North London - The Rough Guide to London - page 299

Hampstead Heath
W cityoflondon.gov.uk • ! Hampstead or Hampstead Heath and Gospel Oak Overground
Hampstead Heath , north London's “green lung”, is the city's most enjoyable public
park. Little of the original heathland survives, but the Heath nevertheless packs in a
wonderful variety of bucolic scenery, from the formal Hill Garden and rolling green
pastures of Parliament Hill to the dense woodland of West Heath and the landscaped
grounds of Kenwood . As it is, the Heath was lucky to survive the nineteenth century
intact, for it endured more than forty years of campaigning by the Lord of the Manor,
Thomas Maryon Wilson, who introduced no fewer than fifteen parliamentary bills in
an attempt to build over it. It wasn't until after Wilson's death in 1871 that 220 acres
of the Heath passed into public ownership. The Heath now covers over eight hundred
acres, and is run by the Corporation of London (see p.155).

Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill , the Heath's southernmost ridge, is perhaps better known as Kite Hill,
since this is north London's premier spot for kite flying , especially busy at weekends when
some serious equipment takes to the air. The parliamentary connection is much disputed
by historians, so take your pick: a Saxon parliament met here; Guy Fawkes' cronies
gathered here (in vain) to watch the Houses of Parliament burn; the Parliamentarians
placed cannon here during the Civil War to defend London against the Royalists; and the
Middlesex parliamentary elections took place here in the seventeenth century. Whatever
the reason for the name, the view over London is unrivalled.

20 Boudicca's Mound to Viaduct Pond

To the northwest of Parliament Hill is a fenced-off tumulus, known as Boudicca's
Mound , where, according to tradition, Queen Boudicca was buried after she and ten
thousand other Brits had been massacred at Battle Bridge; another legend says she's
buried under Platform 10 in King's Cross Station. Due west lies the picturesque
Viaduct Pond , named after its red-brick bridge, which is also known as Wilson's Folly.
It was built as part of Thomas Maryon Wilson's abortive plans to drive an access road
through the middle of the Heath to his projected estate of 28 villas.

Vale of Health
To the west of Viaduct Pond, an isolated network of streets nestles in the Vale of
Health , an area that was, in fact, a malarial swamp until the late eighteenth century.
Literary lion Leigh Hunt moved to this quiet backwater in 1816, after serving a
two-year prison sentence for calling the Prince Regent “a fat Adonis of fifty”, among
other things; Hunt was instrumental in persuading Keats to give up medicine for
poetry. Other artistic residents have included Nobel Prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore,
who lived here in 1912, and painter Stanley Spencer, who stayed here with the Carline
family and married their daughter Hilda in the 1920s. Author D.H. Lawrence spent a
brief, unhappy period here in 1915: in September of that year his novel The Rainbow
was banned for obscenity, and by December, Lawrence and his wife, Frieda von
Richthofen, whose German origins were causing the couple immense problems with
the authorities, had resolved to leave the country.

POND DIPPING
The Heath is the source of several of London's lost rivers - the Tyburn, the Westbourne
and the Fleet - and home to some 28 natural ponds, three of which are used as Bathing
Ponds , all of which are very popular in good weather: the single-sex men's and ladies'
ponds, on the Highgate side are open all year; mixed bathing on the Hampstead side in
the summer only (see p.439).