28/06/2023 06:12:31 PM
101. Whittington Park
This park, in Upper Holloway is, like the hospital, named after Dick Whittington. It could be said that there are two Dick Whittingtons, the real man, rich, successful and generous, and the pantomime character, joyful and keen on cats. The story goes that as the pantomime version was climbing Highgate Hill having left London after failing to make his riches, he heard the bells of St Mary Le Bow in Cheapside (I don’t think you could hear them from Highgate these days) and believed they were sending him a message to return to London. The place where he is meant to have stopped is marked by the Whittington Stone, together with cat. Some have said that rather than a pet, he may have had a catte, a type of boat, or that his purchases were called exchats. Anyway, there’s a topiary cat next to the entrance of Whittington Park.
Whittington Park started life in 1954 as a small public open space but it was not officially opened until August 1973, by which time it had grown to around six times the original size. A time capsule, to be opened in 50 years' time, August 2023, was buried with a message to be read by future Islingtonians – not long to wait now.
The park was recommended to me by a friend and FRS member, and it didn’t disappoint. There are lots of different areas to visit. It has green space, but also next to the Holloway Road entrance is a wildflower meadow, to the west is a small woodland and several native species hedgerows, managed through the traditional craft of ‘layering’, which provide good cover for birds. There’s a wide range of bird species for such an urban location: of mistle thrush, goldfinch, greenfinch and house sparrows, a species which is now rare in many parts of London. It’s been designated a Site of Local Importance to Nature Conservation.
The park has rose and shrub beds, an ecology garden, wildlife pond and the community garden, maintained by the Whittington Park Community Association 4H Garden Group. 4H stands for Hops, Herbs, Health and Happiness.
There are also a community classroom and a war memorial, commemorating the fallen from one particular street, Cromwell Road, which was where the park now is.
There’s a floodlit astroturf pitch, table tennis tables, a children's playground, sandpits, water play feature, picnic tables and a skate park. There are also toilets, and a café run by the local community association. There’s no car park but we found space on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Whittington Park, Holloway Road, London N19 4RS
21/06/2023 04:55:29 PM
100. Albany Park
Albany, Albany…the park we went to twice. Don’t ask me how I managed to bypass Jack’s satnav-like memory to tell where we’ve already been. We first went in November 2022 and again a few weeks ago, on our way back from somewhere else that turned out not to have been worth visiting.
It’s in the east of Enfield and is another King George Field, protected by Fields in Trust since 1935. It was laid out in 1902, on former farmland and allotments that were purchased by the local authority and Trinity College Cambridge. Albany park was probably named to commemorate Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, who died in 1884. During World War 2, the railings on Bell Lane were removed for the war effort and the land was used for growing vegetables.
The park has open space with paths, football pitches, tennis and basketball courts, a bowling green, playgrounds (one of which is wheelchair accessible) and a skatepark and a small, wooded area. The Turkey Brook runs along the north side of the park. It rises in Potters Bar, and eventually merges with the River Lee Navigation (a canalised river) below Enfield Lock. The brook is named from the hamlet Turkey Street, which is recorded as early as the fifteenth century as Tokestreete, meaning a hamlet, associated with a family called Toke or Tokey. The former name is in my family. And I thought they came from Latvia.
The brook previously flowed in a continuous concrete channel, but in 2021 it was diverted into a new meander in the park, helping to slow the flow of water and provide new habitats for wildlife. An embankment was built on the other side of the park using the excavated soil so that park will act as a flood storage area if the brook overflows its banks.
There’s no café, toilets, or carpark. We found a space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Albany Park, Hertford Road/ Bell Lane, Enfield EN3 5PA
21/06/2023 04:55:05 PM
99. Neasden Recreation Ground
I wrote about the Welsh Harp Open Space in March 2021 (no 10), after we visited the northwest side of the Welsh Harp Reservoir, set up as a nature reserve in 1965. Apparently, Neasden means “nose-shaped hill” in Old English. The reservoir itself was constructed in 1835.
There is also a park on the south side, known as Neasden Recreation Ground. It comprises flat, open space with sitting areas, a multi-use games area, an outdoor gym and a children’s play area. There’s also a wildlife conservation area.
During the first world war, From 1916, the fields between the reservoir and the top of Dollis Hill, to the south (including the space the park occupies), became a testing ground for a new weapon, the tank. The best known was the Mark IX, developed locally, the world’s first specialised armoured personnel carrier.
