At the top of Hampstead Heath, there is a garden most visitors never find.
An Edwardian dream on the edge of the Heath
The garden is the Hill Garden and Pergola, tucked along the western edge of Hampstead Heath near North End Way. It was the private vision of William Hesketh Lever — the soap magnate behind Lever Brothers and Sunlight Soap, later ennobled as the first Viscount Leverhulme. In 1904 he bought a house called The Hill overlooking the Heath, and he wanted a garden to match his ambitions.
To design it he hired Thomas Mawson, one of the most celebrated landscape architects of the age. Together they built something with no real precedent in London: a long, raised pergola walkway carried on stone columns, wrapped in wisteria, climbing roses and vines, and lifted high enough to look out over the Heath.
Built on the spoil of the Underground
The most surprising detail is what the terraces are standing on. To raise the pergola above the surrounding land, the builders needed vast quantities of earth — and they found it underground. Much of the spoil excavated during the extension of the Northern line beneath Hampstead was carted up the hill and used to build up the raised walkways. A garden that looks like a Roman ruin was, in part, made from the tunnels of the London Underground.
Work went on in stages between 1905 and the mid-1920s, with the pergola extended more than once as Leverhulme bought up neighbouring land. By the time it was finished it ran for hundreds of feet, a procession of columns and pergola beams that felt more like the ruins of a classical villa than a corner of north London.
Why it looks like Ancient Rome
Leverhulme died in 1925, and without its owner the garden slowly fell quiet. After the Second World War it slipped into decline; the stonework crumbled, the timber beams weathered, and the climbing plants ran wild over the columns. Ironically, that is exactly what gives the place its magic today. The weathered stone, the ivy-wrapped pillars and the shafts of light falling through the broken canopy make it look uncannily like the ruins of an ancient Roman garden — which is precisely why photographers and film crews adore it.
Rescued and reopened
The Hill Garden and Pergola is now cared for by the City of London Corporation, which manages Hampstead Heath. After years of neglect the structure was restored in the 1990s and reopened to the public, its terraces made safe and its planting revived while keeping the romantic, half-wild atmosphere intact.
How to visit
The garden sits off North End Way, on the west side of Hampstead Heath, a short walk from Golders Hill Park. It is free to enter, and it remains one of the quietest corners of the Heath — many Londoners have lived nearby for years without knowing it exists. Go on a weekday morning if you can, when the light comes low through the columns and you may have the whole pergola to yourself. Bring a camera; this is one of the most photogenic spots in the city.
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