31/10/2023 09:21:04 PM
118. Jubilee Park, Edmonton
Jubilee Park is a large open space in Edmonton. It was planned in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V in that year although it wasn’t opened until 1939, after the King’s death. The main entrance, in Galliard Road, has a set of art deco gates, in keeping with the period. These lead to a semi-circular drive into the park, where there are formal gardens with shrubs, beds and trees including eucalyptus, copper beech and conifers.
Much of the area that the park covers had originally been a brick works. This had been a major industry in the Enfield/Edmonton area and continued to be so until the late nineteen-seventies.
There was a paddling pool in the park, but it became disused and in 2003 it was converted into an ornamental garden with an emphasis on fragrant plants. Facilities today include a multi-use games area, playground, tennis courts, pitch and putt course, outdoor gym and a bowling green, leased to Jubilee Park Bowls Club. The park is also regularly used by the Old Edmontonians Football Club. There’s plenty of space to walk in, and benches for a rest. The site includes the Henry Barrass Sports Ground, and next to the north side of the park are allotments. All this provides a big expanse of green space in a built-up area.
There is a wildlife area next to the tennis courts. Jubilee Park won a Green Flag Award in 2008-2010. The park is part of the Fields in Trust historic protection programme and has been protected since August 2012 under the Queen Elizabeth II Fields protection type.
There is no café but there are toilets. It has a small car park and when we visited there was space to park on nearby streets.
Judith Field
Jubilee Park, Galliard Road, London N9 7RH
24/10/2023 08:23:34 PM
117. Caledonian Park
This is a large green space in Islington. Before London grew outwards, the area was known as Copenhagen Fields and was open fields and paths. It had been the grounds of a mansion, Copenhagen House.
In the Nineteenth Century, Copenhagen Fields was the site of several mass meetings, such as the 1834 Trade Unionist rally against the treatment of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. A petition was handed to Parliament and the sentences were eventually repealed in 1836.
The centrepiece of the park is a 155ft Grade II listed clock tower. This is all that remains of the Metropolitan Cattle Market, opened in 1855 by the City of London Corporation as a replacement for the market at Smithfield. As a result, Smithfield closed as a live cattle market, re-opening as a 'dead meat market' in 1867, which it remains today.
The cattle market at what’s now Caledonian Park closed at the outbreak of World War II and never re-opened. The meat market closed in the 1950s and the area was eventually cleared for the development of council housing. The public park was laid out and opened in 1958. In the 1960s the park was planted with ornamental gardens and in the early 1980s many trees were planted.
The clock tower suffered from vandalism in the Twentieth Century, but it was refurbished and reopened in 2019 and is meant to have the original working mechanism, although the one in the photo didn’t because we were there in the afternoon. You can climb the 220 steps to the top of the tower on Saturdays. but there are a lot of health warnings about needing to be fit, and about the steep steps, ladders and confined spaces. It’s unsuitable for the under tens.
In 2010 the Darwin Trail was set out in the park, 10 slate markers with information designed showing how the work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) remains with us today, encouraging an understanding of the importance of urban ecology, wildlife habitats and biodiversity.
The park also has woodland areas, a community orchard and garden, grass meadows and a large open grass space, children’s playground and a tarmac ball court. There are a café and toilets. We managed to find a space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Caledonian Park, Market Road, London N7 9PL
16/10/2023 08:39:17 PM
116. Harrington Square Gardens
If I remember right, “Harrington Squares” were a brand of towelling nappy – at least when my elder daughter was a baby and I used them. However, this Harrington Square is a garden square in Camden Town, next to Mornington Crescent Underground station.
It’s actually a triangle, with grade 2 listed building along one side. in the middle is Harrington Square Gardens which is a public green space. The garden is mostly filled with a large rough lawn, with a circular path running through the centre. There are a lot of tall London Plane trees, and in the centre of the lawn, a young oak tree planted in 2000, and a plaque notes that it’s the 2000th tree of the Millennium Tree Planting Project. There are benches, but no café or toilets.
Harrington Square was originally part of the Duke of Bedford's estate. Under a Special Act of Parliament of 1800, the garden enclosure was to be kept as open space. It was laid out in 1843, when the neighbouring Southampton Estate was turned from fields into houses. It was originally part of a pair of squares, with Mornington Crescent Gardens on the other side of Hampstead Road.
