'Alphabet St.'

Day 42

Hampstead - Hampstead Heath - Hanger Lane - Harlesden - Harringay Green Lanes

We're going decidedly upmarket with our first two stations of the day, and they're also within a stone's throw of each other, which makes a nice change.

On the other hand, I wouldn't actually throw any stones around this part of town if I were you, as the cost of replacing any damaged windows - most of which bedeck the fronts of properties which, if not actually listed, are definitely 'period' and in a protected Conservation Area - would be extortionate.

Hampstead Station sits on the crossroads formed by Holly Hill (to the north), Heath Street (to the east and west) and Hampstead High Street (to the south).



Hampstead



Hampstead High Street is actually the top end of Rosslyn Hill, which in turn becomes Haverstock Hill further south, so you would be correct in surmising that Hampstead is just as elevated geographically speaking, as it is in terms of average income, social status and property value.

From the station (I don't need to point out the familiar décor, do I?) I walk down the High Street and am pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere of the place. While clearly catering to an affluent clientele, the area around the High Street manages to retain a somewhat quaint, but surprisingly welcoming, 'village-y' feel to it.

This is especially true of some of the little back streets, full of quirky little shops and - on Flask Walk for example - the occasional historic pub.



Flask Walk - and The Flask pub



The Flask pub sits on (or near) the site of the old Hampstead 'Wells' (source of a highly regarded and much imbibed mineral water. There's also a Well Walk at the other end of Flask Walk, so I imagine the exact location of the spring was somewhere between the two. In its heyday the water was as prized as that from Epsom or Buxton or - and I hadn't been aware of this before now - that which came from, and gave its name to, Tunbridge Wells. The connection now seems obvious of course, but before today I had completely missed the significance of the word Wells in Tunbridge's name.



Hampstead High Street



Back on the High Street I pass several artisan bakeries, upmarket clothes shops, and a few more familiar names like Waterstones and Starbucks. I also notice something rather peculiar about one of the side streets running off the High Street.

At first glance Willoughby Road, and more specifically the sign that informs you of its name, seems to be a fairly typical example of the local area. The street signs around here tend to be of the 'mosaic' style - in other words they are spelled out 'Scrabble-style' with individual letter tiles which are stuck onto the walls of the houses at each end of the street.

Something about the sign for Willoughby Road, however, catches the corner of my eye and I take a second, and then a third glance, before I realise what it is. The sign actually reads "WILLQUGHBY RD" - it appears that the sign-fitters ran out of the letter O and decided that a Q was a close-enough substitute.

And it's not the only street to suffer this fate. Further north, Templewood Avenue has not only had its Os replaced with Qs, but they also seem to have run out of blank tiles, so instead of a 'space' they've put a 'comma'. It's true that - in an effort to disguise the Qs they've been put in upside down, but the whole effect is really rather odd:

"TEMPLEWΌΌD,AVENUE"

***

I turn off the main road and go in search of one of the many historic houses in Hampstead, and one which now houses the Hampstead Museum.



Burgh House



Sadly the house in question - Burgh House - is closed and doesn't open its doors to the public until 12pm.

I'm reminded of the last time I tried to visit a museum in this part of town - the Freud Museum over towards the Finchley Road. That too only opened at 12pm. Perhaps this is a reflection of their location in such an affluent area - the leisured classes can't possibly be expected to do anything as strenuous as visiting a museum before luncheon...

I head on to the next station - Hampstead Heath - which sits at the bottom of the Heath which gives it its name.

Hampstead Heath

Before venturing onto the heath itself, however, I take a brief stroll around the streets near the station. This is another little 'village' of bakeries, coffee shops and pubs, and has similarly grand looking architecture.

The Royal Free Hospital dominates the area, and was one of two hospitals set up by William Marsden to provide (in the bad old days before the NHS) free healthcare to the less well-off (the other was the Royal Marsden Hospital).

On another back street is the house once belonging to the poet Keats. This is now a museum and is therefore - when I visit it - closed to the public until 1pm.

Keats' House

The house, or rather its garden, was apparently where he wrote the poem 'Ode To A Nightingale' - a jolly little piece about death that begins:



"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,"

And goes downhill from there.

Keats wos 'ere

In any case, since the museums of Hampstead are determined to keep their doors closed to visitors, I decide to make my way to the huge area of open space called Hampstead Heath - at least they can't close that down!

The heath is vast. It's the largest area of ancient parkland in London - all 790 acres of it - and I therefore only visit a small portion of it today. I start by walking up East Heath Road to the intriguingly named 'Vale Of Health'.

My research tells me that this little road at the north end of the Heath is the site of a small hamlet originally called Gangmoor, and subsequently Hachett's or Hatch's Bottom after one of the resident cottagers. (I'm reasonably certain the word 'cottager' here is being used here in its literal sense of someone who lives in a cottage, rather than the more modern slang - though given Hampstead Heath's reputation one can never be entirely sure...)

The name Vale Of Health is actually an ironic one, since the area was very much an unpleasant boggy marsh originally. And even when people started living and working here, they did so in laundries, tanning pits, varnish factories and the like.

Vale Of Health Pond

The change of name was clearly intended to throw off such associations - and it seems to have worked as this is now one of the most expensive areas to live in Hampstead, which is saying a lot.



