South Hill Park, London

Coordinates: 51°33′28″N 0°09′48″W / 51.5577°N 0.1632°W / 51.5577; -0.1632 South Hill Park is a street in the Hampstead district of London. It is within the London Borough of Camden, and some of its houses overlook Hampstead Heath. (For the arts centre in Berkshire see South Hill Park).

Transport links

Hampstead Heath railway station, on the North London Line, is at the southern end of South Hill Park. Buses, chiefly the number 24, depart from nearby South End Green.

Ruth Ellis and Styllou Christofi

The Magdala Today

The last woman to be hanged in Britain, Ruth Ellis, was sentenced to death for a murder committed on South Hill Park. She shot her boyfriend, David Blakely, outside a public house, The Magdala, on 10 April 1955. The pub is now closed and the building converted into apartments.

Coincidentally, the second-last woman to be hanged in Britain, Styllou Christofi, lived a few metres from the Magdala at 11 South Hill Park,^[1] with her son and daughter-in-law. She was executed in December 1954, four months before Ellis committed her crime.

Notable residents

• The Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher spent his retirement and last years in South Hill Park, 1922-28.
• The film director Anthony Minghella lived in South Hill Park until his death in 2008.^[2] His son, Max Minghella, had a role in the film Hippie Hippie Shake, parts of which were shot in the street and its surrounding area.^[3]
• Jonathan Ross and his family lived on South Hill Park in the 1990s.
• The poet Adrian Mitchell lived in South Hill Park until his death in 2008.

References