The crescent is no longer a park, as in 1926, the Carreras cigarette factory, with its Egyptian frontage was built on it. It’s said to have been inspired by the Egyptian temple of the cat-goddess Bast. In 1998 the factory was converted to offices and is now named Greater London House. My daughter Laura worked there for a year. Other famous inhabitants of Harrington square include Alexander Graham Bell, and Oliver Lodge, a physicist who was involved in the development of radio.
It was the loss of Mornington Crescent park next to Harrington Square that led to the creation of the 1931 London Squares Preservation Act, which is why Harrington Square survives as a park for the local residents.
I imagine it’s difficult to park in the area, but it’s only about a 5-minute walk from Mornington Crescent station.
Judith Field
Harrington Square, London NW1 2JJ
10/10/2023 09:17:35 PM
115. Dalmeny Park
Dalmeny Park, in Tufnell Park, is a small, secluded park behind Victorian housing, originally reserved ‘for use by children and the elderly.’ It contains containing a playground, sandpit, grass and trees and benches.
In the 1870s building was beginning to cover the area, which had been rural before that. By the 1890s much of the surrounding housing had been completed although land to the south of the park remained unbuilt on until the early Twentieth Century. The park was for the private use of the residents of the surrounding houses, but it’s now public, owned by the local authority. It’s a conservation area.
I saw it listed on a website among other Islington parks, without any details. I sometimes manage to see what’s in a park using the images available on Google Maps, but not this time. I took the chance that it’d have the sort of swing Jack likes, and it did.
It’s known locally as ‘the secret park’, and I’m not surprised. The entrance is between two houses, and because of my usual rotten sense of direction, I couldn’t find it. We walked up and down the round a few times until, with the help of the satnav, I noticed it.
It’s a quiet, peaceful place. When we first arrived, we were the only people there and I sat while Jack went on the big swing, without anyone staring or commenting. Since my birthday last week. I’ve been wondering when ‘elderly’ begins. Ten years ago, the first of my series of (fourteen and counting) stories about an elderly couple was published, and I’m now older than my characters were at the start. I think, perhaps, it’s a matter of attitude as much as the physical side of it. Jack and I, a child, and an elderly person, both pedalled the roundabout shown below.
When we went, it was easy to find a distraction from my own problems and to relax into the space. I wish it were that easy now.
Judith Field
Dalmeny Park, 13-14 Dalmeny Road, London N7 0HH
04/10/2023 12:37:09 PM
114. Garston Park
Garston Park is in Garston, a suburb of Watford. It’s another one that I found by looking for green spaces on a map. About half of the park is a Local Nature Reserve. Garston Park is one of Watford’s most important areas for wildlife and has also been designated a County Wildlife Site by the Hertfordshire Biological Records Centre. It is a Green Flag Award winner.
The Nature Reserve is made up of various wildlife habitats including grassland, wetland, and woodland. A wide variety of wildlife can be found there including slow worms, muntjac deer, foxes, and pipistrelle bats. The reserve has woodland which is mainly oak, ash and sycamore. Mammals seen there include muntjac deer, red foxes, and pipistrelle bats. birds include great spotted and green woodpeckers and several species of butterflies.
I usually try to find out some historical information about the parks we visit, but I couldn’t find anything about the origins of Garston Park. Although I can’t tell you when it opened, it must have been before 1947 because I found a newspaper article from August 1947 about the Watford Fair, held in the park in aid of the Printers’ Pension Corporation. It included sheepdog demonstrations, bicycle polo and bathing beauties.
The park outside the nature reserve is mown grass which has, table tennis tables, football pitch, outdoor gym and a small skatepark. There are picnic tables, but no café or toilets. There’s also a children's playground, which not only has one of Jack’s favourite swings but three large percussion instruments: xylophone, glockenspiel, and tubular bells. We both like these and I usually manage to produce a passable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
There’s a small car park and spaces are available on the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Garston Park, Coates Way, WD25 9NY
27/09/2023 02:43:05 PM
113. Minchenden Oak Garden
This is a small, well-hidden walled garden in Southgate. Entry is through a narrow, unsignposted gap in the wall onto the main road. Inside, it’s a mix of lawn with raised beds along the wall, shrubs, and a variety of trees. There’s a sunken area to one side that might be a drained pond or an empty sunken garden. Dotted around are pieces of carved stone, remnants from the former seventeenth-century Weld Chapel that was attached to the church next door.
