A historic corner pub on South Hill Park beside Hampstead Heath, reborn after years dark and crowned CAMRA North London Pub of the Year 2025.
The Magdala sits on South Hill Park in Hampstead, two minutes from Hampstead Heath station and the southern edge of the Heath itself. The corner pub stood dark for years before a careful reopening, and in 2025 it took CAMRA's North London Pub of the Year, a real signal of how well the relaunch landed.
This is a pub for a post-Heath pint and a slow Sunday, not a late session. The cask programme and the welcome are the draw, and the location makes it the obvious stop after a walk on the ponds. The Magdala also carries a heavy history as the site of the Ruth Ellis shooting in 1955, which the current team handles with restraint rather than spectacle.
The reopening kept the bones of the old pub, with the bar wrapping the corner site and warm, lived-in rooms rather than a gut-and-gloss refit. It feels like a proper Hampstead local again, not a theme bar.
The position is the bonus. It sits right by the Heath Overground and the foot of the Heath, so it catches walkers coming off the ponds and parkland. On a clear weekend afternoon it is one of the better placed pubs in north London.
The cask range is what won the CAMRA award, with well-kept rotating ales alongside the regulars, pints around 6 pounds. There is a tidy wine and keg selection too, but the hand pumps are the headline.
The kitchen runs a British menu with a strong Sunday roast that fills the place by early afternoon. Reviewers on Google Maps consistently flag the ale quality and the friendly welcome. Order a cask pint, and if it is a Sunday, book ahead for the roast.
Weekend afternoons bring walkers, families and dogs straight off the Heath. The mood is calm and conversational, the kind of pub where a pint becomes three. Weekday evenings settle into a neighbourhood local crowd.