Hampstead Heath

Where it sits. Hampstead Heath covers 320 hectares of ancient heath, grassland and woodland on a sandy ridge running from Hampstead to Highgate, roughly six kilometres north of Charing Cross. The ridge is one of the highest points in London and sits on a band of London Clay, which is why the ground is boggy in places after rain despite the sandy top. Most of the heath lies in the London Borough of Camden; the Heath Extension and Golders Hill Park to the north-west are in Barnet. The City of London Corporation has managed it since 1989. It adjoins the Kenwood estate at its northern edge, and the two are usually walked as one. Hampstead, Belsize Park, Gospel Oak and Hampstead Heath overground stations all put you within a few minutes of an entrance.

The lie of the land. The heath is not a park in the tidy sense: there are no gates to lock, few railings, and paths that fork and rejoin without signage, which is precisely why Londoners defend it so fiercely. The south-eastern corner rises to Parliament Hill, whose view south over the city is protected by law — a legally defined sightline to St Paul's Cathedral that constrains what can be built in the intervening miles. On a clear day the Shard, the City cluster and Canary Wharf line up across the horizon, and on a windy Sunday the summit is crowded with kite flyers. Along the eastern perimeter runs a chain of ponds, originally reservoirs fed by the headwaters of the River Fleet. Three of them are open-air swimming pools: the men's pond, the ladies' pond and the mixed pond, all cold-water and open year-round, plus a lido on Gospel Oak side. The Highgate Ponds are a series of eight former reservoirs dug in the 17th and 18th centuries; two are wildlife reserves, one is a model boating pond. The heath is a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation, and part of Kenwood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

On screen. The heath has a long and specific screen record. Notting Hill (1999) filmed here, primarily around Kenwood House, for the sequence in which William watches Anna Scott shooting a period film — the lawn, the lake and the south front of Kenwood are all in shot. Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006), a British ensemble piece built entirely from conversations between couples, was shot on the heath from start to finish, using the open grass and benches as its only set. Joel Hopkins's Hampstead (2017) drew on the real case of Harry Hallowes, who lived in a makeshift camp on a corner of the heath and successfully claimed squatter's rights to the land. In 2007 the Extras Christmas special used a heath bench for its George Michael cameo, a joke that depended on the heath's long-standing reputation as a cruising ground.

On the page. The literary record is older and just as strong. Wilkie Collins opens The Woman in White on the heath, with Walter Hartright's midnight encounter on the road near Finchley. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the undead Lucy Westenra abducts children playing here — the "Bloofer Lady" of the newspaper reports. John le Carré made the heath the murder scene of General Vladimir in Smiley's People, the killing that sets Smiley on Karla's trail. Keats wrote at Wentworth Place on the southern edge, now Keats House and open to visitors, and Constable painted the sky over these slopes repeatedly from his home in Well Walk.

What you actually see today. Sixteen different sports are played on the heath, from the weekly Parliament Hill parkrun to cricket, tennis, athletics on the training track, and swimming in the ponds. There are ancient hedge banks and hornbeam coppice in the older woodland, a tumulus on the ridge traditionally and unreliably called Boudica's grave, and long views north from the Highgate side. Golders Hill Park at the north-west has a small free zoo, a walled flower garden and a butterfly house, and feels like a different, gentler property altogether. Kenwood House sits at the top of the estate with a free picture collection including Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Getting there and timing. For the classic route, come in at Gospel Oak or Hampstead Heath station, climb Parliament Hill first for the view, then work north past the ponds to Kenwood, and drop down into Hampstead village afterwards for the pubs — the Spaniards Inn on Spaniards Road dates from the 16th century and has its own place in the Gordon Riots. Allow two to three hours for that circuit. Mud is a genuine consideration: the clay holds water and the desire lines turn slick from November to March, so proper footwear matters more here than in central London parks. The main paths near the ponds and the lido are surfaced and manageable, but much of the heath is unsurfaced, steep in places and not suitable for wheels. Dawn in autumn, with mist sitting in the hollows below Parliament Hill, is when photographers come.