26/05/2022 11:49:37 AM
55. Conway Road Recreation Ground
This park is in Palmers Green and I found it by looking for areas of green on the map that aren’t golf courses or school grounds. As we visit more and more places there are fewer new ones nearby. This is tiny, but I couldn’t face a longer drive.
I was glad that I chose it, because it was peaceful and clean, with a lovely ornamental pond, grassy slopes filled with wildflowers, and plenty of benches for resting on. Just where Jack and I needed to be on a sunny afternoon. Much of the space is taken up with two private tennis courts, but the rest of it is a green oasis in a suburban setting, tucked away and easy to miss.
The pond had been there for centuries, fed by natural springs running underground, before housing was developed in the area in 1904. In 1911, there was talk – which got into local papers – of a Beast of Conway Pond. Nobody had seen it, but rumours were that it was some sort of sealion, said to produce such an “ominous bellow” that people were kept awake at night and “babies cried with fright.” In the end it was found – an American Bullfrog about six inches long.
The Rec is home to a wide range of amphibians, insects, birds, and mammals – including three species of bat. It’s looked after by the Friends of Conway Rec working closely with Enfield Council, local schools, and the tennis club. Volunteers garden and keep the pond clean and healthy. Work is under way to plant more native species of bulbs, shrubs, and trees, to offer an increasingly rich habitat. Future projects include creating a bog garden and setting up a discovery trail. The oaks in the Rec are about 250 years old and were once part of the Great Forest of Middlesex.
The Rec is also home to the smallest library I’ve ever seen, a box of books put there by the Little Free Library organisation. It’s one of 100,000 registered Little Free Library book-sharing boxes in 108 countries worldwide. They operate on an honour principle. Take a book, return that one, or a different one. The box was stocked with books, intact and unvandalized. Unfortunately, there was no space in this library for me to write in, so the search continues.
Judith Field
Conway Road Recreation Ground, Conway Road, London N14 7BD
11/05/2022 05:12:21 PM
54. Finchley Way Open Space
Finchley Way Open Space is another hidden gem. It’s a nature reserve in West Finchley, about the size of a football pitch field, hidden behind well-established trees a few minutes’ walk from West Finchley Underground station. Few people seem to know about it or that it’s open to the public. We found it when I looked on a map for nearby green spaces that we might not have visited.
The Space is the site of the former Brent Lodge house and gardens. In the late Middle Ages, the site had been small fields and wasteland. There had been a house there since at least the eighteenth century and by the early twentieth century the site had developed into a 26-acre estate with a grand house (Brent Lodge, built in 1810) and ornate gardens. In 1939 the house and its gardens were bequeathed to the people of Finchley with the stipulation that the site should be ‘retained always as an open space for the use and enjoyment always of the public’. The house was demolished in 1962. The Space is managed and maintained by the Friends of Finchley Way Open Space with the London Borough of Barnet Greenspaces Team.
There are three distinct parts to the u-shaped Space, an open Green Field (the site of the house) for play and sitting, and two areas of woodland: the Copse and the Orchard. The Orchard (shown on early maps as a kitchen garden) is being renovated as a wildlife area with informal seating. The paths are kept tidy and woodchipped. The Friends’ annual survey for 2021 found that people feel that the site needs to retain the tranquil, wild, and natural feel. So, some areas will continue to be left wild to provide a home for wildlife.
The pupils from nearby Moss Hall Nursery School visit several times a week as part of their Forest School programme, which aims to build respect for the environment by learning outside the classroom.
Judith Field
Finchley Way Open Space is bordered by Finchley Way (the main entrance), Hamilton Way, The Drive, and Penstemon Close, N3.
Finchley Way Open Space, opposite number 6 Finchley Way, London N3 1AH
06/05/2022 10:55:30 AM
53. Victoria Recreation Ground
Victoria Recreation Ground is in East Barnet. It’s mainly grassed, is popular with walkers and dog walkers, and has playgrounds for younger and older children, football pitches, tennis and basketball courts, and a bowling green.
