london 2011: hampstead heath

If you are ever in London on a Sunday morning at ten a.m., Bob and I both recommend that you take the Old Hampstead Village walk with London Walks. (We would like to plan an entire London vacation some time centered around the London Walks walks. They are fantastic.)

If you take this walk on Sunday, your guide will be David, who owns the company. Don't let the fact that he is American (from Wisconsin) deter you. He is brilliant, and has lived in London for a very long time. He went over from the U.S. as a lad to do a doctoral dissertation on Charles Dickens, and just stayed.

Here is the London Walks description of the Old Hampstead Village walk:

This is a great walk. They just don't come any better than this. Our setting is London's most picturesque neighbourhood – a perfectly preserved Georgian village crowning the top of a handsome hill and garnished with the capital's most elegant old world promenade, a medley of cobble-stone lanes, pretty cottages, surprising turnings, and unsurpassed views. As for our cast of characters...well it's every bit as beguiling as our setting, ranging from the highwayman Dick Turpin to the painter Constable to the poet Keats; from Freud and D.H. Lawrence to Sting and Boy George; from Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Dench and Emma Thompson to Rex Harrison, Peter O'Toole, Alan Bates, Liam Gallagher and Jeremy Irons. And for good measure, there's London's most villagey atmosphere, white swans on a lake, and magnificent Hampstead Heath. 

Bob and I also recommend that you hit The Holly Bush for lunch after the tour if you can squeeze in. We spent a really enjoyable couple of hours there.

A whole slew of very interesting creative types have lived in or do live in Hampstead. Seriously, take a look at the list of literary folks. Dude.

This is Jamie Oliver's old house, kitty-corner to The Holly Bush.

George Romney was a great English portrait painter, and a poster boy for selfishness. He moved out on his family, lived the life of the womanizing artist for years and years, and then showed up back home (after being gone for forty years) once he was old and sick and broke, expecting his wife to take care of him. And she did, for two years, until he died.

George DuMaurier is all over Hampstead. Everywhere you turn, there he lived. If you are not familiar with George, he was a cartoonist and author. He was also Sylvia Llewelyn Davie's dad and Daphne DuMaurier's grandfather. (Sylvia's five sons inspired J.M. Barrie to write Peter Pan, which you know if you saw Finding Neverland, and Daphne wrote Rebecca, which you know if you read Rebecca. Ha.) He was also a close friend of Henry James.

He lived in the house below, and so did Ridley Scott. But not in the same century.

If you look at the roof of this house below, you''ll probably recognize it. 

Here is a hint:

And then there is the Heath itself, which is large and lovely.

Here's the English flag. (Not the British.)

The Vale of Health is a bit of a misnomer. It would have been a swampy, mosquito-infested and decidedly unhealthy area when it was named. 

People get pretty animated talking about parking in Hampstead. It's a bit of an issue. 

The house below used to be a carriage house. You can see on the bottom where the old, huge doors have been replaced by new brick, two windows, and a front door.

Here's an art studio where Mark Gertler lived.

Here's the Everyman Cinema. It used to be a very influential little theater theatre.

If you take the walking tour, it winds up on a beautiful little Georgian street in front of St. John-at-Hampstead church. The churchyard is lovely.

John Constable is buried here.

And here's George DuMaurier again. Three of the Llewelyn Davies children and their parents are also buried here.

I don't think my photos catch the most interesting thing about walking around Hampstead, which is that it's on a hill, in London but high above London. It's really lovely. Walking around Hampstead on an overcast Sunday morning is a really pleasant way to spend a couple hours. If this is something you would enjoy, I hope you get to do it sometime. :)