The new Heath Info Hut

As part of our visitor engagement and wildlife interpretation activities, we were supported by the team at the City of London Corporation, who manage Hampstead Heath, to open a new visitor information and public engagement base at the old Tennis Booking Hut at Parliament Hill. Find out more below.

The Hut opened for action

The story so far

Many visitors to the Parliament Hill area of Hampstead Heath may have noticed a little hut near the Parliament Hill tennis courts and cafe (click here for the location). In previous days, this was used for tennis bookings, but with online bookings it had lain empty for a number of years until we enquired about making use of the space.

Hampstead Heath doesn’t have a visitor centre, and Heath Hands’ existing visitor engagement activities over the past decade have been ‘pop-up’ , with our staff and volunteers running weekend nature activities (pond dipping, bug hunting, birdwatching and more) from a cargo bike at events and various spots on the Heath under our ‘Wild about Hampstead Heath’ project. To develop this project we were keen to create a more concrete (pardon the pun) base for engaging visitors about the green spaces.

Our ‘Wild About Hampstead Heath’ bike

A pop-up nature session in action

The City of London team were incredibly supportive and kindly funded the refurbishment of the Hut (many thanks to them!!), so all that remained was to get started! To help with the launch, we hired two part-time Activity Assistants as part of our work experience programme over the summer to help develop resources, supervise volunteers, and open the hut on the weekends (as well as other activities).

Thanks to their help, we opened the Hut in August 2025 and it will now open every Saturday from 10am to 2pm while the Farmers Market is on nearby.

Come and visit

Come along to visit us on Saturdays at the Info Hut (map here):

• Information about upcoming events and activities on the Heath

• Asking questions about the green spaces

• Borrowing a litter picker to help care for the Heath (mor info below)

• Directions, maps and information about facilities if you’re new to the Heath

• Information about wildlife and nature on the Heath, including free ID sheets to take away

• Details on how to volunteer and get involved

• Fun seasonal quizzes and resources

• Heath-related merchandise (e.g. guidebooks, the Hampstead Heath calendar, and more)

• Picking up second-hand nature books

Our upcoming open days:

Volunteering opportunities

This Autumn, we’ll be running regular drop-in litter picks from the Info Hut - just come along at 12pm, borrow a litter picker and gloves and help keep the Heath clean for wildlife and visitors!

If you’d like to help out at the Hut, do check out our ‘wildlife interpreter’ volunteering pages and join our friendly team!