London - North London Travel Guides | London | Sub Regions | London - North London

North of Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross, Camden is the hub around which north London spins. And a strange mixed-up place it is too, with its music, markets and self-aware media savvy, its dirt, hard drinking and organic juice bars. The Chalk Farm Road carries Camden High Street on northwest past the genteel slopes of Primrose Hill, a celebrity hideout overlooking Regent’s Park, towards the heights of Hampstead, a London high point. An affluent town astride the hills to the north, it competes in both elevation, social status and antique authenticity with the neighbouring hilltop village of Highgate. Although no longer the liberal, bohemian enclaves they once were, both remain strongly associated with their literary and cultural heritage. They are also deservedly famous for the 800 or so acres of rolling grassland, meadows and woodland of Hampstead Heath that divides them. To the east, sitting on a low hilltop northwest of the City, Islington likes to think of itself – with some justification – as the left-wing Notting Hill of north London. Its transformation over the last 20 years into the fashionable stamping ground of the liberal middle classes has not always been entirely happy, credited with nurturing the politics of the current Labour government.

Sights

Camden Market, daily 0900-1730; Electric Ballroom, 0900-1730 Sun; Camden Lock Market T 020-7284 2084, http://www.camdenlockmarket.com, daily 1000-1800 and indoor stalls Tue-Sat. Stables Market, off Chalk Farm Rd at the junction with Hartland Rd, T 020-7485 5511.

The markets are Camden Town’s main attraction, the city’s weekly street festival, and the reason most people come to Camden in the first place. The ‘market’ (although markets would be more accurate), has ballooned from lowly beginnings into a series of stalls occupying any vacant space on the High Street between Camden Town tube and Camden Lock every Saturday and Sunday. Camden Market and the Electric Ballroom (both on the High Street) and the High Street itself, with its outsize shop signs, are a pop kids’ Mecca, awash with cheap leather jackets, brashly sloganed T-shirts and hectic drinking holes. In recent years though, Camden Lock Market, on Camden Lock Place, off Chalk Farm Road, with its array of more interesting clothes, jewellery, books and handicrafts and Stables Market, with its furniture and bric-a-brac, have provided satisfying browsing. The Canal Market runs off Chalk Farm Road, just over the bridge from the High Street on the right, with a mish-mash of stalls inside and out. And if none of these tickles your fancy you can always plump for plain old fruit ’n’ veg at the market on Inverness Street.

M Chalk Farm.

A few minutes’ walk from Camden High Street, or best reached directly over the railway bridge from Chalk Farm tube, the pretty village here could hardly be more different from its raving eastern neighbour. The hill itself affords magnificent vistas over central London and Kent beyond. The London Eye in the distance makes a striking addition to one of the city’s greatest views, much marred in the 1960s by a series of thoughtless housing projects.

Freud Museum, 20 Maresfield Gardens, T 020-7435 2002. Wed-Sun 1200-1700. Adult £5, £2 concessions. M Hampstead or Highgate.

There’s a distinctive ‘villagey’ feel to Hampstead. Highgate is often seen as the poor relation, but its famous cemetery and village atmosphere make it a rewarding destination on the more attractive eastern side of the Heath. From Hampstead tube, Heath Street heads sharply uphill towards Hampstead Heath, an oasis of uncultivated land where it is easy to forget the urban mayhem as one wanders leafy avenues, open fields and shaded woods. Spectacular views of London can be found from the top of Parliament Hill, which is also a great place to fly kites. The Freud Museum at 20 Maresfield Gardens is the Arts and Crafts house where the great psychoanalyst spent the last years of his life. The house has been preserved for posterity, now including a reconstruction of his study and consulting room, complete with the famous couch, and a number of classical antiquities testifying to Freud’s passionate interest in the ancient world.

T 020-8340 1834. Eastern cemetery: 1000-1600 Mon-Fri, 1100-1600 Sat, Sun. Western cemetery: Oct-Feb Sat, Sun tours at 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, Mar-Oct weekdays also at 1400, tours cost £4. M Archway.

Highgate Cemetery is most famous for being the burial place of Karl Marx, in the more modern eastern part of the cemetery; on its western side is also one of London’s most extraordinary and atmospheric burial grounds. The western part is the most overgrown and now carefully protected by a society of friends who offer guided tours taking in the remarkable Egyptian catacombs, famous graves, monuments and an abundance of wild flowers. Both parts are sometimes closed to the public during funerals.

Nearby Café Mozart, 17 Swains Lane, T 020-8348 1384, do great cakes, although the staff could do with a spell in charm school.

Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 39 Canonbury Sq (entrance on Canonbury Rd), T 020-7704 9522, http://www.estorick collection.com. Wed-Sat 1100-1800, Sun 1200-1700. Adult £3.50, £2.50 concession. M Highbury and Islington or Angel.

Islington rewards visitors not with its sights but with a welcoming attitude, a wide array of ethnic restaurants, old pubs and fashionable bars, a thriving theatre and music scene, and two excellent small markets. The antique shops in Camden Passage have long been a major draw, while Chapel Market is a thriving street market and increasingly hot nightspot. Friday and Saturday night excitement on Upper Street can be just as mad, bad and dangerous to know as anywhere in the West End. East of Upper Street lies Canonbury, best appreciated by a visit to the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, not least for a good opportunity to take a look inside a fine Georgian house and enjoy some decent food from the café indoors or out. The intriguing permanent collection of Italian art here, featuring an especially strong selection of Futurist work, is often complemented by eye-catching contemporary exhibitions.

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