Belsize Walk

Walked through up through Regent's Park and went on the Belsize Way. There's a guide here.

To start with it was pleasant, but kind of boring, I wasn't suprised to learn that a lot of Belsize was developed as a rival to Kensington - it's got the same big, blandly impressive feel. If slightly untidier - full of academics and lawyers rather than Eurotrash and models.

So I was quite pleased to see a bit of tagging on a wall, made the place feel a bit more lived in.

I did like the look of England's Lane. You could easily imagine it being used allegorically by a N. London novelist. Has there yet been a novel called 'The Bins On England's Lane'

And being early January you see these corpses of Christmas all over the place.

It gets more interesting as you head towards Hampstead but you also realise that this is the place where the cultural elite was hatched. From Girl Guides to Montessori schools, Bloomsbury, communism, Air Studios, the BBC, Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, Goldfinger, they're all on this walk. And so you can see where the vision of Britain we're often being sold has come from. Little shops, leafy streets and everyone living within a dog's walk of Hampstead Heath - this is what we're supposed to aspire to.

I keep promising myself I'll go swimming here one day - or more excitingly winter swimming in The Serpentine.

So then I sat on Kite Hill and realised I could see the BT Tower in the distance, and since that's just about where we live I thought I'd try and navigate my way back - which was slightly perilous, becuase I don't really know North London. But there were a bunch of interesting things on, what I think was, Southampton Road.

Comments

[Carol]

Russell, not just models and Eurotrash in Kensington! You're thinking of Notting Hill, that's further on up the hill.

[funkypancake]

i love navigating round london based on big buildings in the distance.

i often walk from paddington to brick lane and i deliberately veer off occasionally to make myself get lost, then try and find my way back using the gherkin, natwest tower and BT Tower as vague reference points.

a bit hoorah for urban adventures.