positions has never been fully resolved.
Legal Battles and Legislative Change
The legal framework within which the squatting movement operated was a product of historical accident rather than deliberate design, and its ambiguities created both opportunities and difficulties for all parties. Under English common law, squatting in a residential property was a civil wrong — a trespass — rather than a criminal offence. The property owner could seek a court order for possession, but until that order was obtained and enforced, the squatters had a legal right to remain. The police had no power to remove squatters from residential property unless violence had been used to gain entry or criminal damage had been caused, and even in those cases, enforcement was often reluctant and inconsistent.
This legal framework gave the squatting movement a degree of protection that would not have existed if squatting had been classified as a criminal offence. Squatters who entered an empty property without using force and without causing damage were, in strict legal terms, trespassers but not criminals, and their removal required the property owner to undertake civil proceedings that could be lengthy, expensive, and uncertain in outcome. The legal process gave the squatters time — time to establish themselves in the building, to organise their defence, to publicise their cause, and to negotiate with the authorities.
The property owners and their political allies campaigned vigorously for changes in the law that would make squatting a criminal offence and give the police the power to remove squatters without the need for civil proceedings. These campaigns bore fruit in the Criminal Law Act 1977, which introduced new criminal offences relating to the use of violence to enter property and the failure to leave property when required to do so by a displaced residential occupier. The act did not make squatting itself a criminal offence — that change would not come until the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 — but it significantly strengthened the position of property owners and reduced the protections available to squatters.
In Hampstead, the legal battles surrounding individual squats generated considerable local interest and occasional national publicity. Court hearings were sometimes attended by large numbers of supporters, and the judgments delivered in possession proceedings were scrutinised for their implications for the broader movement. The lawyers who represented squatters — often working pro bono or for nominal fees — developed expertise in the law of trespass and adverse possession that contributed to the evolution of housing law more broadly, and some of the cases that originated in Hampstead’s magistrates’ courts established precedents that are still cited in legal textbooks.
The Counterculture and Community
The squatting movement in Hampstead was part of a broader counterculture that flourished in London during the late 1960s and 1970s, and the occupied buildings of NW3 served as nodes in a network of alternative institutions and practices that challenged the conventional organisation of social life. Squatted houses were not merely places to live; they were experiments in communal living, spaces for artistic creation, and bases for political organising.
The communal life of the squats varied enormously. Some operated as relatively conventional shared houses, with individual bedrooms and communal kitchens, while others attempted more radical forms of collective living, with shared resources, collective decision-making, and the deliberate abolition of conventional boundaries between private and public space. The squats attracted artists, musicians, writers, and other creative workers who were drawn by the combination of free accommodation and an atmosphere of creative freedom that was difficult to find in the conventional housing market. Several figures who would later achieve prominence in the arts began their London careers in squatted buildings in and around Hampstead.
The political life of the squats was equally diverse. Some squatters were affiliated with established left-wing parties and saw squatting as a tactic in a broader political struggle. Others were anarchists who rejected all forms of organised politics and saw the squatting movement as an exercise in direct action and mutual aid. Still others were apolitical, motivated by nothing more than the practical need for accommodation and the inability to find it through conventional channels. The interaction between these different political tendencies produced a creative ferment that was sometimes productive and sometimes destructive, and the internal politics of the squatting movement were at least as complex and as contentious as the external battles with property owners and local authorities.
The squats also served as social welfare institutions, providing informal support for people who were excluded from or failed by the formal welfare system. Homeless people, drug users, people with mental health problems, and others who fell through the cracks of the social safety net found shelter and community in the squats, and the squatting movement pioneered forms of peer support and self-help that would later be adopted by the voluntary sector. The squats were not always safe or comfortable places, and the problems associated with them — drug use, antisocial behaviour, deteriorating buildings — were real. But for many of the most vulnerable people in London’s population, they provided a lifeline that the conventional welfare system could not match.
Legacy and the Tide of Gentrification
The squatting movement in Hampstead declined during the late 1970s and 1980s, squeezed by legislative change, more vigorous enforcement by property owners and local authorities, and the broader retreat of the counterculture in the face of the Thatcher government’s assertive defence of property rights and market values. The empty houses that had been the movement’s raw material were renovated, sold, and absorbed into the ever-rising property market. The squatters themselves dispersed — some into conventional housing, some into other forms of alternative living, some into the margins of society where the lack of affordable accommodation continued to be a daily reality.
The gentrification of Hampstead, which accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, made the kind of squatting that had occurred in the 1970s increasingly unimaginable. As property prices rose, the financial incentive for owners to leave buildings empty diminished, and the security measures deployed to protect vacant properties became more sophisticated. The streets that had once contained derelict houses available for occupation were transformed into continuous frontages of immaculately maintained, ferociously expensive homes. The social diversity that had made Hampstead a natural setting for the clash between property and need was progressively eroded, as the area became ever more socially homogeneous and economically exclusive.
The criminalisation of squatting in residential buildings by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 represented the final legislative response to the movement that had briefly challenged the sanctity of property rights in neighbourhoods like Hampstead. The act made it a criminal offence to squat in a residential building, punishable by up to six months in prison, and effectively ended the practice of residential squatting in England and Wales. The change was welcomed by property owners and criticised by housing campaigners, who argued that it would push vulnerable people further into homelessness without addressing the underlying causes of the housing crisis.
The legacy of the squatting movement in Hampstead is ambiguous and contested. For some, it was a justified response to an intolerable injustice — a necessary challenge to a property system that prioritised profit over human need. For others, it was an attack on the rule of law and the rights of property owners that could not be tolerated in a civilised society. Both views contain elements of truth, and the tension between them remains unresolved. The housing crisis that gave rise to the squatting movement has not disappeared; it has, in many respects, intensified. The empty houses have gone, but the need for affordable accommodation in London has never been greater, and the questions that the squatters raised about the relationship between property rights and social obligations remain as pertinent and as uncomfortable as they were when the first squatters broke into an empty Hampstead mansion and claimed it as their home.
Walking through the streets of NW3 today, past the pristine facades and the cars that cost more than a year’s average salary, it requires an act of historical imagination to picture the same buildings boarded up and derelict, their gardens overgrown, their rooms occupied by young families, artists, and political activists who had nowhere else to go. But that is what happened, and the story deserves to be remembered — not as a curiosity of social history, but as a reminder that the relationship between people and property is never fixed, never simple, and never as settled as the smooth surfaces of the present day suggest.
*Published in the Hampstead Renovations Heritage Collection — exploring the architecture, history, and stories of London’s most remarkable neighbourhoods.*