Lost on a lark in a larger-than-life paradise
LONDON -- Tim is my most level-headed friend. He successfully guided us to Hampstead Heath after multiple changes on the London train network. So, when Tim unfolded the map on the Parliament Hill Fields to get our bearings, I trusted his judgment.
''We're here," he said in his sure voice. We stood on Kite Hill, 320 feet in elevation. The vantage point gave us views south over the city, with the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance.
''We need to go through this grove and by Wood Pond. Then we follow this path," Tim traced our route with his finger, ''and we should arrive at Kenwood House. Simple."
The Central Park-sized Hampstead Heath, London's bucolic country-in-the-city escape, is not the world's largest urban open space. At only 791 acres (or 1 1/4 square miles), it's one-third the area of the city park I know best, Bois de Vincennes, near my old front door in Paris.
However, two factors make the Heath seem larger than life. One is the diversity of its landscape: trails that lead through grasslands, bogs, over hillocks, and past English oak trees 10 feet around. Second is its irregular shape. The borders aren't framed by right-angled Manhattan-like streets confining the space to a strict grid. It's an elaborate polygon, with myriad illogical footpaths.
This helps explain why we had become lost. We had misjudged the park's size, and it took us 45 minutes of fast walking to cross a good chunk of the Heath. Stumbling through a wooded area and following a fence, we popped out about half a mile from where we thought we'd be.
The Heath may be dark and overgrown in places, but we knew we were never too far from civilization. It's only four miles from Trafalgar Square. Happily lost, we eventually found Kenwood House, a 17th-century mansion perched on a hill of gardens popular with picnickers, and had a fine day.
More so even than Paris, London's sprawl calls out more urgently for real rural relief. Luckily, the Heath has answers: its forests and fields; its kestrels, owls, field voles, and breeding kingfishers; and its 28 ponds for model boating, fishing, and swimming (including gay/straight and clothed/nudist options).
The Heath wasn't always a rural paradise. That it even survived London's excessive growth was miraculous. During the 19th century, the peasant economy of grazing and wood collecting was over. Folks needed homes. Parts of the Heath were dammed for London's water supply and developed as estates and spas; other sections became pockmarked by sand pits ''ugly enough to deter the boldest survivor from approaching such a ghastly spot," according to one London newspaper of the day.
The Hampstead Heath Act of 1871 saved the lion's share of the land, and it eventually fell into the hands of the Corporation of London (except the majestic Kenwood Estate, which is managed by English Heritage). The pits and scars grew over with heath bedstraw, wood sage, and ryegrass, but place names recalling the past, like the Ladies Bathing Pond and the Duelling Ground, remained.
While at Keats House, we learned we have the Heath to thank for John Keats's poetry. The poet lived from 1818 to 1820 at the south edge of the park. Here, he penned many of his best-known works and fell for the girl next door, Fanny Brawne. But the love affair was cut short by ''consumption" (a.k.a. tuberculosis), the fashionable killer of the day. Keats died in 1821, at age 25.
Inside Keats House, we saw busts and portraits of the poet, his engagement ring to Fanny, and his death mask. Outside, a plum tree has been planted on the original site of the one that inspired ''Ode to a Nightingale."
Heading then into the real forest of silver birch, beech, and sweet chestnut, we walked for about an hour. We skirted Kenwood House, whose walls are hung with paintings, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer, and dipped back into the woods toward Viaduct Pond, whose brick bridge is the reminder of an ill-fated, 19th-century road project.
I was determined to make this an adventure. After hopping a fence to see Wood Pond up close, we bushwhacked to a little-used footpath, crossed a couple of roads, and arrived at Hill Garden, a classically inspired complex of columns and stairs toward the west end of the park.
The air was suffused with spring fragrances. Gnarled wisteria climbed the trellises of the pergola. Brown long-eared bats are said to nest here. We walked around a pool teeming with lilies, lotuses, and yellow irises.
''Nice," said Tim, always good with words.
Our hours of pastoral distraction were numbered, however: London and a dinner date beckoned. We needed to pick up the pace. We left the Heath -- without losing our way -- and headed back to Hampstead town.
For 150 years, Hampstead has been a desirable suburb within striking distance of London. The list of writers, artists, and musicians who have lived here is a veritable who's who (and sometimes who's that?) of 19th- and 20th-century culture: writers Agatha Christie, A.A. Milne, and George Orwell; poet William Blake; painter Piet Mondrian; and singers Boy George and Sid Vicious.
Today, the red-brick, Victorian-era buildings have gone upscale, chock-a-block with cafes, boutiques, the Gap, and Agnès B. I half expected to run into singer Bjork, actor Jeremy Irons, or chef Jamie Oliver, who live nearby, though I would have preferred to ramble among the beeches and sycamores with writers Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Keats. Alongside my trusty navigator Tim, of course.
Ethan Gilsdorf is a freelance writer in Somerville. 
