walk/tour
Whitestone Pond, NW3 1EA
what3words: fluid.flops.chart
Victorian London expanded as far north as Hampstead, beyond which lay the wilds of Middlesex. It was here that from 1907 the Hampstead Garden Suburb was built around what was to become the Heath Extension. Join Calum Orr, Architectural Adviser to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, on a walk from the hamlet of North End to the Suburb, as we try to understand the landscape at this decisive moment.
Golders Green, Hampstead
210, 268
Central Square, Hampstead Garden Suburb, NW11 7AH
The walk will be on pavements or across the Heath Extension. There are some steps and some rough paths.
Busy roads to cross. Parts of the Heath Extension can feel quite exposed. There may be opportunities for rest if needed on public benches.
The importance of Hampstead Garden Suburb in the history of 20th Century architecture and town planning cannot be overestimated. The brainchild of Henrietta Barnett, the Suburb was to be a model community with people of all classes living together in beautiful houses set in a verdant landscape. Laid out by Raymond Unwin, with Edwin Lutyens, the houses and flats represent the best of English domestic architecture of the early twentieth century.
Today, it is an environment of international significance. The eminent architectural historian, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, described it as "the most nearly perfect example of that English invention and speciality, the garden suburb".
