London’s Distinctive Neighborhoods

Seven London neighborhoods retain history and individuality

It might be easy to view London’s 7 million people and 600-square-mile mass of buildings and parks as a single urban entity. But that’s an illusion. Pockets of individuality survive. In what once were independent villages lie real neighborhoods with attractions that are theirs alone.

London wasn’t always huge. Two millennia ago, it was a Roman outpost protected behind high stone walls. As population increased, the city grew outward, engulfing hamlets and farms.

Ramble now in seven villages of greater London where history is deep and urban hustle feels far away.

Blackheath: picnic perfect

Ten minutes’ walk downhill from Greenwich Park lies the velvety lawn of Blackheath. Families bask in sunshine uninterrupted by trees, and children and dogs play until they collapse in happy exhaustion.

History is all around. Armies and rebels have mustered for a millennium on the heath’s uncultivated acres, and Georgian houses echo 18th-century good life.

Blackheath is a hometown: quiet on weekdays when people are at work, buzzing on weekends when they’re shopping.

Hampstead: famous footsteps

Famous poets, artists, authors, scientists, actors, philosophers and financiers have called Hampstead home. This exclusive, free-thinking community is freckled with plaques announcing that “so-and-so lived here.”

Lace up your walking shoes and begin a pilgrimage among the former digs of celebrities such as painter John Constable, writers Daphne du Maurier and Ian Fleming, French leader Charles de Gaulle and bandit Dick Turpin.

You can’t enter most of the houses, but the welcome mat is out at the home of poet John Keats, the handsome Burgh House museum and café and the art-studded Kenwood mansion.

Even before Hampstead became fashionable in the early 1700s as a spa town, the village had a steady stream of visitors to its heath. The great green space, just four miles from downtown London, still offers fresh air and the feeling of English countryside.

Specialized Terms

Hamlet (n) a small village, usually without a church

Heath (n) an area of land that is not farmed, where grass and other small plants grow but that has few trees or bushes

Georgian (adj) belonging to the period when Kings George I, II and III ruled Britain, especially from 1714 to 1811

Pilgrimage (n) a tall religious building in Asia with many levels, each of which has a curved roof

Vocabulary Focus

Millennium (n) a period of 1000 years

Ramble (v) to walk for pleasure, especially in the countryside

Hustle (n) busy energetic activity

Velvety (n) 天鹅绒

Bask (v) to lie or sit enjoying the warmth of the sun

Muster (n) come or bring (people) together, especially for a military parade

Plaque (n) 匾，饰板

Freckle (v) to become marked with spots of color

So-and-so (n) used instead of a particular name to refer to someone

Discussion Question

Did you notice these people’s names mentioned in today’s article, Who are they? Write down what they are famous for? One or two would be OK.

Extra Exercise

1. Translate the following sentence into Chinese, ‘Pockets of individuality survive. In what once were independent villages lie real neighborhoods with attractions that are theirs alone.’

2. According to the recording, who wrote the story of James Bond?