In the 1920s the area attracted naturists, who sunbathed on the north bank and swam nude, or semi-nude in the reservoir. They marked out a sunbathing area and put up notices saying “Sun-bathing ground. Please keep away”. This didn’t deter some curious locals, who would go to stare at the nudists and take photographs. Other local residents took offence at the nudity and in June 1930 a group of naked sunbathers were attacked by two hundred local objectors. No-one seems to have been seriously injured, but the event is still referred to as “The Sun-Bathing Riots”.
During the Second World War a seaplane was kept on the reservoir, rumoured to be there to evacuate the Prime Minister and other senior figures from a secret bunker in Dollis Hill in the event of a German invasion. A small pond close to the north bank of the main reservoir is said to have been created when an unexploded bomb was detonated there during the war, although I could find no documentary evidence to support this.
These days the park is a peaceful place where everyone keeps their kit on, or at least they did on the day we were there, and no bombs fall. You can forget that the benighted north circular is behind you. We walked across, and up a slight slope, only to see sails moving past – it’s very close to the reservoir with its sailing clubs.
There are no toilets or cafe. There is a small car park, and parking space is available on nearby streets.
Judith Field
Neasden Recreation Ground, Aboyne Road, London NW2 7TE
07/06/2023 04:43:28 PM
98. Portsoken Street Garden
In my previous post, I mentioned the King George's Fields Foundation, which created many public gardens in memory of King George V. We’ve visited several, and most of them were the usual sort of “park size”. Recently I visited the smallest in the UK – Portsoken Street Garden, in the City of London near Tower Hill Underground Station. A look at the map below will give an idea of the size.
I went there on my own, but perhaps I will go back with Jack as I noticed another tiny garden near the station, right by a piece of the old London wall, that has one of the big swings he likes. This was on one of my walking trips to several parks and gardens in the area, which took me past Trinity House. Anyone who knows about my interest in lighthouses will understand my fascination with the building.
Portsoken Street Garden has a busy main road to one side and is surrounded by office buildings, but I still found it a calming place. I sat for quite a long time just taking it all in. The garden was landscaped in the nineteen eighties, to include a water feature with a fountain and pools within circular brick walls, a perimeter path, seating and planting of shrubs, bedding displays and trees. It was redesigned in 2010 to add a waterfall and create a new play area, with an emphasis on introducing natural play. There’s a musical instrument set into the ground made from bellows and old railway sleepers.
The garden features a central pond surrounded by a small area of grass with a mix of shrub and herbaceous planting. There are several benches including some with tables as well as play equipment for children to enjoy. A wall on the hotel next door has been covered with plants, extending the greenery beyond ground level, and giving the illusion of a larger space.
It’s popular with local parents and children, and with workers in the local offices at lunchtimes. It won First Prize in the small public garden square category of the London Garden Squares Competition, in 2012.
Judith Field
Portsoken Street Garden, Portsoken Street, City of London, E1 8BZ
31/05/2023 04:45:17 PM
97. North Enfield Recreation Ground
This large flat recreation ground in Enfield was built on the site of former dairy farm grazing land and is still known locally as Tucker's Field after the dairy farmer who owned it. It’s a pleasant green space for a walk, behind terraced housing and a primary school.
The north part of Enfield remained rural into the twentieth century, when it started to become built up. In 1907 the local authority, who were keen to make sure that some areas remained public open space, bought the land. It had been used as the home ground for Enfield Spartans football club from 1896-1900, after which they changed their name to Enfield Football Club and found larger premises.
It was laid out and opened as North Enfield Recreation Ground. Later a grant was received from the King George's Fields Foundation, established in 1936 to encourage provision of parks, playing fields, recreation grounds and green spaces across the UK as a memorial to George V. These could be more widely enjoyed than a statue of the late king in London. Each is identified by a brass heraldic panel at the entrance, such as this one at the Myrtle Road entrance.
There are over 500 of them, now protected by Fields in Trust.
It’s an attractive place for wildlife and is home to a variety of birds. Stag beetles (the largest British beetle) have been found there, but we didn’t see any. You can walk dogs in the park but there’s a dog-free zone there. The Friends of Tucker's Field have planted trees and replaced hedges in the park in recent years, with the help of Enfield Conservation Volunteers.
There is a lot of open space, football pitches, tennis courts, a playground and picnic benches. There are no toilets or café.
There are entrances on Myrtle Grove, Woodbine Grove and Kilvinton Drive, Enfield, and there’s a footpath leading to the park on Clay Hill.
