Kenwood & North Heath

If you only do one longer walk in Hampstead, do this one. It covers the quieter, wilder northern half of the Heath, takes in Kenwood House (one of the best small art collections in Britain, and free to enter), and ends in Highgate village — which means you can finish with a pint at the Flask or the Wrestlers and get a bus or the tube back rather than retracing your steps. Start at Hampstead Heath overground station on the southern edge of the Heath. Walk up past the Parliament Hill running track — used by training athletes on weekday evenings and often entirely empty in the morning. Keep to the eastern path that skirts the Highgate Ponds, a chain of seven linked bodies of water dug in the seventeenth century to supply London's drinking water. The Men's Pond and Ladies' Pond here are the older, more secluded siblings of the Mixed Pond on the lower slopes. Past the ponds, the landscape opens into the West Meadow — the wildest part of the Heath and the one where you are most likely to see Exmoor ponies grazing (reintroduced in a conservation programme), green woodpeckers, and, in high summer, meadow brown butterflies in the long grass. Stay on the main gravel path that climbs gently toward Kenwood. If it has been raining, the side paths turn to mud and you will regret anything less than boots. Kenwood House rises out of the trees at the top of the slope. This is an eighteenth-century country house, remodelled by Robert Adam in the 1760s and given to the nation by the first Earl of Iveagh in 1927. Free entry, open 10am to 5pm daily. The collection is small but remarkable: Rembrandt's late Self-Portrait with Two Circles, Vermeer's The Guitar Player, a Gainsborough, two Turners. The orangery and the library are the highlights of the interior. Allow forty minutes. From Kenwood, continue east along Hampstead Lane and turn south into Highgate's Millfield Lane — the so-called poets' lane where Keats walked regularly and Coleridge lived in his later years. This drops you onto Swain's Lane, and from there a short climb brings you to Highgate village proper. Stop at the Flask (dating to 1663, rebuilt 1767) for a drink in the courtyard. Highgate Cemetery is two minutes' walk if you want to add it — Karl Marx's grave is in the East Cemetery, open daily, around £4.50 for adults. To return, take bus 210 back to Hampstead, or walk the Highgate-Archway steps to catch the Northern Line at Archway. Best time: mornings in spring or early autumn. The light on the Kenwood meadow is exceptional in late September. Avoid summer weekends when Kenwood can have queues; the open-air concerts on the Kenwood lawn (June to August) close parts of the route.

Highlights

• Kenwood House & Rembrandt collection
• West Meadow wildflowers
• Highgate Ponds
• Spaniards Inn

Route Map

Route Waypoints

1. 1

   Hampstead Heath Station

   London Overground

2. 2

   West Meadow

   Open grassland, kite flying, wildflowers

3. 3

   Spaniards Inn

   Historic pub dating from 1585, optional stop

4. 4

   Kenwood House

   Free entry, Rembrandt & Vermeer paintings

5. 5

   Highgate Ponds

   Men's and mixed bathing ponds

6. 6

   Highgate Village

   End point — The Flask pub at top of village

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