West Hampstead

The first time I clapped eyes on West Hampstead, I was smitten. Love at first sight. Within minutes of clopping down the leafy streets in my tired heels (job interview that day), I had decided that I didn't care what the room looked like, I wanted to live in West Hampstead.

After finding a 'Bombay Bicycle' on the main street (the name of my hometown) and realising the name of the street I would be potentially living on was the same as my best friend's home in New Zealand, I decided these 'signs' were gently nudging me along.

We've been deliriously happy ever since.

Located in North West London , serviced by one underground and two overground links, West Hampstead lies more modestly adjacent to the commonly known area of Hampstead. The high street, West End Lane, conjoins with the famous Abbey Road (of Beatles fame) and is dotted with a variety of eateries, boutiques and coffee shops. The town's sole library was erected in 1940 and at the very top of West End Lane is West End Green, West Hampstead's own patch of grass, aside from neighbouring Kilburn Grange and Hampstead Heath parks.

Dusty Springfield was born here, The Rolling Stones recorded here, and Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy and various Peep Show stars still live here. The earliest streets were paved in the 1800s, consequently meaning the roads are notoriously tiny with vehicles having to pull to one side to let each other through. Dotting the streets are rows of beautiful Victorian homes. During the winter the trees that line the small streets become bare and glisten with snow, when Spring arrives so do the flowers and the area has a pleasant jasmine scent that lingers well into the night.

West Hampstead's history dates back to medieval times. During the reign of Henry VIII the area measured 18 acres and 40 houses large. One of it's earliest mentions, in 1665, notes, rather bizaarely, that nobody there died of the Great Plague that was sweeping London and killing hundreds in neighboring villages.

"It was so peaceful that the striking of Big Ben could be heard and, indeed, the owners of West End Hall were sure that in 1815 they had heard the sounds of the cannon at Waterloo,"(The Streets of West Hampstead, 1992).

Christopher Wade sums up rather nostalgically, "You can find sunflowers in Sumatra Road, ferns in Mazenod, dragons in Inglewood and Woodchurch. As for the street names, they range romantically from Gascony to Parsifal, from Agamemnon to Narcissus and, suprisingly, from Skardu to Weech."