Belsize Park
Belsize Park is an affluent residential area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden (the inner north-west of London), England.
Belsize Park
The residential streets are lined with mews houses and Georgian and Victorian villas. Some nearby localities are Hampstead village to the north and west, Camden Town to the south-east and Primrose Hill to the south.
There are restaurants, pubs, cafés, and independent boutiques in Belsize Village,[1] and on Haverstock Hill and England's Lane. Hampstead Heath is close by, and Primrose Hill park is a five-minute walk from England's Lane.
Belsize Park is in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency whose present MP is Tulip Siddiq.
The headquarters of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts organisation is in Belsize Park.
Cultural references[edit]
The lyrics of the international chart hit "Kayleigh" by rock band Marillion in 1985 include the line "loving on the floor in Belsize Park". It is also in the short film Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (although mainly filmed in Hampstead Village), of which the title song was covered by Mireille Mathieu, Engelbert Humperdinck, and others. Belsize Park is also referenced on Sleeper's 1995 debut album Smart in the song "Lady Love Your Countryside" with the lyrics "And we could spend our lives puking in Belsize Park". Cozy Powell's 1974 single "Na Na Na" suggests that "You're a wizard of Wembley Central, You're the J. S. Bach of Belsize park". The Belsize Park London Underground station features in the song "Paradise" by Coldplay, where in the video, the elephant can be seen taking a train from the station.[4]
The Camden Town Group artist Robert Polhill Bevan and his wife Stanislawa de Karlowska lived at 14 Adamson Road from 1900 to 1925.
Kirsty MacColl's 2000 song "England 2 Colombia 0" features the line, "we went to a pub in Belsize Park and cheered on England as the skies grew dark..."
It is also the place of residence for the Jewish community targeted by Hitler during the Second World War in the novel The Morning Gift.
Novelist Peter Straub entitled his 1983 poetry collection "Leeson Square and Belsize Park" in part after his time in residence in the Belsize Park region of London. Belsize Park and the surrounding quarters were the setting for a long-running radio drama, Waggoner's Walk. This daily serial ran from April 1969 to May 1980 each weekday on Radio 2. Belsize Park is mentioned in the Hitchcock thriller, Dial M for Murder (1954) by the lead character Tony Wallace played by Ray Milland when coercing his accomplice, C.A. Swann into murdering his wife.
Sport[edit]
There are records of a Belsize Park Rugby Club in North-West London since the 1860s. In 1871, Belsize was one of the clubs at the inaugural meeting of the Rugby Football Union, and therefore pioneers of the game of Rugby Union. In 1878, Belsize moved to form Rosslyn Park RFC, becoming one of England's leading clubs. In 1971, Belsize Park RFC was re-established by a group of local players. The club is now one of the most central of all London Rugby Clubs, playing and training in Regent's Park. There are five regular teams playing every Saturday during the season as well as a touch rugby squad in the summer time.