Hampstead: Your Full-Day Explorer's Itinerary

Welcome to Hampstead, home to more millionaires than any other part of the UK – but mercifully easy to spend a day exploring on a shoestring.

Orbiting the vast Hampstead Heath – one of the city’s biggest undisturbed patches of nature – is a labyrinth of winding backstreets paved with flagstones and lit by gas lamps. There are grand old houses and quirky museums; pubs warmed by roaring fires; and cosy coffee shops on every corner. As wintry days out in London go, it’s basically the platonic ideal.

You can easily spend the best part of a day ambling this historic quarter of London with its long-standing ties to liberalism, literature and architecture – especially if you have this neighbourhood itinerary to hand:

MORNING

Start the day with the brunch of kings (or millionaires, at least) on the fringes of Hampstead Heath. Silverberry’s a short walk from both Belsize Park and Hampstead Heath station, and serves the kind of breakfast that’ll power you across the full length of the heath. Come here for well-executed classics, from Eggs Benny to shakshuka, and fresh bakes lining the counter.

If you’re after something smaller – and a thousand times more indulgent – trace the edge of the heath along to The Nook. Under the shade of this monochrome striped awning you’ll find more baked goods, Origin coffee and marshmallow-topped hot chocolates to go. But even if it’s snowing outside, we’d recommend – nay, urge – you to wrap your hands around one of their outrageous milkshakes, crafted from vanilla ice cream and melted Belgian chocolate (at a cocoa percentage of your choice).

From here it’s a short stroll to – and a longer stroll across – Hampstead Heath. There’s almost 800 acres to explore here, perfect for rambling aimlessly through tree-lined avenues, around duck-filled ponds, across untamed wilderness and over steep hills whose city-wide summit panoramas make them well worth the chest pains to get up there.

More focussed walkers might want to structure their walk around some of the heath’s many points of interest. Down in the south you have the Parliament Hill Lido and the heath’s natural bathing ponds, all of which make for a bracing dip year-round. At the northern end you’ll stumble across Kenwood House, a grand Palladian mansion that’s free to walk around and admire its stately interiors. Off to the west of here, you can walk along the elevated Hampstead Pergola, an aristocratic folly built on top of rubble from the Northern Line and uniquely beautiful in every season. And heading north west from here you’ll find the Golders Hill Park Zoo, a modestly sized (but totally free-to-visit) enclosure housing ring-tailed lemurs, donkeys and wallabies.

AFTERNOON

At this point – assuming you’ve walked off your pancakes and are ready to refuel – it seems prudent to head into The Spaniards Inn for a roast (though a lunch here goes down well any day of the week). This rickety old tavern is propped up by wooden beams and pure legend: it’s where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, where Dick Turpin would put his feet up after a hard night’s highwayman-ing, and gets name-dropped in Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. Almost 450 years after opening, they still give a warm welcome to weary travellers, who can thaw out by the roaring fire with a platter of aged beef sirloin with all the trimmings.

From here, you can choose your own adventure: to the east lies Highgate Cemetery, one of London’s ‘magnificent seven’ of the Victorian age. That might not sound like an absolute romp, but it’s strangely beautiful, with Egyptian-inspired architecture overgrown with creepers. It’s also where the likes of George Eliot, Karl Marx and Jeremy Beadle are all hobnobbing in the afterlife, as well at least one reported vampire. Plus, you can fortify yourself afterwards with the oyster & wine happy hour at London Shell Co on the quaint Swain’s Lane.

If it’s too chilly for walking, head south west from the Heath instead to explore the picturesque backstreets of Hampstead village. Just round the corner from The Nook you can visit Keats House, where the romantic poet wrote his Ode To A Nightingale and met the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. And at number 2 Willow Road you’ll find a tiny block of modernist apartments that stick out like a sore thumb compared to the sedate Georgian villas facing the heath. Designed by Ernö Goldfinger (an architect so controversial Ian Fleming literally named a Bond villain after him), one is now open to the public for a snoop around, featuring virtually unchanged interiors and plenty of retro details for midcentury fans to fawn over.

Architecture buffs should also make a beeline for the Isokon building: Britain’s first block of modernist flats and now a Bauhaus icon. The ground floor is home to a free gallery that shares the history of the building and its colourful residents, from Agatha Christie to Soviet spies.

From the western fringe of the heath, you can go blue plaque-spotting along Hampstead’s elegant backstreets. On Streatley Place you’ll see the old chimney of a Victorian workhouse; down Well Walk you’ll pass an old bathhouse where locals used to take a dip in iron-rich spa waters (pop into The Wells Tavern if you’re feeling thirsty yourself). Follow the street all the way up to Flask Walk for one of Hampstead’s prettiest views – a flagstone-paved alley lined by a cosy pub, ice cream shops and cafés. This’ll lead you onto Heath Street, the main high street in Hampstead with dozens of independent boutiques and high-end shops to look round. Take the Holly Mount Steps for a clandestine route up to the famous Holly Bush pub for a pint by the fire (also another great option for a roast).

Other excellent pubs in the area – depending on where you choose to peel off the Heath – include The Flask, the Southampton Arms, and The Gipsy Queen, all of which promise a cosy seat by the fire. The Southampton Arms is particularly known for its changing line-up of craft beers, real ales and ciders, all made exclusively by independent UK breweries. The Gipsy Queen, meanwhile, has quiz nights and live music, and a reputation for bringing in excellent food residencies to bolster its craft-brew-skewed drinks list. For something less boozy, the garden café tucked behind the historic Burgh House is magical in winter, with a fairy-lit canopy to shield you from the elements and excellent tea & cake. There are regular exhibitions for local artists inside, too.

EVENING

Just off Heath Street you’ll find Church Row, a street that could double as a film set with its grand old houses and glossy railings. At the end you’ll see the church itself, St. John’s, whose atmospheric graveyard is home to the painter Constable, the comedian Peter Cook, and the Llewelyn Davies family, who inspired Peter Pan.

But this street is also home to another place with a religious following: 28 Church Row, an elegant-yet-relaxed neighbourhood gem serving food that’s a little bit Spanish, a little bit Italian, and entirely delicious. Housed in the cellar of a Georgian townhouse, there are plenty of cosy nooks to settle into – and, fittingly, a lengthy wine list to explore too.

For something less poised but brimming with its own unique charm, head to Jin Kichi. This Japanese izakaya is a bustling, dynamic little spot where chefs work non-stop to prepare top-grade sashimi; robata-grilled skewers; light-as-a-feather tempura and pudgy little gyoza. Yep, they serve pretty much everything, and they do it all extremely well.

To wrap up the night? Slink off to The Duke of Hamilton, a smart backstreet pub with a jazz club slung in the basement, or catch a flick at Hampstead’s Everyman Cinema. The first in the ever-growing family of boutique cinemas, it started life as a drill hall, became a theatre in the 1920s, and was made over as the world’s first ‘repertory’ cinema in 1933. Inside, it remains an atmospheric old space with lofty, vaulted ceilings in the main screen, alongside the Everyman’s signature mix of plush seating, generous legroom and finely-made cocktails delivered right to your seat.

Well, you wouldn’t expect anything less of Hampstead.

 

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Want to see all our recommendations in the neighbourhood? Check out our Hampstead area guide