Hampstead Info

Hampstead is part of the London Borough of Camden and situated within Inner London. As well as being renowned for its intellectual and literary, artistic and musical associations this charming village-like suburb now has more millionaires residing within its peripheries than any other area in the country.

It is thought that Mesolithic forest hunters from around 7000BC were the earliest known settlers in the area after excavation of their campsites on the West Heath were undertaken by the Hendon and District Archaeology Society during 1976 and 1981. However, the recorded history of Hampstead began with Anglo-Saxon charters and grants with a document in the British Library recording the granting of Hampstead to the monastery of St. Peter's at Westminster by King Ethelred the Unready in 986AD. In the Domesday Book of Records of 1086, Hamestede, another word for homestead, was nothing more than a small farm valued at fifty shillings. However, with their extensive knowledge of farming, the monks were earning £2,800 per year by 1535 and Hamestede continued to be in their possession until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. Land was then sold off by the Crown to private buyers.

It was during the 18th century that Hampstead established itself as 'Hampstead Wells' a fashionable and popular spa village where people came to enjoy the medicinal benefits of its chalybeate springs. The water, impregnated with salts of iron and extremely rich in minerals, was thought to be a highly valuable source of health. The celebrated springs even gets a mention in Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers, when faithful man-servant Sam Weller speaks of them as being "very strong in flavour much like that of flat-irons." Sadly however, due to fierce competition from other places such as Tunbridge Wells and Epsom, the spa underwent a sharp decline in popularity. There are still a couple of sources available for public drinking, one of which is a tap over a trough in Well Walk, donated a number of years ago and recently restored.

Hampstead in the early 19th century was known as 'the Northern Heights of London' and was separated from the city by fields, woodland and streams. With its impressive views and clean, healthy air it provided an escape for wealthy lawyers, politicians and businessmen from the dirt and squalor of London. By the early 1800's, it had become a favourite weekend retreat for artists and literary men such as Constable, Gainsborough, Keats, Coleridge and English radical and essayist Leigh Hunt. Due to the massive expansion of the City of London, rich merchants began to build large country houses in the area, and in 1831 Hampstead contained an extremely high number of capitalists, bankers and professionals. Ten years later there was a huge influx of barristers, solicitors, merchants and stockbrokers, and by the end of the 1880s Hampstead was considered to be one of the largest and most prosperous of London's residential suburbs. Today, the village-like charm of Hampstead is still very much sought after for the sheer diversity of its leafy lanes and upmarket attributes.

The 792 acres of Hampstead Heath contains a wide and diverse range of habitat consisting of intermittent arrangements of fields, heathland, woodland and formal grounds. Purported to be London's highest open space, the Heath, a survivor of the once magnificent Middlesex Forest, runs from Hampstead to Highgate. Approximately eighty-five per cent of the Heath lies in the borough of Camden, with the rest, the Extension, an open space which lies to the north-west of the main heath, lying in Barnet. Large areas of the Heath are of ecological importance including a Site of Special Scientific Interest, so named by English Nature because of its outstanding geological and natural history significance.

Parliament Hill, considered to be the focal point of the Heath lies to the south. Situated on its southern slopes is the Gospel Oak Lido open air swimming pool, a Grade II listed Art Deco pool which was officially opened to the public on 20 August 1938. At a cost of £34,000 it was the most expensive pool to be built in London and through the 50's and 60's attracted more than 100,000 visitors a year. The Corporation of London, now called the City of London has been responsible for the Heath and its facilities since 1989 and has recently spent a cool £3million refurbishing the pool with a state-of-the-art filtration system and brand new, stainless steel lining, which has helped to raise the residual temperature of the unheated water.

Hampstead is approximately four miles north of the centre of London and easily reached from stations such as Tottenham Court Road, Euston, or Embankment by taking the Edgware branch of the Northern Line.