Our Neighborhood

 

Primrose Hill can be reached by tube to Chalk Farm (on the Northern Line, Edgware Branch). 2B is a one-minute walk from the station. We are a ten- to fifteen-minute tube ride from the West End and the City, or a walk of around an hour to the West End (depending on your exact destination, obviously). Buses to the West End take around 25 minutes.

Primrose Hill Village is located to the east of Primrose Hill, one of London's highest elevations, on the northern edge of Regent's Park and its London Zoo. (See maps and aerial photos.) A quiet neighborhood of terraced Victorian houses, it is or has been home to many academics, actors, political activists and writers. Our building was home until recently to supermodel Agyness Deyn, and now singer Rhydian Roberts. Historically, Primrose Hill has counted as neighbors Kingsley Amis, Friedrich Engels, and Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Today it is home to actors Kate Winslett, Helena Bonham Carter, director Sam Mendes, writer Anthony Lane, and chef Jamie Oliver. (For a perspective on the local celebrities and what they embody about the neighborhood, see this little piece from the Observer.) Primrose Hill is represented in Parliament by Glenda Jackson, the award-winning actress-turned-politician. Regent's Park Road, our "high street", boasts a range of restaurants, including most prominently Odette's, The Engineer, and Manna Vegetarian Restaurant. It is also full of lovely cafés and sophisticated shops. Primrose Hill Books is a well-stocked and friendly local bookseller that often carries the latest autographed volumes of work by local authors. Triyoga is one of Europe's leading centers for yoga and pilates — and its café has even been reviewed in the New York Times.

The pastoral pleasures of Primrose Hill Park (where the stargazing [after a local pubcrawl!] is mentioned by Time Out as one of the best nights out in London), Regent's Park and the London Zoo are a five-minute walk from 2B. Regent's Park provides an outstanding path for jogging: head down Regent's Park Road, across Primrose Hill, back across the back of the Zoo, down the Broad Walk, into Queen Mary's Gardens, around the boating lake, up toward and then along the canal, and back across Primrose Hill and home. (Here's a map.) There's also a free outdoor gym, located at the foot of Primrose Hill, where you can exercise on your own or alongside a local personal trainer. It's one of the most varied and best equipped outdoor gyms in London, with low and high pull up bars, monkey bars, incline benches and balance beams.

Primrose Hill is just moments from the lively Camden Town and Camden Market, Europe's most popular shopping mecca. The Roundhouse, a nineteenth-century railway warehouse that was a famous rock venue in the 1970s and is now slated for redevelopment as an arts venue — the Royal Shakespeare Company performed there in repertory in the spring, 2002 — is but a stone's throw from 2B. Camden Town also boasts a wide range of very popular restaurants, including Belgo and Wagamama. The Regent's Canal, which runs through it and along our northern rim of Regent's Park, makes for a delightful stroll, jog or boat ride. A bit further afield, Hampstead Village is just a 20-minute walk or a short tube or bus ride.

 

 

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