Track 09 · High ground · 2:11
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Stop eight. Whitestone Pond, and the roof of London.
You are standing at a hundred and thirty-four metres above sea level, and there is a flagstaff by the water marking four hundred and forty feet. This is the highest point in London, and here is the honest version of that claim. It is the highest point in inner London, comfortably. It is not the highest point in Greater London, which is Westerham Heights, out on the Kent border in Bromley, and nearly twice as high. Nobody has ever put a flagstaff on that one, because nobody would come.
The pond is older than the road. It was the Horse Pond, fed by nothing but rain and dew, and the ramps were cut into it so that carters could drive horses in to drink and wash their hooves at the top of the climb out of London. The white stone that gives it its name is a milestone, still there at the edge, counting the miles back to Holborn.
Height had a use before it had a view. High ground like this carried the beacon chain, the line of fires lit across the country to raise the alarm, and Hampstead's beacon stood up here in the years when England was waiting for the Spanish Armada. The flagstaff is a polite descendant of a bonfire meant to tell London it was in trouble.
Later it went slightly to its head. Victorian Hampstead called this Hampstead-on-Sea, paddled in it, sailed model boats on it, and skated on it in hard winters.
Turn round slowly. On a clear day you can see Harrow on the Hill to the west and the whole eastern skyline of London below you, and you are still standing in a road junction.
Free, and there is a bus stop here for anyone who has already had enough.
West down North End Way, keeping the Heath on your left, for about eight minutes. Watch on the left for Inverforth Close, which is a private-looking turning that is not private. Follow it to the end and go up the steps.
51.56056, -0.17920 · where this is on a map