Talk:Swiss Cottage

What is Swiss Cottage?
An editor has rewritten the introduction as

Swiss Cottage is a landmark in North West London in the London Boroughs of Camden & Westminster.

Swiss Cottage is a often misdefined as a district of North West London in the London Borough of Camden. It takes it name from the eponymous Swiss Cottage, a building that had been both a tavern and a restaurant, and is in fact the vicinity of that landmark. The landmark sits on the crossroads of the districts of St. John's Wood, Hampstead, West Hampstead and Primrose Hill.

So Swiss Cottage is a landmark. OK so someone care to define what that landmark is?

The landmark takes it name from a building called the Swiss Cottage (which happens to now be a Swiss chalet/cottage - talk about fact imitating fiction).

But so far the intro has not defined what is the Swiss Cottage landmark. It is just vague. A landmark is defined as:

1. A prominent identifying feature of a landscape. 2. A fixed marker, such as a concrete block, that indicates a boundary line. 3. An event marking an important stage of development or a turning point in history. 4. A building or site with historical significance, especially one marked for preservation by a municipal or national government.

So far the intro's use of the word landmark is not clear from any of these definitions.

Swiss Cottage takes its name from a building. But what is the Swiss Cottage? A piece of ground, a road, the building itself?

As the section entitled Usage says (and is unreferenced): older residents mean a road junction that's all, it's non residents that associate the name Swiss Cottage with a district.

So at the moment I don't agree with the use of the word landmark. This needs more clarification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.92.231 (talk • contribs) 13:02, 21 February 2009

View & Thoughts
Though I agree with a lot of what is said above, the article is indeed a little unclear. The facts need to be separated from the fiction to make this a quality article.

1. 'Swiss Cottage is a often misdefined as a district of North West London in the London Borough of Camden.'

This is partially irrelevant and partially incorrect. Swiss Cottage is by no means an area, or district. The fact that people (wrongly) refer to it as an area, town, village or district is irrelevant. It is incorrect in that even if one were describing the vicinity of the landmark, parts of it would be in the Borough of Westminster and parts in Barnet. 'North-West' also holds some factual inaccuracy; Avenue Road, for example, is certainly in Central London not 'North-West'.

2 " 'The landmark takes it name from a building called the Swiss Cottage (which happens to now be a Swiss chalet/cottage - talk about fact imitating fiction).' So far the intro's use of the word landmark is not clear from any of these definitions. Swiss Cottage takes its name from a building. But what is the Swiss Cottage? A piece of ground, a road, the building itself?"

I do not see the above quoted text written in the article or the article's history??? The building has always been in the shape of a Swiss chalet so as such easily falls into category three - A building or site with historical significance. I don't see how that is questionable.

3. "As the section entitled Usage says (and is unreferenced): older residents mean a road junction that's all, it's non residents that associate the name Swiss Cottage with a district."

This again is not fact. I personally am a recent resident of the area (2 years) yet I would never refer to anything other than the tube station or the pub as Swiss Cottage. I do not 'live in Swiss Cottage' because I don't live in either a pub nor tube station. Similarly, if you say 'Swiss Cottage' to a cab driver, they would take you to the junction of the A41, B509, B511 and B525. I'm sure most Londoners would bat an eyelid if they heard, Fitzjohn's Avenue in Swiss Cottage instead of Fitzjohn's Avenue in Hampstead, Broadhurst Gardens in Swiss Cottage instead of Broadhust Gardens in West Hampstead, Queen's Grove in Swiss Cottage instead of Queen's Grove in St. John's Wood, or King Henry's Road in Swiss Cottage instead of King Henry's Road in Primrose Hill.

4. "So at the moment I don't agree with the use of the word landmark. This needs more clarification."

This is a relevant point, but I don't think of any importance until the basic concept of the article is factual. 86.145.159.149 (talk) 02:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * For whatever it's worth, I ran those "in Swiss Cottage" phrases through Google and came up with single-digit numbers of instances, where in each case one instance was this very article. So the point seems well-taken. Would the article be improved if it made the point that the name is an informal designation of a general area, not a formally recognized place name? If so, what about that map that purports to show "Swiss Cottage" as an area with a recognizable boundary? In short, this reader, for one, remains quite confused. Poihths (talk) 20:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Removal of references
removed references that didn't agree with their point of view. All areas of London are informal designations and we have sources cited that tell us this is considered a district. MRSC (talk) 09:46, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Personal knowledge re Swiss-style cottage & naming
The following personal knowledge was deleted from the article, but is moved here in case someone can pursue reliable sources to confirm any of it.

"There was also an old building which was a dairy and a farmhouse when the area was rural in the 19th Century. The dairy was designed like a Swiss cottage, rather than a chalet. The pub was only re-designed to resemble a Swiss chalet after this old dairy/farmhouse (later a restaurant, The Cottage Grill) was demolished in the mid-1960s. Before that the pub did not look anything like a Swiss chalet or cottage. It is therefore debatable what gave the pub and the area the name of Swiss Cottage. Possibly the dairy built like a Swiss cottage prompted the change of name of the pub and then the area became known by that name. (My father had the restaurant during the War and until the lease ran out in the 1960s. The origin of the building was told to my parents.)" Nurg (talk) 04:20, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

G. K. Chesterton thought it was due to the topography of the area. The inn called that may have been as well. A wind hits London:

“The flying blast struck London just where it scales the northern heights, terrace above terrace, as precipitous as Edinburgh. It was round about this place that some poet, probably drunk, looked up astonished at all those streets gone skywards, and (thinking vaguely of glaciers and roped mountaineers) gave it the name of ‘Swiss Cottage’, which it has never been able to shake off.” -Manalive (1912). 213.205.240.132 (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)