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Then Haverstock Hill, with the Load of Hay tavern, looking in 1845 as rustic and simple as its name. It had been famous for its tea-gardens, and an ancient footpath from the Lower Heath, Hampstead, formerly crossed the fields from Pond Street, and came out beside it on the main road. Above the bank, rising from the highway on the left, stood the cottage, ‘famous,’ as Carey in his ‘Book of the Roads’ (1812) called it, as the residence of Sir Richard Steele, the ‘solitude’ that for so many years reminded readers of the literary Captain’s delightful essays, and recalled in his company all the wits of Queen Anne’s time, who, on their way to the summer meetings of the Kit-Cat Club at the Upper Flask, Hampstead, were wont to beguile him from unfinished copy, an easy task, since the gay instincts of the man on these occasions would generally override the severity of the philosopher, and prevent the personal application of the moralities he so charmingly discoursed about.

Hampstead from Primrose Hill.