The park is roughly square-shaped and was laid out in the late nineteenth century on land previously known as “Mrs Cook’s Farm”. Barnet Football Club played there in the 1889–90 season. It has flower beds which are the remains of a formal flower garden: a circular mound with a walk around the edge, laid out as a rose garden. Next to this is a drinking fountain with the inscription ‘Honest Water which ne’er left man in the Mire’. This was the gift of Thomas Morgan Harvey, in 1882. He was a local landowner and businessman who lived in East Barnet and the fountain originally stood on his land. It was moved to Victoria Recreation Ground in 1935.
Shirebourne Brook runs along the south side of the park. This brook rises in King George’s Fields, Hadley, and after passing the park it joins Pymmes Brook (see number 46). The Pymmes Brook Trail passes north-south through the park.
New Barnet Library and Leisure Centre, built in 2019, is at the edge of the park. We haven’t been inside it, but Jack added its pool to the list of those he wants us to visit. I won’t be writing about that, because the enjoyability or otherwise of swimming with Jack depends entirely on the attitude of other people there to obvious learning disability. As anyone who knows me is aware, I am meek and quiet - but I’ve shouted at kids teasing him (the first time I did, adrenaline erased forty-six years of living in London, and my initial thought was “who’s that Scouse gerl shouting b***er off?”). The Incredible Liverpudlian Hulk also chased a gang of teenage lads (they ran away up a staircase). We’re going to New Barnet Leisure Centre this month, so haters beware.
There are no cafes or toilets in the park but it’s possible to use the ones in the leisure centre. There’s a car park and there’s also room to park on the surrounding roads. Access is from Park Road, Victoria Road, Lawton Road, and by a footpath and footbridge from Cromer Road.
Judith Field
Victoria Recreation Ground, Lawton Road/Victoria Road/Park Road, East Barnet, EN4 9QB
28/04/2022 10:08:34 AM
52. Centenary Park
This park is in Stanmore – we went there when I could turn right at the end of the road without Jack shouting “I told you to turn left” for the rest of the journey. The park is spacious and on a slight slope, and there is plenty of room to walk. This contrasts with some places we’ve visited lately, which comprise playgrounds (the reason I chose them) but little else. So, although we’ve now visited 153 parks, I won’t be writing about all of them, especially those on my list where I’ve commented “bleak”. Now that the days are longer and, I hope, the weather is improving, I am going to have to insist on our visiting places where we can walk, whether there’s a “big lying-down swing”, a “chair swing”, or not.
Centenary Park was added to the area’s public open space in 1934 when the local authority acquired the land. It’s called after the centenary of local government. Although the park is mainly a large open space, it has the remains of a formal layout with a tree set in a circular lawn near the main entrance and another bed planted with heather and conifers. A path around the edge is planted with London plane trees.
Centenary park has two floodlit football pitches available for hire, bowling green, tennis courts, pitch and putt golf course, exercise machines, and playgrounds for younger and older children. There are benches to rest on and paths for walking. This was good for us as quite a few places we’ve visited didn’t seem to have any paths and we have had to squelch our way across mud and waterlogged grass. But not at Centenary Park, where the paths are also wide enough for wheelchairs. Dog walking is allowed.
The park has a café, with space to sit outside. There are toilets. There is no car park but it’s possible to park on nearby streets. There are entrances from Burnell Gardens, Crowshott avenue and Culver Grove, Stanmore.
Judith Field
Centenary Park, 135 Culver Grove, Stanmore, HA7 2NW
07/04/2022 03:34:17 PM
51. Tudor Sports Ground
Tudor Sports Ground is a park in New Barnet. It’s a large, grassed area with scattered mature trees. It’s largely used for sport, but there’s lots of room to walk in. You might miss it if you looked for it on a map, because some only show the footgolf course in the park. It has eighteen holes and the game involves kicking a football into a hole (larger than in normal golf) in as few kicks as possible. Once inside the park, follow the signs to ‘The Field of Dreams’. There’s also a cricket pitch, tennis court, basketball shooting area and playgrounds for younger and older children.
Overlooking the park is a run-down nineteen twenties art deco pavilion. This is included in Barnet Council’s local heritage list as being of ‘historical and architectural interest because of its social and community value, its age and rarity, and its landmark qualities’. It’s not much of a landmark at the moment but there’s a campaign to renovate it. It might then be used to house one or more of a café, public toilets, community space, events space, social enterprise and changing facilities.
