Place Name
The Flask Tavern, now simply The Flask, has been a feature here since the early 18thCentury where it was the base of operations for a Hampstead mineral water business. Originally known as the Lower Flask to distinguish it from the Upper Flask, which was at the top of Hampstead Hill. Edward Walford writing in Hampstead: The town’, in Old and New London explains: “The ‘Flask’ is a very appropriate, and therefore a very common, sign to mark a house devoted to the service of topers [those fond of an alcoholic beverage].” He adds: “One of the chief sources of the Fleets was in Hampstead; it rose in a spring nearly under the walls of Gardnor House, at the east end of Flask Walk, and within a hundred yards westward of the old Wells.” The Flask is a Grade II listed public house.
