Hampstead Heath and the View That Explains London

Eight Hundred Acres of Magnificent Unruliness

Hampstead Heath is not a park. Parks are tidy. Parks have symmetrical flower beds and signs telling you where to walk and maps at regular intervals confirming you are exactly where you think you are. Hampstead Heath is 800 acres of ancient woodland, rolling meadows, hidden ponds, and muddy paths that lead you confidently in what turns out to be a large circle. It is glorious, and it does not care whether you are ready for it.

I entered from the south, through the gate near South End Green, on a morning in early November when the beech trees were dropping their leaves in sheets of copper and the air tasted of cold earth and wood smoke. The path climbed immediately through a stretch of woodland so dense that the city - which was, I remind you, right there - vanished completely. Within five minutes, the only sounds were crows, a distant dog bark, and my own breathing.

The Heath is crisscrossed with paths, and most of them are unsigned, which is either charming or maddening depending on your relationship with uncertainty. I aimed for Parliament Hill, the highest point on the southern side, and arrived after about twenty minutes of walking through meadows where the grass was long and wet and populated by dogs of every conceivable breed, all of them ecstatic. The view from Parliament Hill is the one you have seen on postcards - the entire London skyline spread before you, from the Shard to the BT Tower to the dome of St. Paul's, all of it arranged as if for your personal inspection. On a clear day, which this was, you can trace the Thames as it curves through the city like a silver ribbon someone dropped.

From Parliament Hill, I walked north toward the Kenwood estate, through woods that felt increasingly wild and increasingly far from any city. The mixed bathing pond appeared on my left - a rectangle of dark water surrounded by concrete, where year-round swimmers were already cutting through the surface with the grim determination of people who have made peace with cold. The water temperature in November is roughly eight degrees Celsius. I watched from a respectful distance.

Kenwood House, the Robert Adam-designed mansion at the northern edge, is free to enter and contains a Vermeer, a Rembrandt, and a view across a landscaped lake that Capability Brown would have approved of. I sat on a bench and ate a sandwich and watched a heron fish the shallows with mechanical patience.

The Heath is best in autumn, when the colors peak and the crowds thin and the light comes in low through the trees at angles that make every photograph look like a painting. Wear boots - proper boots, not fashion boots - because the mud is serious and unforgiving. Bring no map. Get lost. That is the entire point.