The space that makes up the park has been protected by the Fields in Trust charity since 1940 as a covenanted field. This means that there is a legal agreement between the landowner and Fields in Trust that the landowner will ‘retain it for use as a green space, usually a public park, playing field or recreation ground, in perpetuity.’
Tudor Sports Ground is one of sixteen Barnet's Premier Parks. Barnet describe them as ‘exemplar ideal parks which are attractive, accessible, well maintained and offer a wide range of facilities’. Barnet’s objective is to ensure that one is available within one mile of the majority of homes in the Borough. I don’t know whether they’ve met this objective, but if I do find the time and inclination to sit down with a map and compasses, I’ll let you know.
There are no café or toilets. The park has its own car park, and it looks as though it’d be easy enough to find spaces to park on the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Tudor Sports Ground, Clifford Road, New Barnet, EN5 5JS
31/03/2022 05:09:44 PM
50. Whitings Hill Open Space and Whitings Wood
This large open space is in Chipping Barnet. It’s dominated by a rounded, grassy hill, which gives a good view over the surrounding area. The rest of the habitat consists of clumps of trees, and there are bramble patches. Part of Jack’s and my park visiting ritual is that, if we see blackberries growing, we always eat one each. Here, we found enough to fill a handkerchief to take home.
It was quiet when we visited – we only saw about two other people there. There’d be plenty of room for dog walking and general running around (by people of any age who feel up to it). A small stream, a tributary of Dollis Brook (see Park of the Week 49), flows through the site. There are no snakes living in the stream, but I thought this branch looked like one.
Whitings Hill had previously been scruffy pastureland until Barnet Council turned it into a public open space in 1996 and invited local groups to plant trees there. The Barnet Society created two plantations on the south-west side of the hill, to mark the Society’s fiftieth anniversary. They made sure that all the trees in the plantations were native species. Whitings Hill School also planted trees on the north-west side.
Whitings Wood is next to the open space and was also created in 1996. It’s part of the Watling Chase Community Forest project. Community Forests are not continuous areas of closely grown trees but are instead meant to be ‘a rich mosaic of landscape, within which land uses include farmland, woodland, villages, leisure enterprises, nature areas and public open space’. Watling Chase covers an area in Hertfordshire and the northern edge of London, including in Barnet and Harrow. Local people engaged in the woodland creation from the outset. Whitings Wood contains a mixture of native broadleaf trees and woody shrubs. Blackthorn hedgerows are spreading out and natural regeneration is developing.
There’s access from Greenland Road, Shelford Road, Quinta Drive, Brett Road and Hackforth Close, all in Barnet. There’s space to park on the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Whitings Hill Open Space and Whitings Wood, 9 Greenland Rd, Barnet EN5 3BL
25/03/2022 09:56:24 AM
49. Dollis Valley Greenwalk – selected bits
The Dollis Valley Greenwalk is a footpath route, set up in the London Borough of Barnet in the nineteen thirties. It runs for about 10 miles between Moat Mount Nature Reserve (in Mill Hill) and Hampstead Heath, passing through many green spaces and wildlife corridors along the way. The route mainly follows the course of Dollis Brook, which rises at Moat Mount near Arkley, meets the Mutton Brook at Hendon. There it becomes the River Brent, flows into the Welsh Harp Reservoir (see Park of the Week 10) and eventually into the River Thames at Brentford.
It’d take many hours to walk the whole length of the Greenwalk and we haven’t done it, but we have visited several places along the route:
• Fields next to Barnet Lane, where I took the photo of Jack we use for this blog;
• Brook Farm Open Space, where hay used to be grown for London’s horses;
• Riverside Walk, on each side of Argyle Road, Woodside Park. We went there early in the first lockdown when many people seemed to have decided to get out their bikes and we spent a lot of time jumping out of their way;
• A not particularly appealing section that runs alongside the Benighted North Circular Road and connects with Windsor Open Space (see number 21) – there’s an entrance at Henly’s Corner (where the A1 and the Benighted briefly meet) on either side of Finchley Road. Park where you can, then walk;
• Little Wood and Big Wood (see number 18);
• Whetstone Stray (or Strays). We spent the most time here. It’s parkland created during the twentieth century from former farmland. ‘Stray’ in this context means a common or piece of unenclosed land, on which there is a common right of pasture.
