Hampstead Heath

Today I visited North London's 800-acre public park: Hampstead Heath. You leave the city and go into the suburbs, either on the Tube's Northern Line, or via the London Overground. The weather is cool and cloudy, so you walk briskly to keep warm. The Heath is a rather free-form affair, with mixed woodlands and rolling pastures. It's also full of happy dogs racing around. It's an offleash park, and this being London, the dog variety is really notable: spaniels, terriers, hounds, all kinds. Kenwood House is the manicured part of the park, [cue the Masterpiece Theater theme here] and you can visit the galleries for free. Lots of neoclassical paintings and furniture, including many portraits by Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds. Lots of flower- bearing nymphs and fair royal ladies in their lace-trimmed gowns and buckled satin shoes. Has a great restaurant as well, with a full-on assortment of fresh cakes sandwiched with clotted cream to go along ever so nicely with a pot of tea. All this art makes you hungry. The place was packed.

After Kenwood, I walked through the Vale of Health, which apparently was a malarial swamp until the C18th. Now it's a little island of toney row houses with names like "Rose Cottage." Many of the houses have plaques on them noting which famous author lived there, e.g., DH Lawrence. There are lots more of these plaques in the village of Hampstead Heath, which is a hilly warren of row houses intersected with steep stairways, hidden footpaths, and super-narrow cobblestone streets, with atmospheric names like "Bird in Hand Yard" and "Flask Walk." The area was a fashionable spa in the C18th, but the springs are long gone. But on Well Walk you can see the dried up Chalybeate Well. Someone graffitied over the dedication, but the stonework remains in place.