The Village of HAMPSTEAD

\"MONTMARTRE in Hampstead,\" whispered the headline, and the old lady, reading it, turned to me and said, \"And well it might be: Hampstead 's no longer the respectable place it used to be.\" The article was really concerned with the many new and good restaurants which are opening in Hampstead, but the analogy goes a little deeper than was suggested: in Hampstead, there thrives a lively arts community, and it is very much a village. Constable lived there and wrote of it, \"I love every stile and stump and lane in the village.\" Here, too, lived Keats and Johnson, Romney and Leigh Hunt. The Hampstead Subscription Library where Dickens and Thackeray worked is still used by the many local writers.