For 200 years Hampstead Heath was a ‘safe place' for cruising. Now that's under threat

Telegraph

10-03-2025

On the west heath, the wilder and less-visited half of the famous green space in Hampstead, north London, there is a tree. It is not just any old tree. Lying prone in a clearing in the centre of dense woodland, it has made an infamous name for itself as the 'F--- Tree', the epicentre of the Heath's storied cruising scene.
For 200 years, the area has been used as a meeting place for gay men seeking sexual relationships.
When north London's best-known cruising enthusiast, George Michael, encountered a paparazzo nearby in 2006, he shouted, 'are you gay? No? Then f--- off! This is my culture!' He later said the Heath was 'the only place in London where [the police accept it] so it's generally a safe place'.
George Michael might be the tree's most famous visitor, but it has seen many others in its time. This area of the London park has been a hotspot for men seeking sex for two centuries (at least). For the LGBTQ+ community active on the Heath today, George Michael is seen as something of a patron saint. An annual Heath 'sexual freedom party' is held by a group called 'This Is My Culture' in his honour. However, they are not the park's only users.
Last month, a battle was waged between an anonymous walker – or walkers – and those who use the Heath to have sex with strangers. Posters stapled to trees urged dog walkers to 'TAKE BACK WEST HEATH', before they were removed less than a day later. 'CRUISING FOR SEX? HOMOSEXUALITY IS LEGAL,' the posters continued. 'USE A HOOK UP APP LIKE GRINDR AND SNIFFIES [an app that points users to local cruising sites] & GET A ROOM.'
On a grey Monday morning, when footfall was likely to be low, I set out to investigate. I wandered past Jack Straw's Castle – a Grade II listed building that marks the highest point in inner London – into the thicket of the west heath beyond. Soon after the anti-cruising posters were put up, local activists responded in kind.
A group called Act Up London, which campaigns for an end to the transmission of HIV, organised a 'Sodomites Walk' in conjunction with This Is My Culture to a soundtrack of George Michael's music. It was led by Dan Glass, a queer historian and activist, who said the signs urging dog walkers to take back the Heath were 'homophobic'.
'It's saying that queer people can't do what is legally and rightfully theirs, to have public displays of affection,' he told the Camden New Journal, describing cruising as 'precious to our community for centuries'. The practice began as a response to sodomy and indecency laws and has endured since homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967.
Cruising itself is not illegal. However, indecent exposure is, under the Sexual Offences Act 2023 – meaning those that expose themselves risk prosecution if seen by another person, and if there is judged to be intent to alarm others. Ironically, however, placing posters on the Heath is definitively against the law. The 47 bylaws governing the 800-acre area, laid out by the City of London Corporation, prohibit the exhibition or distribution of 'any book, pamphlet, leaflet, card, bill, advertisement or literature of any kind whatsoever'.
Lola Pony, 34, an organiser for Act Up London, says: 'We just care about protecting ourselves and the community… We're giving voice to marginalised voices.
'People have prejudices about what it means to be in the LGBTQ community, and they aren't accurate.'
The group distributed condoms and symbolically re-opened the park as a cruising spot by cutting a golden ribbon. Several bared their bottoms for social media and posed by the 'F--- Tree' in a show of defiance. To counter the anonymous anti-cruising posters, they plastered trees with flyers that read: 'THIS IS A CRUISING GROUND. ENJOY YOURSELF.'
A cruising ground it certainly is, even at midday on a Monday. Not far from the main path that trails down from the car park and leads to the Heath's pergola, there are a series of muddy, tunnelled paths leading deep into the undergrowth. We are far off the beaten track here – a long way from the tourist throng that centres on Parliament Hill – but there are still one or two joggers, a few professional dog walkers, and plenty of squirrels rustling ominously from the bushes.
There is, even at this time of day, also the odd man who turns left off the main path into the dense woodland. Bins have been placed at semi-regular intervals, seemingly to tackle a long-standing litter problem, but some detritus remains tangled in the undergrowth.
This is not the first time the park's status as the foremost cruising spot in Europe has been met with disapproval. Bob Hall, a former chairman of the Heath's committee, for instance, complained in 2006 that cruising enthusiasts were forming 'no-go areas' for other park-goers after the City of London spent £40,000 removing 'sexual detritus' from the area in 2005.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the police received calls saying that men using the Heath for sex were in breach of lockdown restrictions and several were fined.
Nor am I the first journalist to go on a quest to find the location of the mythical tree at the centre of this controversy. I put in a call to Charlie Baker, a Hampstead resident and the editor of The Fence, an independent magazine that published a feature on this very subject in 2023.
'The reason that it's a cruising ground is that it's so far out of the way,' he says. Generally, the Heath 'seems to be one of those places where you can just go and do whatever you want to do in privacy' – whether that's partying, camping, night fishing or, well, cruising. 'It's got a nice liberalism to it,' he says.
In fact, the 'cruisers' and the Heath's other users – at least those I come across – seem to co-exist quite happily in tacit agreement. 'I come once a day and it's super quiet,' says Angel Janeiro, a 28-year-old dog walker. 'There aren't even many other people walking their dogs. When it gets dark, I know a lot of people are using this area for sex, but I'm not part of that debate.' Another local resident, Michael Pitt, said he had pulled down one of the anti-cruising posters himself, telling The Times that longstanding residents have a 'live and let live' mentality.
After an hour spent wandering the labyrinthine paths in the depths of the Heath with a long-suffering Telegraph photographer, I found it: the notorious tree.
There was no one around, although Monday lunchtime is not when you would expect it to see a lot of action. It's rather splendid, with the trunk stretched out on its side and its branches veering extravagantly upwards. A centuries-old tree in a centuries-old meeting spot – one that is unlikely to change any time soon.