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
23/08/2023 11:47:53 AM
108. New Southgate Millennium Green
Millennium Greens are areas of green space meant for the benefit of local communities in England. Starting in 1996, 245 were created in cities, towns and villages to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Each one is different, as local people had an input into the design of their green. They are run by local charitable trusts.
The land had previously been used in the nineteen seventies for housing, shops and a workshop until local redevelopment took place in the nineteen seventies. There had been plans to build on the land, but these were not implemented and the land was flattened and seeded with grass, with a few trees were planted in corners. It was owned by the local authority and regularly mown, but otherwise ignored by both the authorities and the public alike.
Around twenty years later, the council sent a survey out to local people asking them what they wanted the land to be used for and over 70% said they wanted it to remain green. With the support of the local community association, an application was made to the Countryside Commission to create a Millennium Green and it opened in 2000. One entrance is decorated with a finial from a former Southgate gasworks.
The green receives no regular funding from the local authority. There is a playground (which we also visited as it had not one, but two big lying-down swings) almost opposite, so the Trust concentrates on the green being a countryside haven, with high hedges and tall trees to block out the outside world as much as possible. It has a mix of more community features, such as paths, a paved area and sculptures (including wooden pigs – Jack’s favourite animal) with more country features, such as uncut grassland and an orchard of fruit trees, donated by Homebase. The trust is in the process of creating an arboretum. There are seats in the centre of the Green and a tree-seat in the shade. There is also a large picnic bench in the shade in the Orchard.
In 1999 a boat sculpture was created, to commemorate the writer Jerome K Jerome, author of “Three Men in a boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)”, published in 1889, who lived nearby during his childhood. There is also a mosaic of a dog set into the ground near the north entrance.
There’s are no café or toilets. We parked on the street nearby.
Judith Field
New Southgate Millennium Green, Inverforth Rd, Arnos Grove, London N11 1SY
09/08/2023 04:35:49 PM
106. Paradise Park
This park in Holloway has just received a Community Green Flag Award, for the twelfth time. The Friends of Paradise Park say that when their organisation was first set up over ten years ago, a green flag would be almost black after flying for a year in the Islington air but now, a flag is hardly grey. Cutting down on pollution is making a difference.
The park includes a large open grassed area, wildflower and sparrow meadows, outdoor gym, and a table tennis table. There’s also a children’s playground with a water play feature. It’s also home to the Paradise Park Children’s Centre.
On Boxing Day 1944 at 9.30pm, one of the worst civilian disasters of the Second World War happened in the road where the park is now. People were crowding into the Prince of Wales pub opposite, when the pub received a direct hit from a V2 rocket. These rockets travelled at supersonic speed and, unlike the V1 flying bomb, there was no audible warning. According to records, this one had been launched in Belgium and took just twenty minutes to arrive. The final death toll was calculated at 68 although some bodies were never recovered. For many years the area now occupied by the park was filled with prefab houses providing shelter for some of the many local families who had lost their homes during the War.
The park includes the Mary Tealby garden. This quiet space is maintained by the Friends, who hold weekly gardening sessions. It commemorates Mary Tealby (1801-1865), who set up The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs where the park now stands. Later, the Home moved to south London and became Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. The garden has a chess table with seats, a recreated traditional hedgerow and wooden sculpture of a dog.
Next to Paradise Park is Freightliners City Farm. This has a café and toilets but there aren’t any in the park itself. We found space to park on the road.
Judith Field
Paradise Park, Mackenzie Road London N7 8RB
02/08/2023 04:49:45 PM
105. Pinner Village Gardens
This large, popular community park is the second park in Pinner that we’ve visited, and it was worth getting my ear bent by Jack for turning right at the end of the road, to go there.
The name Pinner apparently comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Pinnora. There seem to be different translations: it might mean a hill surrounded by oaks, a hill shaped like a pin, or a bank at the edge of the River Pinn, a tributary of the River Colne, that runs through the middle of the area.
