On Bank Holiday Monday the 4th of May 2026 Dan and I set off on the tube to Hampstead to do another walk from the Londons Hidden walks books.
From the underground station we turn left down Hampstead High Street and cross over to head up Oriel Place. The red-brick buildings on the left used to be owned by the Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust, a charity founded over 300 years ago to help the local poor. The Trust originated from a 1698 bequest of six acres of then undeveloped Hampstead land which contained a natural spring of chalybeate (or iron-enriched) water. The well was the basis of Hampstead's transformation during the 18th century from a sleepy village into a popular spa resort and evidence of this legacy can be seen at various places along the walk.
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| Flask Walk |
At the top of Oriel Place we cross over Heath Street to enter Church Row. Hampstead is the highest spot in London, and until the mid 17th century was a village of around 600 inhabitants that existed almost completely independently from overcrowded London down below. However, in the days when tuberculosis, smallpox and cholera were common in London, the attraction of Hampstead's healthy hill air attracted the wealthier classes and grand houses began to be built from the 1680s. The later growth of Hampstead as a spa resort from about 1700 also drew developers and by 1800 it had become a suburban town.
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| Church Row |
Hampstead is undeniably pretty and, although as expensive as Kensington or Mayfair it possesses a more individualistic character.
It is particularly known for its many innovative house designs which regularly feature in architectural textbooks.
Hampstead's proximity to almost 800 acres of heathland also marks it out as special, offering the nearest thing to open London. Church Row is a good place to properly start the walk as it countryside that exists within a suburb so close to the centre of is arguably the finest street in Hampstead, and certainly one of the best preserved Georgian streets in London. It was built in the early 1700s in the Dutch style made fashionable by William of Orange. Walking here on a Sunday morning when the church bells of St John are ringing feels like being in a quaint country town, with only the cars giving a clue as to what century you are in.
Hampstead is said to have more blue plaques than any other London suburb, and is known for the number of literary, artistic and intellectual figures that have long colonised it. Many lived in Church Row including poet Lord Alfred Douglas (or 'Bosie') (1870-1945) who lived at number 26 in 1913-14.
His relationship in the 1890s with the writer and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) led ultimately to Wilde's conviction and Imprisonment for gross indecency. Wilde died a broken man just a few years after being released, and was never fully reconciled with his younger lover. Douglas was a complicated man, who abandoned his preference for male lovers of the younger kind to marry soon after Wilde's death, later becoming a father. In later life he bitterly regretted ever having met Wilde, and spent much of his life pursuing feuds with others. One resulted in his imprisonment in 1924 after being convicted of criminal libel against Winston Churchill.
H. G. Wells (1866-1946), author of The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, lived at number 17 from 1909-1912. Another Hampstead resident and author, D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), was invited to Wells's home one evening only to complain bitterly about his host's insistence that he borrow a dinner jacket before sitting down to eat with the other guests. The comedian and satirist Peter Cook (1937-1995) also lived at number 17.
Halfway down Church Row is the parish church of St John-at-Hampstead. Dating from 1745 and consecrated two years later, it was preceded on this site by a number of earlier churches built from the late Saxon period onwards. In the medieval period much of Hampstead - a name derived from the Saxon word for 'homestead' and twenty six other monks from Westminster came to Hampstead in - was owned by the monks of Westminster Abbey. In 1349 the Abbott London, however they were all already infected with the plague and a desperate attempt to escape the Black Death that was devastating soon died.
The churchyard is fantastically atmospheric, full of dark corners and narrow paths and worth a good walk around. Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was almost certainly thinking of this churchyard when he wrote his famous novel Dracula (1897), part of which is set around Hampstead. In the book two of the main characters Dr Van Helsing and Dr Seward - eat a meal at Jack Straw's Castle (seen later records that 'About ten o'clock we started from the inn. It was then on in the walk) before setting off to examine Lucy's tomb. Dr Seward very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater... At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb'.
