Top 10 stories of 2012

After the epic review of the year, I thought it would be interesting to see what were actually the most read stories of 2012 on the website*.

  1. Fatal accident on West End Lane. This tragedy happened in November but still garnered far more attention than anything else in 2012. It was pleasing to see that so much of that interest was translated into a desire to support the families involved.
  2. Wiggins puts Kilburn roughly on the map. He’s been the man of the year, and has just been made Sir Bradley. This article, originally written after his Tour de France win, had several waves of interest following the Olympics and his Sports Personality awards.
  3. Sunday lunch in West Hampstead & Kilburn. The first installment of our roast dinner endurance event has proved a big hit. We also reviewed pubs on the periphery of West Hampstead in a separate entry, which is where you’ll find the results table!
  4. Goldhurst Terrace assault: man arrested. Another sad story that got plenty of coverage, partly because the capture of the alleged assailant played out in real-time over Twitter, so interest was high. Tragically, the victim eventually died of his injuries.
  5. All change by West End Green. It wouldn’t be West Hampstead without an article about retail! This was the piece that promised a butcher but sadly delivered nothing.
  6. A Tale of Two Lions. When The Lion reopened as The Black Lion confusion ensued what with there already being a Black Lion in NW6. This slice of local history attempted to unravel the nomenclature.
  7. Spot a celeb? Think before you tweet. This piece on Robert Webb caught people’s attention – there were plenty of comments with opinion divided over Webb’s decision to reply to the guy who originally tweeted him.
  8. Farmers’ market – it’s official. This was undoubtedly the major local good news stories of 2012, with follow-up articles also proving popular.
  9. Neighbourhood Development Forum moves forward. The only outright planning story to make the list, this report from March contains the minutes of the second meeting and the first discussion of what would prove to be the thorny issue of the southern boundary.
  10. Is this Virgin suicide? Another article to have several waves of interest, this piece reflects the enormous problems faced by many Virgin broadband customers in the area. Lots of people are amazed Virgin has kept these customers at all.

*where stories had multiple articles, such as the farmers market or the car accident, I’ve simply taken the article with the most views to represent the story.

Roast beef at The Gallery – one of the hits of our Sunday Lunch review