The garden used to be part of the estate of Minchenden House, built in 1740 and demolished in 1853. The estate was sold off in the 1930s for housing, which fills most of the area now. The space was opened as a garden of remembrance, in 1934.
Part of the reason the garden was created is the oak tree that stands in the middle – the Minchenden Oak, thought to be 800-years old and a survivor of the ancient Forest of Middlesex. It’s one of the oldest in London. The canopy of the tree was described as the largest in England in 1873. The tree canopy is smaller these days owing to its age, for example two limbs were lost in a gale in 1899 and the tree was badly pruned after that.
In 2013, rot was discovered inside the main trunk and, the canopy was cut back to reduce the weight. The timber was reused in the garden for the benches. To insure against a future loss of the oak, a sapling grown from one of its acorns was planted in May 2015, at the same time as some restoration work was carried out on the rest of the park. The tree is surrounded by a low fence.
I get the impression that the garden is never very crowded as it’s in a residential area of London with only local residents and the local school for regular users. When we were there, we were the only people, and I took the time to sit and relax on one of the many benches. This map shows where it is, not that you can tell. You need to find house number 144 and then walk along the brick wall next to it till you find the doorway.
Judith Field
Minchenden Oak Garden Waterfall Rd, Arnos Grove, London N14 7JN
19/09/2023 10:05:57 PM
112. Boxers Lake Open Space
Boxers Lake in Enfield is surrounded by woodlands, remnants of Enfield Chase. The woodland mainly comprises oak, hornbeam and ash. The lake has a small, wooded island and is popular with anglers. Foxes are often seen in the area and occasionally muntjac deer. There are a variety of waterfowl to be seen, including mallard, moorhen, Canada goose and swans. The area is a Site of Nature Conservation Importance.
There’s a children’s playground, enclosed by fencing as it’s right next to the lake. There’s no café or toilets.
Boxer's Lake Open Space is a relic of the seventeenth century landscape park of South Lodge. It was originally one of a string of lakes or fishponds on the estate. South Lodge was one of three lodges of Enfield Chase, a royal hunting ground, established to accommodate the keepers when the Chase was divided into three walks after 1419. Suburban housing was built over the estate in the nineteen thirties, but its boundary is still traceable in lines of residential streets such as Lonsdale Drive, where the lake is.
The open space and lake are owned by the local authority, but the upkeep is the responsibility of the Boxers Lake Conservation and Angling Association. Surface water from the whole of the Oakwood area passes through culverts and is collected and held in the lake before being released at a controlled rate to continue along the Glenbrook to join Salmons Brook and then the River Lea.
We visited in January, on a dry day, at the start of a blessed release from the weight of months that had nearly crushed me. While Jack was on the Big Lying Down swing in the playground, I sat on a bench, looking through the treetops, each twig glowing and sparkling round the edges, towards the patches of blue sky between the clouds. I exhaled.
Once I’d breathed in again, we went to feed the water birds.
I hadn’t thought to bring anything for them, but they eemed to like the goldfish food that we keep in the car in case we come across any piscine fellow travellers.
Who was Boxer? Does the name include an apostrophe or not? The truth is probably out there. Somewhere.
Judith Field
Boxers Lake, Lonsdale Drive, EN2 7JU
13/09/2023 12:57:36 PM
111. Fortune Green
Fortune Green is a green space in West Hampstead with a village green feel. It mostly consists of lawns and plane trees, with a children’s playground and lots of seats. It’s divided by tree lined paths, with games pitches and a children’s playground. There’s a dog area on the site of former games pitches.
The first recorded mention of Fortune Green was in 1646, and it was first shown on a map in 1746, lying to the north of the village of West End. The Green was a triangular patch of manorial 'waste' where local residents had the right to graze animals, dig turf and play sports and was originally about twice the size it is now. As a result of local protest, various attempts to build on the land in the 1880s and 1890s failed and it was purchased for public open space, opened to the public in 1897.