This creeped me out a bit, as we walked around the graveyard, a see a head of hair laying against a tomb. I wasn't sure if she was dead or a crackhead passed out, thankfully neither!
John Constable (1776-1837), the English Romantic painter, lived in Hampstead for many years and was buried here along with six of his children and his wife (there is a sign to the tomb). You can also see the tomb of John Harrison (1693-1776), inventor of the marine chronometer that for the first time allowed sailors to establish accurately their longitude whilst navigating the high seas.
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| John Constables Tomb |
Others buried here include Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, Jane Austen's aunt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's grandchildren, Evelyn Waugh's parents and several members of the du Maurier family. The latter include Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (1866-1910) and two of her five sons, Michael and Cam JM. Barrie (1860-1937) George and his brothers Peter met by chance in Kensington Gardens one day in 1897 , his subsequent friend the Llewellyn family inspired Barrie to write Peter Pan. After Sylvia died of cancer became guardian to the Llewelyn boys, but their lives were no fairy tale, Michael brother considered to the main inspiration for Peter Pan, drowned in mysterious circumstances aged only 21. George died fighting in WWI and Peter committed suicide at Sloane Square tube station in 1960.
Sadly we couldn't go inside the church as it was locked. Inside is a
memorial to another former Hampstead resident the poet John Keats
(1795-182) more of whom later.
We leave the church and continue down Church Row, said to be haunted by the ghost of a red-haired woman who worked as a maid in a house on the street and who killed a child, smuggling out the dismembered body inside a carpet bag. Some people claim to have seen the ghost, and others have reported strange presence most often described a sudden drop in temperature along this as a part of the road.
We head up Holly Walk. This takes us past the extension of St John's graveyard on the right-hand side, which dates from 1811. This is worth a wander around as the old gravestones surrounded by wild flowers make this one of the most picturesque graveyards in London. Many of the gravestones record the profession of the deceased and, unsurprisingly given this is Hampstead, it is not hard to find an actor, philosopher or painter among them.
Up the hill on the right is the unobtrusive Catholic church of St Mary dating from 1816 and originally used by French émigrés to London in an age when being openly Catholic was still frowned upon by the authorities.
Just past the church on the same side is a building which once served as the Hampstead watch house in the 1830s. The parish constables were based here and they formed Hampstead's first police force. Dame Judi Dench lived at number 4 Prospect Place on the right hand side between 1968 and 2001.
At the top of the hill you reach Mount Vernon and number 7 where writer Robert Louis Stevenson 1850- 94) stayed at various times in the 1870s. Best remembered for Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Kidnapped, he was one of many consumptives who came to Hampstead to try to restore health. He later moved to Samoa and aged just 44.
We bear right along Mount Vernon and it bends around to the left, and down the slope. On the left is the imposing site of the former Mount Vernon hospital, a vast infirmary block dating from 1896. The hospital was dedicated to the treatment 'Consumption and Diseases of the Chest but closed for its original purpose in the early 20th century. In recent years it has been converted into expensive flats housing a number of celebrities including Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm(Sporty Spice) of the Spice Girls.
We follow the map downhill to Holly Mount on the left. This contains the Holly Bush pub, one of Hampstead's most charming and old-fashioned public houses. The building dates from the 1640s when Holly Mount was built and it originally served as the stables and outbuildings of the grand house behind it later owned in the 1790s by the noted society painter George Romney (1734-1802). In the 18th century Dr Johnson and James Boswell both drank here and its nooks and crannies make for which a great atmosphere.
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| Mount Vernon |
Emma Bunton bought a £1.6 million penthouse in the Mount Vernon development in 1999. She became notorious in the area for staging late-night parties that prompted complaints from neighbours in 2003.
Mel C also resided in the same Mount Vernon complex.
At the top of the triangle of grass to the left are the magnificent iron gates of Fenton House. Named after the Baltic merchant who once owned it, the house is now run by the National Trust. One of the oldest houses in Hampstead, it contains fine collections of paintings, European and Oriental porcelain and early keyboard instruments.
