This neighbourhood area is located in the borough of Camden and gets its name, Primrose Hill, from the park that makes up a portion of the area. Primrose Hill is well known for its fantastic view of the London skyline. The neighbourhood itself has a wide variety of cuisines and restaurants as well as local shops, and the large Primrose Hill Farmer’s Market that is open every Saturday. The market offers many locally grown products, as well as many vegan options. The neighbourhood has a few tall offices and residential buildings, but for the most part it has many tree lined streets making residents feel like they are far removed from Central London, when in reality they are only a few tube stops away.

Primrose Hill was once part of a great chase appropriated by Henry VIII in the 1500s. Later, in 1842 an Act of Parliament secured the land as public open space. For those of you interested in the darker side of London’s history, Primrose Hill was the scene of the mysterious murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey in October 1678. Godfrey was the Protestant magistrate who interrogated Titus Oates, the man at the centre of the fabricated conspiracy known as the Popish Plot. The discovery of Godfrey’s mutilated body, strangled and stabbed with his own sword, intensified the atmosphere of panic and fear in which rumours of a scheme to assassinate Charles II and to massacre Protestants developed and spread.

Robert Bevan, a famous British painter in the early 1900s, lived in the neighbourhood area. The area was also home to Dame Clara Ellen Butt. In the late 1800s, Butt was celebrated for her magnificent contralto voice and stately appearance, as she stood at 6 feet 2 inches tall, and often performed works composed for her by Sir Edward Elgar.

Jude Law and Alan Rickman acted on the stage of the Hampstead Theatre which is located here.

The Primrose Hill neighbourhood acquired the nickname Promiscuity Hill on account of alleged partner-swapping activities among local A-list celebrities.

Theft is the highest reported crime in the area, most likely due to its affluent reputation and residents. A new downside about this neighbourhood area is that the rent prices for shops and flats, as well as townhouse prices, have gone up significantly in recent years. However, this is one of the prettiest neighbourhoods in London and offers many amenities and benefits to those who live here.

While not much new development occurs in this part of London, due to its high value real estate and the protected status of much of its urban fabric, Berkeley Group is developing a new project between Primrose Hill and Camden Town. This 8-acre brownfield site will be transformed into a mixed-use neighbourhood, with 644 mixed tenures homes, alongside a new flagship 55,000 sq ft Morrisons supermarket. Additional functions include a rooftop urban farm, a range of community facilities, shops, cafés, maker workshops, and Grade A office space; including 6,000 sq ft affordable workspace for small and medium entreprises (SMEs).

In the future, this area will be close to the High Speed 2 (HS2). HS2 is a planned highspeed railway that will connect London, Birmingham and Manchester, the first phase of which is due to become operational between 2029 and 2033. HS2 will have a terminus at Euston train station, which is very close to this neighbourhood area. That said, HS2 has also garnered a lot of criticism and controversy due its frequent delays, pushing its completion constantly to the future, its increasing costs and, more recently, the scrapping of its connection to Leeds, which was supposed to be its final important stop.