Judith Field
North Enfield Recreation Ground, 7 Myrtle Grove, Enfield EN2 0DZ
24/05/2023 04:43:51 PM
96. Durants Park
We’ve now visited 207 parks, although some aren’t worth writing about (for example, the rubbish-strewn wastelands we’ve been to just because they had one of the big swings Jack likes). As this is the 96th post, I suppose a 46% worth-writing-about rate isn’t bad. I plan to go on with the visits, weather permitting.
Durants Park is a large open space in the heart of Enfield, and I decided to write about it as soon as we walked in because there was more to it than open space.
As well as the grasslands, the west part of Durants Park is laid out with an area of floral displays by the entrance and there are shrubs and a willow by the small lake, where we saw ducks. There’s a small, wooded area which is home to different species of birds.
It’s named after Durrants, a sub-manor of the Enfield Estate dating from the thirteenth century. At some time it seems to have lost a letter r in the name. In 1903 the local authority had bought 14 hectares of estate land for a public park. It initially had a bandstand and drinking fountain, but by the nineteenth century tennis courts, bowling and putting greens, and an athletics track had been provided.
There must once have been an orchard there: The Middlesex Gazette in August 1912 reports that two boys (aged 13 and 11) had been charged with stealing apples from the orchard to the value of 1 shilling (5p – worth about £8 at the time). They also damaged the trees. They were fined two shillings and sixpence (12.5p – worth about £18), and 1 shilling respectively.
In the late nineteen nineties, a grant enabled the children's paddling pool to be created, with rocks and landscaping around the perimeter and a series of colourful cut-out zoo animals affixed to the iron railings.
It has an outdoor gym bowling green, paddling pool, pond, football pitches, children's play area, basketball courts, tennis courts and a skateboard area. There are wide paths for walking or bike riding. There are lots of benches. There’s a toilet but no café. There doesn’t seem to be a car park, but we found a space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Durants Park. Hertford Road, Enfield, London, EN3 7JF
17/05/2023 05:23:42 PM
95. Headstone Recreation Ground
This park, one of Harrow’s six Green Flag Parks, gained the Award in 2022. It’s a remnant of a medieval estate once owned by the Archbishops of Canterbury. The land was worked as a farm until the nineteen twenties, although by then the land was increasingly being sold for housing development. In 1925 it was sold to the local authority and opened as Headstone Park in 1928.
Headstone Manor, inside the park, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It consists of four separate historic buildings with the Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre based in the Manor House itself. The other three are the tithe barn, small barn, and granary. The tithe barn dates from the sixteenth century and was used for stabling and crop storage by the Archbishops and tenant farmers. By the nineteen twenties it had become dilapidated but in 1943 repairs were undertaken and it became The Barn Theatre, used as part of the Second World Wartime Holiday-at-Home Scheme. This was designed to prevent unnecessary travel by encouraging local authorities to draw up a programme of amusements for the summer months. The events were designed to save space on trains for troops and to keep people at home.
The park includes lots of open space, football and cricket pitches, children’s play areas, tennis and basketball courts, outdoor gym, wetland area, a marked walking trail, woodland, and hedgerows, which are home to wild plants and flowers.
A section of Yeading Brook runs through the park. This is a sixteen-mile tributary of the River Crane (which is itself a tributary of the River Thames). Sticklebacks can be found here.
Dogs are allowed in the park, although there are some dog-free areas. There’s a café, and toilets, in the museum. There’s also a car park.
Judith Field
Headstone Recreation Ground, Pinner View, HA2 6PX
10/05/2023 04:58:20 PM
94. Joseph Grimaldi Park
This small park is in the south of Islington, a short walk from King's Cross along Pentonville Road.
It was once it was a burial ground for Pentonville Chapel, later known as St James’s Anglican Chapel. In the late 19th century, it was transformed into a public park and named in honour of its most influential ‘resident’, Joseph Grimaldi, who lived from 1778 to 1837. Grimaldi is considered the father of modern clowning and his grave, in the park surrounded by a fence, is considered a pilgrimage site for the clowning community. We didn’t see any clowns when we visited, but neither of us is scared of them anyway. Many of the other tombstones are piled up against the north boundary wall.
The park was refurbished in 2010, including a musical installation commemorating Grimaldi and the musician Charles Dibdin, his employer at Sadlers Wells. It consists of two coffin-shaped bonze plates and the title of the work is ‘An Invitation to Dance on the Grave’. The plates are supposed to make bell sounds: according to a press release from the time, it’s supposed to play the song ‘Hot Codlins’, (an old term for a baked apple) which Grimaldi himself made famous. Neither Jack nor I could get a sound out of them, though.