One of the earliest owners of the house was Joshua Gee (1667-1730), who dealt in silk, iron and other commodities. He bought Fenton House in 1706, and was a founding partner with US President George Washington's father of a company that produced pig iron in the United States. The initials of Gee and his wife Anna can still be seen intertwined on the fine wrought iron gates. Fenton House is open on March weekends only and from Wednesday to Sunday from April to November.
We walk up Hampstead Grove by the side of Fenton House. The large house at number 28 was owned between 1874 and 1895 by writer and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier (1834-1896) and is currently occupied by a famous Hollywood director. George Du Maurier is today largely forgotten; however, he originated some terms that are now part of the English language. In his gothic horror book Trilby (1894) the behaviour of Svengali - a scheming musician and hypnotist resulted in the character's name entering the dictionary as a term for a person who exercises a sinister influence on another. The style of hat known as a 'trilby' also originated from a design used in the original London stage adaptation of his book of the same name.
Sadly no.28 was covered with scaffolding so not a great photo, sorry!
George's son was the prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier (1873-1934), and his daughter was Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, mother of the five boys mentioned earlier who inspired Barrie's Peter Pan. Sir Gerald was the first actor to portray the dual role of George Darling and Captain Hook in the original stage performance of Peter Pan in 1904, and the well-known cigarette brand 'Du Maurier' was named after him. His daughter, the novelist Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), is probably the best known member of the family. Movie versions of her books Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and The Birds were all directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Walking uphill we see a sign, which shows hands pointing towards Admiral's House and Grove Lodge. Following the sign we reach a white clapboard giant on the right, known as Admiral's House and built in around 1700. It was once owned by an eccentric naval lieutenant called Fountain North (d. 1811) who had the roof built to look like the deck of a ship and fired a cannon from the terraces on the King's birthday or after naval victories. The Mary Poppins books, written by another Hampstead resident P. L. Travers (1899-1996), feature an eccentric Admiral Boon who lives in a house shaped like a ship.
Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-18), architect of St Pancras station and the Albert memorial in Hyde Park, lived at Admiral House between 1856 and 1864. John Constable once lived nearby and in the 1820s painted Admiral's House three times. It is thought that tunnels were built under the garden connecting the house to the Heath, and legend has it they were used by the infamous 18th century highwayman Dick Turpin as an escape route when he was being hunted down by the authorities.
The neighbouring house, Grove Lodge, was home to John Galsworthy (1867-1933) who wrote much of The Forsyte Saga and its sequels whilst living here. Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932, but by this time he was so ill that he was unable to attend the awards ceremony and his medal was sent to him here.
Continuing up Hampstead Grove we pass a sign and building for Metropolitan Water.
We walk up to the the site of Hampstead Observatory, a weather station alongside it were opened The observatory and the by the Hampstead Scientific Society in 1910. The weather station has been checked daily since then and has produced the longest continuous record of meteorological readings of any similar station in Britain.
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| Hampstead Observatory |
We walk on over and down Judges Walk.
Constable lived at 2 Judges Walk with his family during the summer months of 1821 and 1822.
It was his favourite viewpoint in Hampstead. Judge's Walk is said to have been named after the lawyers who fled to this area from the City during the Great Plague of London in 1665.
Unable to find accommodation because of the other Londoners who were sheltering here, they were forced to conduct their business in makeshift tents and under the shelter of trees.
We continue up Hampstead Grove to reach Whitestone Pond, one of the highest spots in London at 134 metres above sea level and named after an old mile marker that can still be found in the bushes on the right-hand side.
This prominent position made it a natural choice as a site for an Armada Beacon, marked today by a large flagpole. In 1588 when the Spanish Armada was first sited off the Hampshire coast a series of beacons were lit across the country to warn the Navy; the signal took two days to make its way as far as Hampstead before moving onto the East coast.
