Hampstead Heath Walk

On a slightly damp summer Saturday 24th August, 2024, three of us met at Stratford Station at the early (for some) time of 10am to catch the Overground to Hampstead Heath Station.

Although the basic walk idea was taken from ‘Hidden London Walks’, partly in light of the weather, I decided to skip some of the road sections which would have taken us past Keat’s House and Erno Golidfinger’s 1930s Modernist house amongst other sights. Instead we got straight onto the Heath at South Hill Park, heading towards the mixed bathing pond. Slightly surprisingly there were quite a few hardy souls swimming in the rain, but we didn’t join them. Instead we passed to the left of the ponds and followed the paths heading for Vale of Health Pond 2.

The Hill Garden, West HeathApparently in 1524 astrologers convinced much of London’s population that a flood was about to submerge the city and about 20,000 Londoners gathered on the heath in panic. However on the predicted day it didn’t even rain and the astrologers then ‘discovered’ that their calculations were out by 100 years. Monks and others apparently took refuge around the Vale of Health during the plagues of 1349 and 1665.

The view from Parliament HillFollowing a path just to the left of VH Pond 2 we headed for Whitestone Pond doing a minor detour to Hampstead Observatory. Just beyond the Pond is Jack Straw’s Castle – not named after the Labour MP, but a leader of the 14th C Peasants’ Revolt – it used to be a pub, frequented by Karl Marx, Dickens et al. Beyond the Castle we turned left towards West Heath, then shortly right to arrive at the Hill Garden and Pergola, a lovely oasis in the woods, which we wandered through. We then headed down to the Old Bull & Bush pub, immortalised in music hall song, and turning right alongside that headed towards the main Hampstead Heath. Seeing a sign for Kenwood House and knowing there was a café alongside we decided to head there rather than following the suggested route. This enabled us to have a warming cuppa and dry off a little, two of us also had a quick look around the house where there was a display of a modernist take on 17/18th C portraits. We preferred the originals.

By this stage the rain had actually stopped or at least taken a break, but having broken with the original route we took a bearing as straight as we could, given the winding paths, towards Hampstead Heath Station, but detouring up Parliament Hill for lunch with the view over London. On Parliament Hill road we passed one of George Orwell’s many London homes. At first sight from the plaque we thought he’d lived there 47 years 1903-1950, but on checking, the years given were his birth and death and he lived in that particular house just in 1935.

Just before arriving back at the station we did a quick detour in to what was sign posted as the ‘World Peace Garden’, a small urban wooded garden area backing onto the railway and adorned near the entrance with prayers and poems.

The walk was about 5 miles.

Richard.   25th August 2024