The Friends of Fortune Green, working with the local authority, was set up in 2007 to improve the Green. This was spurred by the loss of a Planning Appeal against construction of a block of flats on the edge of the Green. One reason given for the planning approval was the "neglected state of the Green". The Friends run regular sessions to maintain the planting, and a programme of varied events, such as Big Lunch, Nature Walks, Action Days and 'Films on the Green'. They excavated the remains of a communal Word War 2 bomb shelter then re-turfed part of it and in one corner created a small children's landscaped area with wooden animal sculptures. They also installed an outdoor gym.
In recognition of the improvement works the Friends have achieved and in celebration of HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee 2012, Fortune Green is now safeguarded as a public recreational space in perpetuity through the charity, Fields in Trust.
At the edge of the green is a pair of K2 telephone kiosks from 1927. Although I didn’t go inside, they both had telephones inside. I believe they’re listed structures. I can’t remember where I last saw a phone box.
There are no café or toilets.
We parked on a street next to it, they’re all named after Greek heroes: Agamemnon, Ajax, Achilles, Ulysses.
Judith Field
Fortune Green, Fortune Green Road, London NW6 1DS
06/09/2023 10:43:44 AM
110. Preston Park
This Green Flag accredited park is in the Preston part of Wembley. The name Preston is not widely used locally, and the neighbourhood is generally considered to be part of either Kenton or North Wembley.
The park was created for the surrounding housing of the Preston Park Estate, built between 1927-37, and the park is bordered by residential housing on all sides. The land was once part of Preston Farm, which until 1086 had belonged to the church, possibly granted to Abbot Stidberht in 767AD by King Offa. Preston was a rural hamlet until Preston Road station was opened in the area in 1931 although the railway had run through the area from 1880.
John Betjeman makes a passing reference to Preston in his Metroland poem Baker St Station Buffet, about his parents taking the train from their home in Ruislip into central London:
Smoothly from Harrow, passing Preston Road,
They saw the last green fields and misty sky…
The park mostly consists of mowed lawns and grassland (some left to grow long during the summer) with mature trees – willows, poplars, and conifers - scattered all over. There are also flower beds, and a winding sunken path runs east-west across the park. The park has a bowling green, football and cricket pitches, tennis courts, an outdoor gym, a playground, and a skateboard area. There is no café or toilets.
An oak tree was planted at Preston Park, in April 2022, as part of the Association of Jewish Refugees’ 80 Trees for 80 Years Project, in which trees were planted around the UK to mark the Association’s 80th anniversary. The aim of the project was to thank all the British people who helped Jewish refugees find safety in Britain from Nazi Europe, and to celebrate the contribution that the Jewish refugees have made to British life.
The park has a small car park, or you can park on the surrounding streets. Access is from Carlton Avenue East, College Road and Montpelier Rise, Wembley.
Judith Field
Preston Park, College Road, HA9 8RJ
30/08/2023 11:50:09 AM
109. Compton Terrace Gardens
These are a pair of gardens running in front of a row of houses, parallel with Upper Street in Islington, London N1. They were created in 1823 and were originally private spaces for the houses but are now open to the public.
Compton Terrace was built piecemeal between 1805 and 1831 as upmarket townhouses for professionals working in the City of London. It’s set back from Upper Street, which was even noisier and busier than it is today as it was not only the main route into the City for people, but also for cattle to be taken to Smithfield market. In the early 19th century, it’s estimated that over 30,000 cattle were brought to the market each week and in 1870, Charles Dickens described Upper Street as being “amongst the noisiest and most disagreeable of thoroughfares in London”.
Today, the gardens are smaller than they were originally, their symmetry destroyed by a German V1 bomb that fell on the north end of the terrace in June 1944, destroying twelve of the nineteen houses and the gardens in front of them. Highbury Corner roundabout occupies this area today.
In 1956 the local authority bought the land. By the 2000s the gardens were run down, and in 2009 a local group of volunteers, with a small grant from the council, took over the management. The gardens now contain 130 mature trees, with a large lawn running through the middle, and lots of park benches on the eastern side.
There are two large anchor shaped flower beds in the gardens, and no one knows why. It’s presumed that a former gardener may have laid them out like that for some personal reason, and they’ve never been changed since.
Judith Field
Compton Terrace Gardens, Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN
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