Hampstead’s Other Half

Hampstead’s fortune was built on fresh air and spring water. It was a healthy mix to attract the leisure seekers, artists and invalids who could afford it. But Hampstead’s washerwomen also valued the water for their loads of linen and enjoyed the smut-free breezes to dry it in. This walk focuses on that other half of Hampstead. It’s the one without the famous names and elegant houses, the one with the laundresses, the watercress pickers, the coachmen, the dairymaids, the nurses, the quarry men and eventually the workers from the city in their great weekend forays onto the Heath, coming to enjoy the fairs in their tens and hundreds of thousands. It’s a walk of the back alleys and heath pathways rather than the streets, more about those forgotten than those remembered. If you know Hampstead come on this walk and just maybe see it afresh; if you don’t, come on a real journey of discovery.