The park itself is divided into four sections, divided by old brick walls. There’s the decorative park with the grave, another section containing grass covered mounds under trees, a third is an open space, and the fourth has a tennis court and playground. The walls separating the street from the playground have been painted by the children who attend the nearby school. There are lots of places to sit.
Trees, such as lime, London plane and horse chestnut grow in the park, as well as wild plants and flowers. I noticed cow parsley, shepherd’s purse, bluebells, and star of Bethlehem. This last one is known by several other names as well, some apply to me too: eleven o’clock lady, grass lily, nap-at-noon and sleepydick.
There are no café or toilets. The park is closed on Tuesdays. We found space to park on a nearby side street.
Judith Field
Joseph Grimaldi Park, 11 Collier St, London N1 9JU
03/05/2023 05:01:40 PM
93. Priory Park
This is, I think, with the exception of East Finchley Cemetery which we visit each Saturday, the only open space of the 205 parks we've visited that we've been to more than once – he’d been there with his excellent keyworkers from Kisharon and liked it so much he asked to go back with me.
Priory Park is one of the most popular parks in Haringey. It’s an irregular U shape with large open grassy spaces, an ornamental garden, tennis courts, paddling pool (used as a play area when there’s no water in it), café, toilets, playground, and large area for netball practice and junior cycling. It’s home to the Hornsey Pétanque Club. It was first awarded the Green Flag Award in 2003 and has kept it ever since.
The park was created in two sections. land at the eastern and southern ends were purchased in 1891 by the local authority and opened in 1896 as the Middle Lane Pleasure Grounds. In 1926 the western section was added, after the authority bought land that had been used for allotments during the First World War After the war an plan for the council to develop the field for housing was dropped on grounds of cost, and an expanded park was renamed Priory Park. Despite the name, there has never been (as far as is known) a priory on this site. The park is named after the sprawling estate that once covered the area and the 19th century mansion that stood inside it.
The original eastern section of the park has bedding displays, walks, shrub beds and mature trees. The western section is mainly grassed, with lines of trees, with some of the grass left long to encourage wildflowers. That section also includes the Philosophers’ Garden, a quiet area bounded by hedges and fences. It is named after a group of local retired men who, from the nineteen thirties until the nineteen sixties, would meet daily in Priory Park. The Priory Park Philosophers became a social group, entertaining themselves and others, singing, playing cricket and bowls, and also raising money for charity. The garden includes a wildlife pond where newts and frogs have been seen, sculptures (for example “The Drop” shown below).
There’s no car park but we managed to find space to park on the street. There are entrances on Priory Road, Middle Lane, Barrington Road, Abbeville Road (all London N8).
Judith Field
Priory Park, 112 Middle Lane, London N8 8LN
26/04/2023 04:59:18 PM
92. Thornhill Square
This square, a quiet oasis off the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury area of Islington, is the largest in the borough. It’s bounded by Victorian terraced houses, all listed buildings. We drove past it on the way to a different park, but it was on our list, so I stopped there instead. We will visit that one another time, when I feel up to the grind that is the Archway Road, and beyond, that forms our route to Islington.
The gardens and the land around them were originally owned by Thomas Thornhill in the 19th-century, who developed it for housing. The land where the garden is was at the time used as a commercial market garden nursery and the garden was formally opened in 1890, but for the private use of the residents. The gardens were donated to Islington Council in 1947 for public use, and in 1953 the gardens were re-designed and landscaped as part of the Council’s “Coronation Year” improvements.
The garden has mature trees, lawns, rose beds, ornamental borders, benches, and a playground. It’s a haven for insects and is a site of local importance for nature conservation. A local community group looks after it in collaboration with Islington Council. One of the donors to the group is listed as “a former Prime Minister, whose house backed onto the gardens”. That must have Sir Tony Blair, who lived in the next street from 1993 to 1997.
Another famous resident was Edith Garrud, who trained the suffragette unit “The Bodyguard”, in jujitsu and the use of Indian clubs to protect Emmeline Pankhurst.
There are no café or toilets in the garden, but there used to be toilets (later demolished). These gained unexpected notoriety in 1977, when the decapitated head of the London gangland criminal, Billy Moseley was found there. Other body parts were found in the Thames. His disappearance, apparent torture, and eventual murder was a major news story in the mid nineteen seventies. The Sunday mirror, for example, described it as “the world’s most gruesome jigsaw”.
Two men were convicted of his murder in 1977 and jailed for life, but their conviction was overturned in 2002 when it was proven that the police evidence against them had been falsified. Whoever dumped the head in the garden toilet is still unknown.
Judith Field
Thornhill Square, London N1 1BQ
