Locals’ LONDON

NORTH

HAMPSTEAD WANDERINGS

By Dora Ball

One of my favourite things to do on the weekend is to set off from the very southwest end of Hampstead Heath (facing page) and ramble along a vaguely diagonal route north, until one of us remembers the way to the Spaniard’s Inn, right at the northwest tip. We‘ll almost always get lost on the way. The Spaniard‘s is one of those gloriously ancient London pubs, built as a tollgate in the 16th century and featuring in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. It’s also, apparently, where Keats wrote Ode to a Nightingale, presumably over a pint of lovely citrus IPA. www.thespaniardshampstead.co.uk

ALL CHANGE AT KING’S CROSS

By Amanda Canning

When I moved to London 25 years ago, the only time I’d go to was between midnight and 6am on a Sunday, in an attempt to ruin myself in clubs – Bagley’s or The Cross. Those venues are long gone – and is a good place to start – there’s normally something on at the weekend, maybe a food market, classic-car show or art installation, and the has a schedule of intriguing exhibitions. You’re not short on decent food and drink here either. The newly redeveloped has a Middle Eastern restaurant and a vermouth bar among its many wonders, though I would head back towards St Pancras station to the – I can never resist a schnitzel and this place serves one of London’s best.