Hit a Pokéstop and spin in to release various utensils (Pokéballs, healing charms, something that looks like spray bleach) for your future in-game use. This is also where you’ll unearth your local landmarks. Here are some of our favourites.

The Queen Elizabeth Coronation tree

College Crescent, Swiss Cottage

Have you ever noticed a particularly stand out tree in Swiss Cottage and thought “that tree must have some regal connection”? Thought not. But there is one, planted at a particularly grotty Swiss Cottage spot in June 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. If you already knew about it then you are a true local expert.

Cosmo Restaurant plaque

Finchley Road

Sadly, this blue plate no longer exists as it was removed after a property company bought the building and it wasn’t replaced. So thanks to Pokémon for preserving the commemoration. Between 1933 and 1998 the Cosmo Restaurant was a meeting place for refugees and survivors of the Holocaust. Also known as “Sigmund Freud’s favourite caff”, the Cosmo was opened as a coffee bar serving goulash and apple strudel to its clientele, mainly central and eastern European Jewish refugees. It became a haven for those who’d fled persecution at the hands of the Nazis until it closed in 1998, victim to rising rents and slowing trade.

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Meet the neighbours: A walking tour of Hampstead’s blue plaquesFreud Museum

Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead

Not a hidden landmark by any stretch of the imagination but one of Hampstead’s key attractions, the thought of finding a Lickitung on Freud’s couch while discovering the history of psychoanalysis is just too satisfying.

Shepherd’s Well

Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead

Another feature of playing Pokémon Go is the likelihood of ending up in conversation with complete strangers. A boozed up, but otherwise charming man let me into some of the history behind the Shepherd’s Well, now marked by a plaque. The fountain was erected near a spring marking the start of one of Hampstead’s underground rivers, the River Tyburn. Conduit House on Lyndhurst Terrace is a clue to its location, now hidden. The Tyburn runs all the way to Westminster, although nowadays it is mostly sewer.

Beatrice Serota, Baroness Serota, DBE (1919-2002) memorial bench

Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead

Born Beatrice Katz to Jewish refugees in the East End, Baroness Serota worked in local government and for advisory councils for child care before getting a seat in the House of Lords in 1967. Harold Wilson appointed her as a government whip soon after. In the Lords Serota chaired the LCC children’s committee for seven years and became a deputy speaker in 1985. Her son, Nicholas, is director of the Tate and widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in art.

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Downshire Hill, Hampstead

Sir Peter Medawar was a biologist, who won a Nobel Prize in 1960 for his work on organ transplantation from animals to humans. He went on to serve as director of the National Institute of Medical Research. Medawar was born in Brazil but moved to England during the First World War and graduated with a first in Zoology from Oxford.

Have you discovered any unexpected landmarks while playing Pokémon Go? Tweet us a picture to @HamHighProperty using the hashtag #PokemonNoLo