Pinner Memorial Garden was laid out in the 1920s at the same time as the suburb Pinner. It comprises a variety of different spaces – there is open grassland but also winding paths across the lawns, shrubs and specimen trees around the perimeter, floral displays in raised beds and a rose garden. There are also a 1930s drinking fountain, and a wildlife pond which is home to frogs and newts. There’s a Narrow ‘rig ridge’ and furrow in the south part of the park. This is a reminder of the previous use of the land for farming, from medieval times. The Friends of Pinner Village Gardens look after the gardens, organising bulb planting and other events, such as a picnic to celebrate the Coronation.
There are tennis and basketball courts, table tennis tables, basketball, exercise equipment, skateboard area and a playground. The park is also home to a 2 km junior parkrun for children between 4 and 14, every Sunday morning.
There are a number of small wooden totem poles around the park, carved by a local wood sculptor, including a fairy tower with staircases, windows, and a turret at the top. There isn’t a café or toilet, for the wee folk of any size.
There is access from Hereford Gardens, Marsh Road, Rayners Lane, and Whittington Way, all in Harrow. There isn’t a car park, but we found space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Pinner Village Gardens, Marsh Road, Pinner, HA5 5JR
26/07/2023 12:31:18 PM
104. Finsbury Circus Gardens
Not to be mixed up with nearby Finsbury Square, or not so nearby Finsbury Park, Finsbury Circus Gardens is the largest open space in the City of London.
For the ten years up to August 2020, it was closed as the central part was occupied by Crossrail, who used it to dig down and sideways to the tunnels underneath in constructing Liverpool Street Elizabeth Line station. It has a large lawn in the centre, surrounded by tall trees, including London plane, lime trees and a Japanese pagoda tree, and a bandstand.
This Grade II listed garden is what remains of Moor Fields, London's first public park, dating from 1607. The Circus was created in 1812, the name reflecting its elliptical shape, like the circuses in ancient Rome. It was opened as a public park in the early twentieth century, having previously been a private space for the use of the freeholders or leaseholders of the surrounding buildings.
The lawn is lined with benches, and I sat for a while, watching a group of hi-vis jacketed children on the other side, from a nearby nursery perhaps, playing with hula hoops. I was visited by a baby starling. I wish I’d thought to bring some birdseed for it. I’ll have to add that to the fish food we always take along; perhaps in separate pockets of my jeans.
The City of London Corporation is said to be bringing proposals forward to improve the gardens and introduce a new pavilion building that will be used as a café and restaurant. There isn’t one at the moment, nor toilets.
Just outside Finsbury Circus is what looks like a small stone obelisk, dedicated to the memory of George Dance the Younger, the architect who designed the Circus. The road in front of it has an array of large manhole covers, and the indents at the top of the obelisk are open spaces. The obelisk is actually hollow, and it’s a ventilation tower. The site used to be an underground toilet, but in 1997 the site was cleared and taken over for use as an underground gas storage facility.
Assuming you don’t want to drive, and in particular try to park in the City, the easiest way to the garden is by Underground to Moorgate, from which it’s about a 5-minute walk.
Judith Field
Finsbury Circus Gardens. Finsbury Circus, London EC2M 7DT
19/07/2023 04:44:27 PM
103. Bernays Gardens
This garden is in Church Road, Stanmore. I found it when I got lost trying to drive to another open space. Waze had led me up a private road to the wrong place, Maps kept telling me I'd arrived, and I was on my way home when I drove past the garden. It is named after the Bernays family, of whom Leopold and later Stewart Bernays were rectors of Stanmore parish church, next door.
The garden is on the site of an old Manor House, built in a mock Tudor design by a local property developer in 1930. He planned to make the house self-sufficient with a small farm, and a row of buildings beside the gardens today are still known as the cowsheds. He was fond of inscriptions and inscribed on the beam above the entrance lodge ‘Welcome ever smiles and farewell goes out sighing.’ The main building is known as Cowman’s Cottage, and has a moral statement carved on a wooden plaque on the side elevation: ‘Children of our hearts learn from flowers that grown in golden years.’
Unfortunately, after spending over £100,000 on the project, he had to sell up after he was declared bankrupt. During World War II the gardens were used for allotments. In the nineteen forties the land was bought by Harrow Council and laid out as a public park. The high walls surrounding the garden date from the 19th century and are Grade II listed.