“This is the land of Narnia" said
the Faun, "where we are now;
all that lies between the lamp-
post and the great castle of Cair
Paravel on the eastern sea.”
C.S. Lewis



I wander along the nearest thing that could vaguely be considered a footpath, and come across the sort of lamp-post from behind which Mr Tumnus might have popped put to startle any visiting Pevensie children. I can imagine that on a snowy winter's day this place must give Narnia a real run for its money.

It's by the first of the Heath's many 'ponds' - although don't be deceived, any relationship to the two-foot diameter sunken plastic goldfish bowl jobs in most back gardens is entirely coincidental. These ponds are lakes - some for swimming, others for wildlife.

Further along I find myself on a wider path - it could even be a road - called Lime Avenue.

This cuts right across the Heath and is usually full of dog-walkers.

Lime Avenue



Hearts On The Heath

To one side of the avenue I spot some trees which have been cut down. On the exposed trunks someone has stencilled some red hearts. I take a photo as I find them interesting but I have no idea what they symbolise so if anyone can enlighten me, please do so.

Next I come to another pond - and this is one of Hampstead Heath's famous bathing ponds.

These were officially designated as bathing ponds in the late 1800s although I can't imagine they had been unused before then. There are three bathing ponds, two for single-sex and one for mixed bathing.

The one I stand next to now is the Mixed Bathing Pond, and I have to say, I'm not particularly tempted to go for a dip. I'm sure the water is lovely on a scorching hot day but right now I most definitely want to keep my clothes on.

Mixed Bathing Pond

I could of course spend hours wandering around the Heath, but that wouldn't get me very far down my list of stations, so instead I move on and make my way to the next stop on my list - and one fairly close to home for me - Hanger Lane.

***

The station sits on the island of the large multi-lane roundabout (or Gyratory System as the powers that be for some reason seem to want to call this one) that gives it its name.

Hanger Lane

The traffic is certainly the main feature around here, and you haven't really experienced the Gyratory System unless you've done it behind the wheel of a car trying desperately to negotiate the different lanes (anywhere between 4 and 8 of them) and various exits.

At its busiest it can see up to 10,000 vehicles an hour and I try to take a picture that shows the manic chaos that is pretty much the norm on the roundabout, but no still image will really do it justice.

Pick a lane, any lane...

Instead let me point you to the entry on the H2G2 website, which I think sums it up rather nicely.

I use the various pedestrian subways to get me onto the island itself, where in addition the tube station there is supposed to be a nature reserve of all things.

Nature very much in Reserve

This seems to consist of a couple of grass verges with a few trees and a smattering of daffodils - hardly the Hanging Gardens of Babylon...

A View From The Bridge
Tube tracks and motorway in perfect harmony.

The station is, as I mentioned earlier, reasonably close to home for me, and it's tempting to call it a day here and just head home.

However, it's early enough in the day that I should be able to manage at least one more and possibly even two more stations, so I set off once again, on the rather convoluted route to Harlesden.

***

Harlesden is on the Bakerloo and the Overground lines and is in the North West of London pretty much due north of Hanger Lane.

To get there from Hanger Lane however requires a journey into town on the Central Line, changing at White City to walk to the Circle Line station at Wood Lane, where you get a train to Paddington, change onto the Bakerloo Line, and finally end up at Harlesden.

Harlesden

And when you get there you wonder why you bothered.

The station itself is actually nowhere near the centre of Harlesden and is in fact on Acton Lane - a fairly nondescript road which joins the industrial area of Park Royal with the slightly less industrial area of Harlesden.

The road does cross the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, but that's really in Park Royal rather than Harlesden, and to get to Harlesden town centre would take a good half hour on foot.

So after a disappointingly brief visit, I move on to my final destination today - also on the Overground Line.

***

Harringay Green Lanes

Harringay Green Lanes - for such is the name of the station - is on the road called Green Lanes, in the area of London known as Harringay.

Or is it?

Could it instead - as the bus stop next to the station would have it - be the station of Haringey Green Lanes, in the London Borough of Haringey?

I can understand - at a push - the fact that a chap called Haering (a saxon chief) had a 'Hege' - or 'enclosure' - in this area called Haeringes-Hege, and that over time this was corrupted into both Haringey (the London Borough) and Harringay (the district within the London borough) as well as - less obviously perhaps - another district called Hornsey.

I can also - just about, though it's stretching my understanding to its very limits - forgive the successive town councils who, having once decided that Harringay and Haringey were two separate entities, refused to make life easy for everyone once and for all by just spelling them the same way.





That's what town councils are for, after all.

Haringey Green Lanes

What baffles the bejeesus out of me is how anyone with any sense whatsoever can allow a station called Harringay Green Lanes to have a sign saying Harringay Green Lanes outside it, while a few feet away a bus stop is telling everyone they're at a station called Haringey Green Lanes!

Or maybe - like Hampstead - they just ran out of the right letters...

Under the railway bridge (which tells us that an unspecified 'it' is coming) is the site of the former Harringay Arena - now a retail park.

Yes, but what's coming exactly..?

Here I find the usual selection of shops and restaurants, but little else to interest me. I stop for a coffee in the Costa Coffee and wait for whatever it is that's supposed to be 'coming' - but it seems not to be due any time soon.

Maybe it got lost in all the confusion over place names.