I had intended tonight to take you on a trip down Fitzroy Park, as promised some blogs ago. But when I went to put it together I realised that the videos I had taken were really not telling you a lot. So now that my phone has been to the doctor and is feeling a lot better, I decided to postpone your trip down Fitzroy Park till tomorrow to give me a chance to do a better job.
So not to leave you entirely bereft here is a rather lovely image of Hampstead Green down in Belsize Park at the beginning of spring. And if you want to know more about Hampstead Green, log in to the ever informative London Gardens Trust Inventory.
It is, they say, the remains of a once much larger area of manorial waste appearing on the John Rocque map in 1746. In the 1830s it was described as ‘a grassy playground for children with a fine double row of trees’. The railed triangular site is now planted with a wild flower meadow – the responsibility of St Stephen’s Church which you can see in the background. The church, which was built in 1869-75, was designed by Samuel Teulon and is now Grade 1 listed, especially for ‘its decorative brickwork interspersed with stone bands’. St Stephens has now been deconsecrated and is available for hire.
And back on the heath – on a more peaceful day than today!
(If you want to see the video you will need to click onto the blog as the email notification does not include the video.)
My daily blog now has an Instagram account! WalksonHampsteadHeath – the idea being to widen the circle of people who might enjoy a daily ramble across the heath. Please follow us and pass on the news!!
If you would like to get a notification of each new post, please ‘subscribe’ in the box on the right. It is very easy to ‘unsubscribe’ you if you get bored! You will get an email asking you to confirm your subscription but if it does not appear, check your junk box as the emails are often seen as spam.