Walking on along the left-hand side of the pond and past the clapboard Jack Straw's Castle, a former public house named after one of the leaders of the 14th-century Peasants' Revolt who, legend has it, stayed in the vicinity. It is now largely a modern rebuild that was recently converted into flats, but the Castle was once one of the most popular pubs in London and was frequented by Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray and Wilkie Collins.
Opposite is Heath House. This mansion dates from the early 18th Century and owned by Samuel Hoare Jr (1751-1825), a Quaker banker and philanthropist He entertained prominent men of his day here including the poet William Wordsworth and the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. His grandson John Guerney Hoare was prominent in a long and bitter fight by the residents of Hampstead in the 19th century to stop the Heath being built over by developers, a battle won in the 1870s when it finally became a public park.
We walk past Jack Straw's Castle and then head left down Heath Brow and past a car park before reaching the Heath.
We take the woodland path to the right and come upon the most hidden delight of Hampstead Heath, the Pergola and Hill Garden. On the right is a small path that leads to a gate: head through this to go up a spiral staircase that leads into the upper storey of the Pergola.
It was built by the industrialist and philanthropist Leverhulme (1851-1925) in the early 1900s. His fortune, much of it derived from the manufacture of soap, also paid for purchase of The Hill- the massive house you can see the right of the Pergola. now called Inverforth House after Baron Inverforth who bought it after Leverhulme's death, and it has since been converted into expensive apartments.
We walk along the Pergola. a decadent, rambling mass of a structure covered in plants and wisteria.
The history of the Pergola goes back to 1904 when Lord Leverhulme, a wealthy philanthropist and lover of landscape gardening, purchased a large town house on the Heath called “The Hill”. Over the following year Lord Leverhulme expanded his estate by acquiring the surrounding land, and with this new found space he decided to build a legacy; his Pergola. He wanted it to be the setting for extravagant Edwardian garden parties, while at the same time being a place where his family and friends could spend long summer evenings enjoying the spectacular gardens.
To turn this idea into reality Lord Leverhulme enlisted the help of Thomas Mawson, the world famous landscape architect, and construction on the Pergola began in 1905. One of the main difficulties in building the raised gardens of the Pergola was the amount of material that was needed, and luckily for Thomas Mawson the nearby Hampstead extension of the Northern Line provided just the solution! Instead of bringing in material from further afield (and the associated cost of doing so), a deal was struck to shuttle the spoil of the underground extension just a few hundred yards to “The Hill”.
Progress was quick, and the Pergola was finished a year later in 1906. Over subsequent years, Lord Leverhulme was able to expand his estate even further, allowing for a further extension to his Pergola in 1911 and again in 1925.
Unfortunately, after Lord Leverhulme’s death the Pergola went into a slow decline, and to this day is still a shell of its former opulence. However, what it lacks in sparkle and shine it more than makes up for in atmosphere. Today the Pergola and Hill gardens are distinctive, moody and eerie. The sense of faded grandeur is everywhere, and even with the recent restorations it hasn’t lost this unique character.
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| Inverforth House (The Hill) |
Owned by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme from 1904 to 1925, The Hill was bought by Andrew Weir, 1st Baron Inverforth after Leverhulme's death in 1925, and following was given to Manor House Hospital after Inverforth's death in 1956.
It became the women's section of Manor House Hospital, with about 100 beds and a Nurses' Home for 60-70 staff. Never part of the NHS, the Hospital was funded by the Industrial Orthopaedic Society, a trade union.
According to the developer, mistakenly, Inverforth House was home to the Orthopaedic Society Hospital from the 1950s to the 1980s, and was converted into two houses and seven apartments in the late 1990s.
Rebuilt in the British Queen Anne Revival style in 1895 by the architectural firm Grayson and Ould, it is a Grade II listed building. Built from red brick, Inverforth House has a steeply pitched roof. The architectural style of Inverforth House has been described as "Neo-Georgian" with "Queen Anne style wings".
In 2002 English Heritage commemorated Viscount Leverhulme and geneticist and statistician Ronald Fisher, who lived there as a child from 1896 to 1904, with blue plaques.
