Alan Hollinghurst: On Hampstead Heath

Even in winter Hampstead Heath never loses its magic, though it is not as dreamlike and confounding as it is in the high summer. It is a wooded landscape that is never flat and never square, and you lose your bearings in it, taking years to learn exactly how its dips and meanders fit together. Often on summer evenings people stop and ask me the way – they are miles from where they thought they were, and going in completely the wrong direction...

Alan Hollinghurst rhapsodises over the delights to be found on Hampstead Heath 'pon a Summer's evening, for FT Weekend.