‘Hampstead Heath is rusticity, history, spirituality and romance.’

• JUSTIN Frith’s belief that Hampstead Heath is a park and not old Middlesex countryside is bizarre, (Fence off ‘no-dog’ areas on Hampstead Heath, April 14).

One of the impulses to save Hampstead Heath in the late 19th century, was to preserve it as open countryside, when urbanisation was swallowing up other nearby stretches for development.

Kilburn, Muswell Hill and Finchley etc were covered with brickwork; the old countryside of Hampstead was preserved. That is why it is not called “Hampstead Park” and long known as “London’s countryside”.

Municipal parks are a part of urbanisation and thus have much in common with car parks: including ascetics, their air of bureaucracy and too often, over-regulation.

Municipal parks are laid out; the countryside of Hampstead Heath, in origin the unplanned product of nature, faithfully attended by man.

Parks have blandness that sometimes makes for a dispiriting vacuity. Hampstead Heath is rusticity, history, spirituality and romance.

A walk in the park is just that! A visit to Hampstead Heath, to be taken by the hand of nature on a journey through a demi-paradise of bliss; a healing visit to old Middlesex countryside where once, great poets, wrote verse and Constable and others painted its natural beauty, where we can still go for health and contentment in nature and countryside.

Finally, we need to keep faith with those who saved Hampstead Heath for us.

ROBERT SUTHERLAND SMITH
Widecombe Way, N2