We leave the Pergola and gardens and take the path on the other side of the house that leads into Inverforth Close and re-joins North End Way.
We head left down this busy road for a few minutes till we see The Old Bull and Bush public house on the right hand side. This historic pub was immortalised in the song Down at the Old Bull and Bush sung by the Australian-born music hall star Florrie Forde (1875-1940).
We stop here for a beer!
The pub traces its history back to the mid 17th century when it was originally a farm.
It was frequented by artists such as William Hogarth who, according to legend, planted a tree in the pub garden that still stands today. It later became popular with Cockneys - hence the song - spending a day in Hampstead away from the smog of London.
We walk up North End beside the pub and onto a gravel track. Suddenly we are back into the countryside of the Heath.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula the Heath is where a number of the attacks by a sinister 'bloofer lady' take place on children. In the book the 'Westminster Gazette' reports 'several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves... all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat.
We walk on through the wood, and out onto Spaniards Road and straight ahead on the other side is an entrance to Kenwood House. However on this walk we cross over and head down Spaniards Road, shortly passing some buildings and immediately afterwards taking the left-hand path leading to the Heath.
The political philosopher and revolutionary Karl Marx (1818-83) used to
bring his family to the Heath most Sundays to escape their cramped and
grimy living quarters in Soho. There is even a photo of the Marx family
on the Heath taken in May 1864 with a 'mighty
roast veal' as the centrepiece of their picnic.
Our next destination is the Vale of Health.We soon come out out to a wide open area from where we head to the path on the far right hand corner which takes us down to the Vale of Health itself.
As you are leaving the main part of the Heath it is worth noting that it has long been place of refuge for Londoners. As mentioned earlier, the monks of Westminster fled here escape the Black Death, and many more came to Hampstead to camp out during the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire the following year.
A less well-known crisis that prompted Londoners to shelter in Hampstead, took place in 1524 when astrologers convinced much of the capital's population that a great flood was about submerge the city. Around 20,000 people abandoned their homes in panic and many came here to watch the predicted devastation. However, on the day predicted it did not even rain and astrologers excused themselves by 'discovering' their calculations had been one hundred years out.
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| Hollow Tree |
We walk down the path to reach the Vale of Health pond that is flanked Hampstead. The Vale covers by some of the nicest houses in around six acres and in the late 18th century was a notorious mosquito-infested marshland known as Hatchett's Bottom.
The Hampstead Water Company changed all that by draining the land in the 1770s, and by 1802 the area had become known by its current name adopted by the developers building new houses here to bolster its appeal to potential purchasers.
The Water Company was responsible for many of the ponds found to this day on the Heath, which were used to supply drinking water to Londoners. The ponds were filled by the 'lost' River Fleet which still has its source on the Heath and runs underground through London to exit into the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge.
We walk out onto the Vale of Health road.
Even today, the Vale remains isolated from the rest of Hampstead village, and artists and writers have been drawn to its secluded charms from the time it was first developed. Just past Byron Villas on the right-hand side is Vale Lodge, thought to have been the home of the romantic poet and political radical Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). He moved to the Vale in around 1815, and poets John Keats and Percy Shelley regularly stayed with him here.
We reach no.1 Byron Villas where D. H. Lawrence (another Hampstead consumptive) and his wife Frieda lived in 1915. During this time they would walk onto the Heath at night and watch the German Zeppelin bombers dropping their loads on London below. Lawrence was visited in Hampstead by other well-known figures such as Aldous Huxley, W. B. Yeats, and Bertrand Russell.
We continue past some beautifully-proportioned 19th-century houses which today tend to sell for at least £2 million. On your right you pass 3 Villas on the 1861-1941), the Bengali poet and first Asian Heath, home in 1912 to Rabindranath Tagore recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
At the top we cross over East Heath Road and down Squires Mount lined on the left by elegant early 18th-century cottages. At the end stop to look at the majestic Cannon Hall directly ahead, which was built in 1730. Originally used by the magistrates in Hampstead, between 1916 and 1934 it served as the home of Sir Gerald du Maurier and was where his daughter Daphne spent much of her childhood.
