Track 20 · High ground · 1:48
The whole walk as one file · the route as GPX · the podcast feed
Stop nineteen. Parliament Hill. Ninety-eight metres, and the best free view in London.
Take it left to right. Canary Wharf on the far left, then the towers of the City in a clump, then the dome of Saint Paul's sitting low and pale in front of them, then the Shard, and on a good day the transmitter at Crystal Palace on the ridge beyond.
Now the thing almost nobody standing here knows. That view is protected by law. Saint Paul's as seen from this hill is a designated Protected Vista, which means that if a developer proposes a tower anywhere in the corridor between you and the cathedral, they must model it from this spot, and if it gets in the way it does not get built. The London skyline has been shaped, repeatedly, by a sightline from a bench on a hill in Camden.
The name is unsettled. The likeliest explanation is that Parliamentary troops were stationed up here during the Civil War, guarding the northern approach to London. The better story, which you will be told, is that the Gunpowder plotters came up here to watch Parliament explode. There is no evidence for it and it appears to have been invented in the nineteenth century, along with a good deal else on this hill.
It is also called Kite Hill, and on any windy Saturday you will see why.
Free, and the first hour after sunrise is the version to see.
Down the north-west slope, past the running track, and keep going down to the bottom corner of the Heath on Gordon House Road. Eight minutes. Stop seventeen is the long blue rectangle behind the fence.
51.55940, -0.15450 · where this is on a map