The garden was restored and is maintained by the Bernays Gardens Community Group, who reinstated one of the flower beds as a rose bed, and planted rose bushes, daffodils, poppies, shrubs and plants. They have installed bat boxes, bird nesting boxes and bee/bug boxes, and have created woodpiles to make areas more suitable for wildlife.
There are picnic benches and plenty of places to sit. There is no café or toilets. Parking is a matter of luck – we found a space right outside on the main road. The site is open from 7.30am - dusk.
Judith Field
Bernays Gardens, Old Church Lane Church Road, Stanmore HA7 2QX
12/07/2023 04:42:22 PM
102. Tiverton Green
This small open space is in Brondesbury, near Kilburn and Queens Park. I found it by looking at a map, followed by a glimpse at Google Earth. This method doesn’t always work, as I found out last Sunday after a prolonged shlep along the westbound Benighted North Circular to a rubbish-strewn dump with a big swing, and I’ve only written about around half of those we’ve visited.
Tiverton Green was, however, worth visiting. It’s close to Queens Park (see 71), should you fancy visiting two places at once. It has a football/basketball court, a climbing wall and a cycling course, playground, tennis court and an outdoor gym. There are picnic tables and a lot of open space, and the park looked well maintained, unlike others we’ve visited.
It was originally a school sports ground and until recently hosted the rugby pitch for Kilburn Cosmos (since relocated to Gladstone Park, see 12). Following a residents’ campaign in 2008, in conjunction with local councillors, funding was granted to improve the Green and new paths were laid, trees and flower borders were planted, and new benches installed. In 2015, funding was approved to upgrade the playground – judged a success by Jack.
I also noticed this wooden sculpture, but there was no indication of who sculpted it or what it was meant to be.
I’ve drawn a blank with Google as well. It seems to have a cat's face at the top, then a fish tail that morphs into a face. Perhaps it’s meant to be a green man, also known as a woodwose or foliate head. This is a feature in architecture - interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. My daughter Ruth gave me this one.
I call it a catwose and keep it in my garden in Mill Hill as a year-round symbol of the companion animals, indoor and outdoor, that I’ve loved over the years.
Judith Field
Tiverton Green, The Avenue, London NW6 7NN
05/07/2023 05:07:42 PM
102. Springfield Park
Springfield Park is in Upper Clapton in the London Borough of Hackney. Before our visit, I was last there 40 years ago, when I lived in the area. Unlike the usual situation when you revisit after a long time, the park seemed much bigger than I remembered it. Sainsbury’s of Stamford Hill is still there, too. I wonder if they have enough trolleys now?
Springfield Park officially opened as a public park in 1905 and was formed from the grounds of three private houses, of which only Springfield House remains. Roman sarcophagi were found during building and landscaping work in the nineteenth century at the park, along with pottery and other burials. The Hackney Boat, the remains of a late Saxon logboat (made from a single tree trunk) were found close by in 1987. The original boat and a reproduction of what it might have looked like, are on display in Hackney Museum.
The park has a variety of habitats with a lake, grassland, many veteran trees, and the springs which give the park its name. There are formal gardens, conservation areas, a community garden, and extensive views across Walthamstow Marshes. The park is a local nature reserve, holds a Green Flag Award and the capital ring walk runs through it.
There’s an athletic track, cricket pitch, pond, outdoor chessboards, tennis courts and a table tennis table. There’s a bandstand, where exercise classes take place. The small community orchard contains varieties of local apple trees, a medlar tree and an olive tree.
In 2017 the Council, using money from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, undertook a £4.1 million restoration project at Springfield Park. This included refurbishment of Springfield House and may be the reason the park seemed different to me. It has a new play area and a bookable venue known as The Glass House.
The park slopes from high ground on the edge of Stamford Hill to the towpath of the River Lee Navigation on the River Lea, at the end of Spring Hill. I believe that’s what Tel Aviv translates as. I think this is appropriate. On the eastern edge of the park is Springfield Marina, a large basin for narrowboats. I spotted one all the way from Liverpool, like me, one called Trotsky, and another Cushty.
There are a café and toilets in Springfield House. We found space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Springfield Park, Upper Clapton Road, London E5 9EF