We bear left down Cannon Lane, where on the right about halfway down you can see the remains of the old-lock up. This was also built in around 1730, and was used by the magistrates in Cannon Hall to imprison offenders. It remained in use until the watch-house on Holly Walk was opened in the 1830s.
We turn left onto Well Road and up to The Logs at numbers 17-20 ,once home to singer Boy George.
Boy George long resided in a 5,400 sq ft, Grade II-listed Gothic-meets-Italianate villa known as "The Logs" in Hampstead, North London, which he spent decades renovating.
Located on Well Road/East Heath Road near Hampstead Heath, the mansion features five bedrooms, a meditation room in the tower, and interior designs by Kelly Hoppen.
Current Status: After owning the property for roughly 40 years, Boy George put the mansion on the market for £17 million in 2022 and later listed it for rent at approximately £15,000–£65,000 per month.
Recent Tenants: Reports indicate the luxurious home was rented by actress Nicole Kidman.
He often referred to this home as his "Gothic pile".
We retrace our steps back up Well Road and down a path to Well Walk.
Here is a Victorian drinking fountain straight ahead. Both roads are named after Hampstead's spring waters that first became popular in the mid-17th century. In 1698 the Hon Susanna Noel, mother and guardian of the infant Earl of Gainsborough, Lord of the Manor of Hampstead, donated six acres in this part of Hampstead for the benefit of the local poor.
The result was the Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust mentioned at the start of the walk. In around 1700 the Trust decided to advertise the medicinal virtues of the chalybeate waters that sprang up at the original well in the hope that sales of the water would increase the Trust's revenues.
The Trust was helped by the enthusiastic pronouncement by respected local physician Dr William Gibbons that the 'Hampstead waters were full as efficacious in all cases where ferruginous waters are advised as any chalybeate waters in England, unless Scarborough Spa, which is purgative'.
Whilst difficult for us to understand today, such endorsements were important in an age when most people had to make do with drinking water that had been taken from the polluted Thames or collected from rainwater Within a few years, commercially savvy operators such as John Duffield had leased the land from the trust and developed this part of Hampstead into a popular spa town - one of many such resorts in England.
The water was taken from the now-closed Head Spring in Well Road and then bottled and sold throughout London. A main distributor and bottler was the Lower Flask Tavern (now the Flask public house encountered later on). A Long Room and Pump Room were built (just opposite where the fountain is found today) for visitors, allowing them to take the water and socialise at the organised dances and dinners.
However, within a few years Hampstead became known as much for the drunken debauchery that took place in these new venues and the gambling houses that grew up alongside them as for the medicinal qualities of its waters. From the 1730s the trust decided to take action and began to take back control from the developers. From then until the end of the 18th century, when the national craze for spas had hugely declined Hampstead spa was a more upmarket affair and only those sufficiently respectable were allowed to take the waters. By the 19th century Hampstead was firmly established as a favourite location for London's middle classes, and the decline of the spa resort was not of any great consequence.
We head along Well Walk and at the corner of Christ Church Hill we pass the Wells Tavern, formerly the Green Man and once closely associated with the Hampstead Spa. We walk down Christchurch Hill and bear left as it continues into Willow Road.
At the junction with Willow Road look out for the low trough, one of around 800 set up in London by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association that was founded in 1859. Within a few years it was estimated that around 300,000 people were using the fountains during the summer, and that a single trough could supply the needs of 1,800 horses in a day.
We pass number 2 on the right-hand side. This house was designed by the architect Ernö Goldfinger (1902-1987) who also lived here with his family. Although it looks like it was built in the 1960s, it actually dates from 1939 and is one of the best examples of Modernist architecture in the country. The Hungarian-born Goldfinger, said to be the inspiration for lan Fleming's James Bond villain, is best known as the architect of The Trellick Tower in North Kensington. Number 2 is now owned by the National Trust.
