Hampstead

Hampstead, a parliamentary borough of Middlesex, is finely situated on a range of hills 4 miles NW. of London. It was formerly famous for its medicinal springs, and is still a favourite place of residence and of holiday resort among Londoners, who are attracted to it by the beauty of its situation and the purity of its air. On the summit of the hill (430 feet), above the village, is the Heath, which affords extensive and pleasant prospects of the surrounding country. A house on the Heath, formerly called the Upper Flask Inn, and now a private residence, was at one time the place of resort of the famous Kit-Cat Club, at which Steele, Addison, Richardson, Walpole, and others used to assemble. Hampstead is associated with many names in literature and art, as those of Pope, Gay, Johnson, Akenside, Joanna Baillie, Byron, Constable, Romney, Cole-ridge, Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and Landseer. The borough returns one member. Pop. 68,425. See Howitt's Northern Heights of London (1869), and works by Lobley (1889) and Baines (1890).