Home to one of London’s best protected views, Primrose Hill also has colourful streets, literary blue plaques and a genuine neighbourhood feel.
In other parts of London, a neighbourhood this small and this expensive would translate to bland and boring, all chain coffee shops and estate agents. Primrose Hill isn’t like other parts of London. Locals have fought hard to keep their stretch of Regent’s Park Road filled with independent shops, restaurants and cafes, colourful houses peep out from grand crescents, and at the top of it all sits the grand hill from which the area takes its name.
With Regent’s Park to the south and grungier Camden to the east, the well-defined limits of Primrose Hill are a pleasure to explore on foot, and small enough to do properly in an afternoon.
Here’s what we’d put on the list.
The best things to do in Primrose Hill
Climb to the summit for the protected skyline view
It only seems right to start a guide to Primrose Hill with Primrose Hill itself. The land was bought from Eton College in 1841 and turned into public parkland by an Act of Parliament, originally intended to give the area’s poorer residents better access to open space. Climb to the top and you’ll find one of London’s protected views, the skyline of central London rising above the treeline with barely a modern building allowed to interrupt it.
It’s the view that led William Blake to write of conversing with “the spiritual sun” on the hill, a line now inscribed on a stone at the summit. On the slope, the so-called Shakespeare’s Tree was first planted in 1864 to mark 300 years since the playwright’s birth, and replanted a century later once the original didn’t make it.
Photograph the pastel houses on Chalcot Crescent
The row of pastel-coloured houses on Chalcot Crescent is one of London’s more photographed streets, and deservedly so, the curve of the terrace makes for a better composition than a straight row ever could. The houses on nearby Chalcot Square carry similarly bright colours, so it’s worth wandering both rather than just the one everyone tags on Instagram.
Go hunting for literary blue plaques
Primrose Hill has long been a fashionable place to live, and its blue plaques trace that history back well before its current residents. Sylvia Plath lived at 3 Chalcot Square, writing The Bell Jar during her time there. Other names to look out for include William Butler Yeats at 23 Fitzroy Road, Friedrich Engels at 122 Regent’s Park Road, Dylan Thomas at 54 Delancey Street and Arthur Hugh Clough at 11 St Mark’s Crescent.
Unwind at Cowshed
Cowshed is one of the city’s best-known boutique spas, with an extensive menu of face and body treatments built around a proper unwind. It costs what you’d expect for the neighbourhood, though perhaps a little less than the postcode suggests.
Follow the towpath along Regent’s Canal
The stretch of Regent’s Canal between Primrose Hill and Camden makes for a genuinely pleasant walk, and it’s just one short section of a route that runs nine miles from Paddington all the way to Limehouse Basin if you fancy going further. Start just across the road from Primrose Hill at the top of Regent’s Park and follow the towpath to Camden Lock, keeping an eye out for the floating restaurant Feng Shang where the canal turns north out of the park.
Brunch at Greenberry
For many locals, brunch in Primrose Hill means one thing: Greenberry. It’s just as capable at breakfast, lunch and dinner during the week, a proper all-day restaurant-cafe rather than a one-trick brunch spot, though weekends are when it’s busiest. Worth knowing: Primrose Hill was itself once known as Greenberry Hill, which is where the cafe borrows its name from.
Go hungry at Lemonia
Lemonia has been serving traditional Greek food in Primrose Hill for more than 40 years, and remains a genuine neighbourhood favourite rather than a tourist trap trading on longevity alone. Go hungry: mezze and meats straight off the grill are the order of the day, and the portions don’t hold back.
Book a date night at Odette’s
Odette’s is the kind of place for a smart date night, with a high-end setting and menu that wouldn’t look out of place in Mayfair. It celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018 and, where other restaurants chase attention, Odette’s has always been quietly confident rather than flashy about it. Only a neighbourhood like Primrose Hill could treat this as a local restaurant.
Sink a pint in the garden at The Engineer
Gastropubs are common in Primrose Hill, but The Engineer stands out, helped by an ivy-covered beer garden frequently named among the best in London, a strong food menu built around Sunday roasts that count as something of a local institution, and an equally strong range of craft beers.
Browse the shelves at Primrose Hill Books
This family-run bookshop is everything a good independent bookshop should be: friendly, well-informed and stocked with a genuinely broad range of titles rather than just whatever’s trending. It also hosts a regular programme of talks and signings, worth checking before a visit if you’re after more than just browsing.
Stock up at Primrose Hill Market
Held every Saturday around St Paul’s School, Primrose Hill’s food market brings together more than 50 traders selling farm-fresh produce, artisan goods and street food. It’s a proper working market rather than a tourist add-on, so expect it to feel like it’s there for the neighbourhood, because it is.
Put together a picnic at Shepherd Foods
This cavernous delicatessen is stacked with tempting produce, an extensive wine selection, a hot deli counter and everything needed to put together a decent picnic for the park, useful to know given how close the hill itself is.
