Hampstead

Hampstead is a village that happens to be in London. The streets bend to follow old contours, houses sit at angles to one another, and almost every view ends in trees. Victorian villas share the hill with interwar flats and a few careful modern interventions.

The Heath is the point of the place. Residents plan their days around it: a morning loop, a swim, a long Sunday walk that ends at a pub fire. Homes here tend to be judged by their gardens and by how far the rooms open towards them.