We walk on and around the edge of the Heath and then up Keat's Grove. On the left-hand side is Keats House where the poet John Keats lived for 14 months between 1818 and 1820.
A year before Keats came to the house he had moved with his two brothers to another property just beside the Wells Tavern. Here he had tried to nurse his consumptive brother Tom, however his efforts after they arrived. John Keats was were in vain and Tom died shortly almost certainly fatally infected himself during this period of close proximity to his brother.
After Keats moved to Went-worth Place (now Keats House) he met Fanny Brawne. Despite now suffering from consumption, Keats became engaged to Fanny, and his creative energies blossomed. It was in this garden whilst sitting under a plum tree that he wrote An Ode to a Nightingale. As his illness worsened he left for the better climate of Italy where he died in 1821 aged only 25. The neighbouring houses were later turned into a museum, and a visit here inspired Thomas Hardy to write his own poem At a House in Hampstead (1920).
At the top of Keats Grove we turn right onto Downshire Hill in front of the striking church of St John that dates from the 1820s. Downshire Hill contains some of the finest houses in Hampstead, and notable residents including photographer Lee Miller (number 21 in the 1930s-40s) John Constable at no 25 in (1826-7), and Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets (number 50 in the 1980s).
We head back up Willow Road and keep left to reach Well Walk again. Literary figures associated with this street include J. B. Priestley (1894-1984), who lived at number 27 from 1929 to 1931 and wrote part of his classic novel The Good Companions here. John Constable lived at number 40 after moving here in 1827; however, a year later his wife died of tuberculosis leaving him to look after their seven children. D. H. Lawrence and his wife lived briefly at number 32 during 1917.
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| 25 Downshire Hill |
Sir Peter Medawar 1915 - 1987 Pioneer of Transplantation Immunology lived here
We cross over and head up New End Square to find the entrance to Burgh House on the right hand side. The house dates from 1703 and was built for a wealthy Quaker family, before being inhabited in 1720 by Dr William Gibbons, the physician mentioned earlier who did much to promote Hampstead's waters. Now an excellent small museum covering the history of Hampstead, café and an art gallery. In the 1930s it was home to Rudyard Kipling's , Elsie Bambridge. Kipling author of Kim, Gunga Din and The Jungle Book used to come here regularly to see her, including a last visit just a few days before his death in 1936.
Burgh House was constructed in 1704 during the reign of Queen Anne. At the time of construction the Hampstead Wells Spa was flourishing. In 1720 the Spa's physician, Dr. William Gibbons, moved to Burgh House, which he enlarged. He added the present wrought-iron gate which carries his initials.
One inhabitant of the house was Israel Lewis, who was an upholsterer. He was involved in a court case in which he was found guilty of creating a nuisance by "making an inclosed Dung stall" in his garden, and was fined £5 and made to remove it. Until the 1870s the house was known as Lewis House.
In 1858 Burgh House was taken over by the Royal East Middlesex Militia, and served as the headquarters and officers' mess until 1881. The house returned to domestic use in 1884.
We leave the house and walk up Flask Walk. On our right we see the Victorian Wells and Campden Bath and Wash Houses (1888), one of the initiatives by the Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust to help Hampstead's poorer inhabitants. Amazingly, the trust still survives today, with capital of 12 million and annual expenditure of around £500,000.
A classic British and London View Red phone boxes beneath a Horse Chestnut tree.
Above is the New End Primary School of Victorian Architecture. Once a hospital, before it became a school.
We continue up Flask Walk passing the Flask public house, one of the best pubs in North London and where you can often spot an old actor or local celebrity having a quiet pint. The bottles - or flasks used to distribute the local spa waters were filled here in the 18th century. The pub is said to be haunted by the ghost of a 19th-century landlord called Monty who likes to move tables and rattle windows. Ahead is Hampstead High Street and the end of the walk.
