Highgate

Highgate lies between Haringey, Camden and Islington. It is one of London's more expensive and fashionable neighbourhoods. It has an active conservation society, and has much to conserve.

Highgate Hill is one of the highest points in London, and the view from the beautiful Holly Lodge Estate is stunning. There are associations with Charles Dickens: his father and mother took the family here to escape their creditors, and Charles modelled Mr Jingle in Pickwick Papers on one of its well-known residents.

The walk is a hilly one. It starts from Highgate Underground on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line in Zone 3. You can use the Journey Planner at the London Walks home page to work out a route using public transport.

The highlights are Hampstead Heath, a wonderfully quiet location where traffic is inaudible, the hills are more reminiscent of the countryside, and people fish for carp in the lakes. We pass through the quaint streets and houses of Georgian Highgate. Highgate School, founded in 1565 is on the route. We see houses where Dickens, J B Priestley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others lived. In Highgate Cemetery Karl Marx, George Eliot, Michael Faraday, Ralph Richardson and many others were buried.

The walk is full of history and wonderful sights and a view over London unrivalled anywhere in and around the capital. There are churches, lovely pubs where you can sit out and enjoy a snack and a beer, a pub-theatre, manicured estates, grand houses, lovely parks, and the site where Dick Whittington 'turned again' with his cat when the sound of Bow bells called him back to become Lord Major of London. Or may have - as the tale is a 14th century fiction.

The walk finishes at Archway, one stop down the Northern Line in zones 2 and 3. This is a fairly strenuous walk, highly enjoyable, fairly short, and one of London's best strolls. Don't miss it. You can get to Highgate easily in just a few minutes from Tottenham Court Road, Euston or King's Cross.