The Village & Literary Walk

Hampstead has more blue plaques per square mile than almost anywhere else in London, and this short loop threads through the densest concentration of them. I would give yourself ninety minutes rather than forty-five if you want to actually read the plaques and look into the houses properly. Start at Hampstead tube station and cross Heath Street to Flask Walk, one of the prettiest cobbled lanes in north London. The Flask pub on your left dates to the early 1700s and takes its name from the flasks once filled at the Hampstead Wells spring — this area was a minor spa town before the railways put it back on London's map. Continue along Flask Walk until it opens into Well Walk. At number 40, the painter John Constable spent the last years of his life (1827 to 1837) and painted several of his late Heath skies from the upstairs window. Turn right into Christchurch Hill, then left onto Downshire Hill — easily one of the best-preserved Regency streets in London, with almost every house built between 1810 and 1830. Look for St John's Chapel on the corner, a rare surviving example of a Regency proprietary chapel. At 47 Downshire Hill, the painter Mark Gertler lived in the 1920s; his parties drew Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, and Dora Carrington. Cut through to Keats Grove. The Keats House at number 10 is where the poet lived from 1818 to 1820 and wrote Ode to a Nightingale in the garden — reportedly after hearing a nightingale in the plum tree outside. The house is open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm; entry is around £8. Even if you don't go in, the garden is visible from the railings and worth the stop. Continue back up to Hampstead High Street via Pilgrim's Lane, then turn left onto Church Row — the most photographed Georgian terrace in the area, built around 1720 and once called the finest street in Hampstead by John Betjeman. St John-at-Hampstead churchyard at the end contains the graves of Constable, the painter Eric Kennington, and more recent residents including Kay Kendall and Hugh Gaitskell. The final stretch climbs Holly Walk to Mount Vernon and drops onto Hampstead Grove, passing Fenton House (a seventeenth-century merchant's house, now National Trust, with an important early keyboard collection). From there it is a short descent down Admiral's Walk — named after the nineteenth-century retired admiral who had quarterdeck railings installed on the roof of his house — and you are back at Whitestone Pond. Best time: mid-morning on a weekday, when the houses catch the eastern light. In summer, start before 10am to avoid the crowds drifting up from the tube. Many of the plaques are easier to photograph on overcast days; less glare on the ceramic.

Highlights

• Church Row Georgian architecture
• Flask Walk
• Keats House
• Constable blue plaque

Route Map

Route Waypoints

1. 1

   Hampstead Station

   Northern line, deepest station in London

2. 2

   Heath Street

   Village high street, independent shops

3. 3

   Flask Walk

   Charming pedestrianised lane, antiques & cafes

4. 4

   Church Row

   Finest Georgian street in North London

5. 5

   St John's Churchyard

   Constable and Keats buried here

6. 6

   Well Walk

   Old spa walk, Constable lived at No.40

7. 7

   Keats House

   Where Keats wrote Ode to a Nightingale

8. 8

   Hampstead Station

   Return

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