Our Quester Groups organise visits to interesting places.

Normally after the visit we socialise over a lunch or tea.

Members take it in turn to investigate and organise visits to places, often not always accessible to individuals. This is not very time consuming but keeps the groups active.

Highgate to Hampstead Walk in September 2024

A group of 13 members assembled at Waterloo & took the Northern Line to Highgate emerging on the Great North Road. The scene was set with information about the history of the London ‘villages’ of Highgate & Hampstead. It’s all linked to their geography! Set atop sandstone ridges with underlying clay creating a fresh water spring line, this area has clean air & clean water attracting affluent settlements & homes for writers, poets & artists since the Middle Ages. Blue Plaques abound – ‘spotter’s badges’ for some!

A stop in Highgate High St at Gail’s – a local bakery institution – provided coffee & delicious cake. Our walk continued past Pond Square & through Waterlow Park, a C19th provision of ‘a garden for the gardenless’. Thus we reached Highgate Cemetery - a highlight of our walk.

It is a Victorian extravaganza of graves, tombs & mausoleums – impressive & atmospheric. With the aid of a plan of notable graves, we explored together the older West Cemetery, the Egyptian Avenue & Circle of Lebanon catacombs. We then had time to ourselves for the East Cemetery.

Continuing downhill past the ’Tudor Cliffs’ mansions of 1920’s housing for single working ladies, we reached the Duke of St Albans pub for lunch, craft beer & a welcome sit down.

Suitably refreshed, we entered Hampstead Heath passing between the Men’s Bathing Pool & the Model Boat Pond. The ponds of Hampstead Heath were originally C16th reservoirs made by damming the spring-fed streams which drained into the Fleet River & eventually the Thames. Paul declared the waters to be 17deg but there were no takers for a swim!

A short, steep climb brought us to the top of Parliament Hill with a view southwards over London from Canary Wharf to Westminster. The clouds were gathering but the rain held off. Time for that group photo!!

Leaving the Heath past the Hampstead Mixed Bathing pool, we reached the streets of Hampstead. Making our way up towards the tube station, we passed some places of note:- 2 Willow Road, a National Trust 1930’s modernist building designed by Erno Goldfinger whose disgruntled neighbour, Ian Fleming, was not impressed & named his James Bond villain Goldfinger! :- the Chalybeate Well (meaning ‘iron-rich’) where the spring water was bottled & sold for its curative properties in C18 & C19th :- the Wells & Campden Bath & Wash Houses which only closed in the 1960’s & where Kate remembered visiting as a student!!

A little weary (we had covered 5.2 miles) & somewhat satiated with information, we took the high speed lift down to Hampstead tube platform, the deepest on the underground system, for the Northern line back to Waterloo.

I think I can safely say – here’s to the next time !!

Mary Pittam

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