Hidden Hampstead gardens

I love the word hidden; it can mean two things. Really hidden. Or I’m just ignorant and haven’t managed to notice this before.

These two gardens fall into the latter category. I just haven’t been to this part of Hampstead until now.

The first one is the Hill Garden and Pergola up in the West Heath area of the enormous park.  Our friends Anne and Kevin showed us this wonderful gem near their house.

It was built in the 1920s in the Edwardian era; part of the gardens in front of Sir William Lever’s enormous home.  (Lever – sunlight soap fame – now called Inverforth House.)

They had told us of the pergola. But what image do you see when that word appears? Small, natty, holding up climbers.  This monstrous ‘pergola’ is hundreds of metres long. Apparently long enough for Sir William to light up a cigar when he left his house and only finish it when he walked to the very end of this stunning pergola structure.

I am going to enjoy visiting this garden in all the seasons. But it was fine in the middle of winter.

And just around the Heath from the pergola lies Golders Hill park gardens. Another garden that has put work into a winter display. Thank goodness for cornus we say.

I think this is cornus midwinter fire. I have half a dozen shrubs in my walnut bank garden.  But this is the way to do it. Another en masse marvel.

This garden must have been the grounds of what was a grand house. Sadly it was bombed in the war, but you can see from the enormous specimen trees in the sloping lawns that they invested heavily in their gardening.

And here is the givewawy that they were fashionable garden lovers.  What Victorian estate didn’t have this mad damp and gloomy folly, the stumpery?

This one looks lovingly restored. Huge stumps upturned and planted with ferns. It is an acquired taste; but I do admire a bit of English garden history when I go for a walk.