Camden
Camden – Camden is notorious for its lively markets, which surge with thousands of shoppers – most of the pierced – each weekend.
Tube: Mornington Crescent
Head up Camden High Street and turn left on Delancey Street. Café Delancey has good gourmet salads and a pleasant atmosphere. Detour down onto Albert Street to the Jewish Museum, home of a wide collection of Jewish ceremonial art. Return to Delancey, continue past a house (number 54) where Dylan Thomas once lived (he called it his “London House of Horrors”), turn right and stay right on Oval Road, then turn right again onto Gloucester Crescent and Inverness Street.
The Good Mixer was a choice hangout for Britpop stars like Blur and Elastica in the 1990s and retains its cool aura. A left turn leads into the noisy melee of Camden High Street; the area was a slum before the canal arrived in 1816. On the opposite side of the street the Camden Market is packed with vintage clothes. At the bridge over Camden Lock, a right turn leads to Camden Canal market, where you’ll find more bootleg CDs and Doc Martens. Past the bridge, detour off Camden High Street into Camden Lock and the warren of stalls selling arts, crafts and unclassifiable doodads. Notable stores include the closet-sized Village Games, full of wooden puzzles and Cyberdog, a maze filled with outlandish club wear and pumping techno music.
Continue through the stall to the Stable Market, a former horse hospital now full of antiques and designer furniture. Exit onto Chalk Farm Road, turn left, and follow it out of the crowds to Chalk Farm tube station.
Primrose Hill – Wander out over the peak of one of London’s beautiful lookout points and continue to the world’s most famous zebra crossing.
Tube: Chalk Farm
From the tube, a left on to Adelaide and right onto Regent’s Park Road will lead you across the railway bridge covered with graffiti and into the post properties of Primrose Hill. Just off Regent’s Park Road, the Pembroke Castle will do nicely for a quiet pint. The Trojka Team Room has good borscht and the Greek food of Lemonia is a local passion. Various patisseries, wine bars and cafes also line the street. As an anticapitalist counterpoint, look for number 122 where Friedrich Engels lives from 1849 to 1895. Turn left on Fitzroy Road, where William Butler Yeats lives.
Backtrack to Primrose Hill and take one of the many paths leading to the summit to ejoy the view. Continue walking away from Regent’s Park Road down the other side Primrose Hill and exit on to Elsworthy Terrace. A left on Elsworthy Road leads to Queen’s Grove. Cross busy Finchley Road and continue on Marlborough Place. Take a left on Abbey Road, stopping to read the inventive graffiti outside Abbey Road Studios before taking a nostalgic walk across the famous zebra crossing featured on the front of the Beatles Abbey Road Album. A left on Grove End Road will lead to the St. John’s Wood tube, where the Abbey Road Café, located at the station itself, naturally hawks Beatles-related paraphernalia.
Camden Canals – In what other city could you see lovely canals, an aviary, and the sight of burrowing warthogs on a single walk?
Tube: Camden
Out of the station, follow Kentish Town Road past the Devonshire arms, London’s favourite goth hangout. If you’re interested in popping in, wear leather pants and black eyeliner to blend in. Cross Regent’s Canal Bridge and immediately descend the stairway to your left. This will take you down to Regent’s Canal, which opened in 1820 and was built to link the Grand Junction canal at Paddington with the River Thames at Limehouse.
Kentish Town Road Lock is followed by Hawley Lack. The canal-side path leads up into Camden Market’s West Yard, where water bus trips depart Saturday and Sunday throughout the day. Continue along the canal walking under the bridges, until the giant peaked nets of the Snowdon Aviary appear. Constructed from 1962 to 1964 by, among others, Queen Margarets’ ex-husband, Tony Armstrong-Jones, the aviary made pioneering use of aluminium in its infrastructure. Less architecturally impressive is an enclosure across the canal for the warthogs of London Zoo. Pas under Primrose Hill Bridge, then follow the path up and over it. Enter Regent’s Park at Monkey Gate. Stay left on the perimeter of the zoo until you reach the fountain erected by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. Turn right and follow the Broad Walk to exit the park. Park Square will lead to Regent’s Park tube station.
Regent’s Canal and Park – From Little Venice walk along a tranquil waterway and into Regent’s Park, once Henry VIII’s hunting ground.
Tube: Warwick Avenue
From the station, follow the signs for Little Venice. Step down onto the Canal towpath by the moored narrow boats and barges, one of which is the Puppet Theatre Barge. Going left, the entrance to Maida Vale Tunnel will appear, with a small café perched precariously above it. Cross the busy A5 road and head straight into Aberdeen Place to find the gloriously ornate Crockers Folly pub. Across from the pub, follow the steps descending to the canal footpath over the other bank, Cross the canal on Primrose Hill footbridge to Regent’s Park, developed by the son of George III and John Nash in 1810.
Walking along the edge of London Zoo the house of the US Ambassador is visible over to the far right, built by Barbara Hutton a.k.a. Mrs Cary Grant. As the zoo’s boundary ends, the Indian Fountain is around the corner on Broad Walk, where you turn right. The stunning white Georgian terraces that line the park were built by Nash as a visual backdrop for a royal palace that was never constructed; they are still mostly owned by the Royal Family.
A right turn at Chester Road reveals the gilded gates into the Inner Circle of Queen Mary’s Gardens, with its open-air theatre and more than 400 rose varieties in the beautiful rose gardens. More gilded gates lead south, out of the garden and onto York Bridge. Turn left along the Outer circle. A right into Park Square Walk brings you to the Regent’s Park tube.
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