London Hampstead Tourist Map

Hampstead is a hilltop village in north London that the city swallowed without changing much. Georgian lanes and alleys climb from Hampstead High Street, and beyond them lies Hampstead Heath, 320 hectares of open grassland, ponds and woods with views across London. The village has been home to poets, painters and psychoanalysts, and several of their houses are open to visitors. Expect hills.

Start in the village. Flask Walk leads to Burgh House, a 1704 house with a free local museum. Church Row is one of London's finest Georgian streets and ends at St John-at-Hampstead, where John Constable is buried. Up the hill, Fenton House and Garden is a 17th-century merchant's house with early keyboard instruments, and The Holly Bush is a snug old pub on Holly Mount.

At the top, Whitestone Pond marks one of the highest points in London, and the Hill Garden and Pergola is a raised Edwardian walkway on the Heath's west side. Downhill are the writers and thinkers: Keats House, where he wrote 'Ode to a Nightingale'; the Freud Museum London, with the famous couch; Ernő Goldfinger's modernist 2 Willow Road; the 1934 Isokon Flats; and the free Camden Art Centre.

When to go: spring to autumn. 2 Willow Road and Fenton House are seasonal and closed in winter. Keats House, Burgh House and the Freud Museum close on Mondays and Tuesdays. In winter, the Hampstead Observatory by Whitestone Pond opens on clear Friday and Saturday nights from October to April. Stations: Hampstead and Belsize Park (Northern line), Hampstead Heath and Finchley Road & Frognal (Overground), Finchley Road (Jubilee and Metropolitan lines) for the Freud Museum.