Wandering around the Kenwood Estate takes us back one or two centuries ago when people lived and worked here in and around the grand house. It overlooks a view that was designed and sculpted from a landscape that was here many hundreds of years before.
Across from the terrace a path leads to the dairy where ice cream was mixed and butter was churned for the residents and their guests. We can imagine the dairy maid passing through the gate and up the hill to where the perfect white building sits.
The Dairy
And below the dairy there is pasture where the cows who provided the milk could graze.
A view from the dairy of the pasture
There are colourful displays of flowers cultivated in the gardens by the house but the more natural areas can also be dazzling - like the gorse that can be found a bit further South.
Gorse on the Kenwood Estate
All around the estate there are paths to explore, leading to areas which have been only given a light touch by people who manage the woodlands.
Here amongst the trees can be found a Wild Service Tree - rare and only found in a ancient woodland.
Leaves of a wild service tree
And in Springtime, there are bluebells across stretches of this small forest.
Bluebells
In some parts of the woods there are trees that are crowded together. In managed woodlands they are often thinned so that there are fewer trees growing but they are able to spread and grow bigger and bigger.
Crowded trees
The paths eventually lead out onto other areas of Hampstead Heath.
A path leading out of Kenwood Estate
Although there is a fence all around and gates that are closed at night, the feeling is that the Kenwood Estate has melded into its rural surroundings, adding a vast area of natural beauty and rural history to the countryside of North London.
Bus 210