“Hampstead Heath! Glory of London! Where Keats walked and Jarman fucked, where Orwell exercised his weakened lungs and Constable never failed to find something holy,” Zadie Smith wrote in On Beauty. She is right, of course. Spend any time on the Heath and you’ll feel that glory, quickly forgetting you’re only four miles away from central London.
There are the well-known draws: the view from Parliament Hill (one of the highest points in London, from which the panorama of the city looks like a movie); the pond-swimming; the endless, verdant green. But there is much holiness to find if you look closer. Within the 790 acres of rambling grasslands, meadows, streams and woods is a kingdom of wildlife marching to its own beat as millions of visitors pass through each year.
The holes and crevices of the Heath’s 400 ‘veteran trees’ are home to 650 species of beetle and 800 types of fungi, providing hide-outs and nesting spots for 180 species of bird. There are moles, hedgehogs and muntjac deer; six species of reptile, snake and amphibian; 25 species of butterfly, and more still. All in the middle of a city.
“It’s a hugely biodiverse site,” says conservationist Rory Dimond, Project Activity Leader for Heath Hands, the organisation that helps to conserve all the unique green space with groups of volunteers. “With 9.3 million visitors every year, the Heath has almost the same footfall as the New Forest. We do a lot of work in trying to introduce people to how much wildlife there is out here; the things you might not normally notice.”
Dimond talks about bringing a group of people into the Heath grasslands recently. He gave them sweep nets to drag through the tall grass, to see what tiny creatures were living there. “They were astounded by how many little insects and spiders were in the nets,” he says. “People always get excited when you tell them there are hedgehogs on the Heath, or recoil when you mention the grass snakes, but it’s amazing to see how people react to the smaller stuff.”
Nature is strongly associated with awe; a hot emotion in psychological research. You don’t need big views or edificies to feel it. Awe can be found in the small wonders of your environment and, if felt regularly, seems to reduce the rumination associated with depression, increase emotions like compassion and gratitude and make us less impatient.
Not everyone will be flooded with dopamine if they see a buzzard flying over Parliament Hill, or in spotting a water vole scurrying down the banks of a stream, and the joys of nature are often incidental. But looking with intent isn’t just something nice to do – it is a gift to your psyche. In this respect, the Heath is a gift that keeps on giving.
I have lived by the Heath for three years and, as a lifelong nature anorak, every day brings new discoveries: the beady eyes of a mole breaching its mound; bats swooping through the gloaming; the Malibu sunscreen smell of gorse flowers in late spring; the aqua-blue flash of a kingfisher’s belly. If you have ever walked with me, you may have pinched the bridge of your nose while I’ve eulogised a plaque of lichen or the mulchy leaf smell in the woods (that Chris Packham once described as “nature’s fruitcake”).
I’m not proud of this, but sometimes I see people walking with headphones in, staring straight ahead, and want to tap them on the shoulder to say: you’re missing out! Obviously, people should use natural spaces in whatever way they see fit, but to not be curious about what’s living in this uncanny place strikes me as such a shame.
Gleaming white on the northern boundary of the Heath is the former stately home, Kenwood House. On the west side, meadow grass grows untouched throughout the summer and shimmers with life as butterflies, bees and other invertebrates hurry to complete their short lifespans.
Around 30 percent of the 112 acres of surrounding woodland has SSSI status (Site of Special Scientific Interest) – largely for the standing deadwood that houses many species, including the rare jewel beetle; a creature I’ve harboured a secret fancy for since childhood. I tell Dimond that I have longed to see a flash of its brilliant, metallic green. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he says. “But look out for stag beetles, there’s a healthy supply of those.”
I joined Dr Olivia Hicks, an ecologist who lives by the Heath, for a walk through Kenwood. Her speciality is ornithology – the study of birds – but she is curious about everything with a pulse. She seemed to share my enthusiasm for finding a jewel beetle. Within minutes of us entering the grounds, all shimmery with ferns, I hear her saying, “Ooh, scat.” Pardon? “Scat. Poo. Probably from a bird. There’s lots of insect shells in it, but no rodent skeletons, so it’s not a bird of prey.” A microscopic frog hops into our path, perhaps from the nearby sphagnum bog – a rare habitat for London. Its tiny body is covered in mud, which makes my eyes fill up. “You’d be a terrible ecologist,” says Hicks.
We stop at a log that looks like a Barbara Hepworth sculpture to listen to some incessant bird chatter. Something sounds like it’s laughing. “That’s a Green Woodpecker,” she says. What do you think it’s saying? “Piss off, this is my tree.” Sounds right. Hicks’ eyes are clearly so finely-tuned to noticing, because without me realising she has found feathers from a spotted woodpecker and some empty tawny owl eggs.
As we move on, we spot a tree with some bark gnawed off at the base. “That might be from the muntjacs, because they like stripping trees. But you’ll never see them during the day,” says Hicks. I am struck by all this ephemera of animal life. Even in the not-seeing of what lives in the thickets, I feel awe.
Neither Hicks nor I spot a beetle of any kind, despite some gentle rummaging, but I say that intently plugging into my surroundings and looking for them feels like the most meditative thing I’ve done in a while. She nods, but takes issue with the term “plugging in” because it sounds “too computer-like and final, because the mindful aspect comes from sifting through the landscape and being open to discovery.”
As the cityline comes into view from our high vantage point, this rings true. Intentionally looking up, in and around the rich landscape of the Heath opens drawers of the mind that often stay closed down there.
Eleanor Morgan is a freelance journalist.
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