We accessed Whetstone Stray from Totteridge Lane, N20. It’s a meadow park, quiet and peaceful, with a wide, tree-lined footpath running alongside the brook. There’s plenty of room on the path for cyclists, dog-walkers, and others not to have to dodge each other. There’s no café or toilet.
I suppose Whetstone Stray could be said to separate Totteridge from Whetstone. We parked outside the shops on Totteridge Lane by Totteridge and Whetstone station, which is opposite the Stray and next to Brook Farm Open Space.
Judith Field
Whetstone Stray, Totteridge Lane, London N20 8HH
16/03/2022 05:12:31 PM
48. Waterlow Park
This park is in Highgate Village. It’s on a steep hillside and has some of the best views over London.
The land the park occupies has been laid out as gardens since the seventeenth century. It was formed from the combined grounds of five houses, including the poet Andrew Marvell’s cottage, and Lauderdale House. Sir Sydney Waterlow, businessman and Lord Mayor of London bought the properties and their grounds and in 1872 he leased them to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for patients who were convalescing. It was used for this until 1883. Waterlow gave it to the local authority in 1889, as a ‘garden for the gardenless’, as he put it. The park, described in the Illustrated London News as a ‘munificent gift of delightful pleasure grounds’ was officially opened in October 1891.
Lauderdale House still sits at the edge of the park and is now used as a tearoom and for functions and arts events. On the terrace is a large wrought-iron sundial with the hours marked by surrounding bedding plants.
The park has paths throughout and is landscaped with three ponds, one of which is designated as a restricted nature area. There are borders, grassy slopes, and a wide variety of trees. There are barbecue areas, and tennis and netball courts. Writing this takes me back to my Liverpool schooldays and memories of netball, running pointlessly up and down the playground in gym skirt and t shirt (tights not allowed) while the PE teacher stood shivering, anorak hood up, hands in pockets, shouting commands like ‘mark your partners’, through chattering teeth. I still think netball is a stupid game. The park also has an area for pétanque, which is more to my taste. I like to play boules – and to write it.
There are toilets in the park, and a café in Lauderdale House. There is also a children’s play area, with equipment for young children. This lack of large swings put Jack in a bad mood so we headed for home, which involved walking up a very steep hill. As Jack is not very fit and, when we visited, I was recovering from illness, before we reached the top we both sounded like Darth Vader. Luckily, there are plenty of benches to sit on.
There is parking on surrounding streets, although I imagine this could be hard to find. We were lucky enough to find a space on Highgate Hill. The nearest station is Archway, about a 10 minute walk away, or you can get a bus from there to the park.
Judith Field
Waterlow Park, Highgate Hill, London N6 5HG
10/03/2022 03:51:02 PM
47. Hilly Fields Park
I often find that people add a superfluous S to the end of my surname so I made sure that This park in Enfield really is called Hilly Fields rather than Hilly Field, who sounds like she might be a character in Malory Towers. Hilly Fields Park is a natural park in Enfield with fields, meadows, and woods. It’s been described as one of the most interesting grassland areas in the borough. There are many mature large old, pollarded trees and oaks. These are scattered over rough grassland, which contains a large range of plants and is home to butterflies.
The northern boundary of the park is formed by the Turkey Brook, which rises at Potters Bar, and eventually reaches the River Lee Navigation (a canal incorporating the River Lee) at Enfield Lock. The banks of the brook are dotted with hornbeam and scrub trees. Towards the east end of the park, at the top of a slope planted with trees that include oaks and conifers. The park is a Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.
The area it now occupies used to be known as Park Farm. The local authority bought 62 acres of the farmland, as part of their policy of acquiring land for public open space as the area was being developed for housing and they opened Hilly Fields as a public park in 1911. In 1921, because brass bands were becoming very popular. a wooden bandstand was built. Audiences fell to much lower levels in the nineteen thirties due to competition from cinema and radio and in the Second World War, bandstand entertainment was not promoted at all. Eventually the bandstand became derelict, but it was restored in 2001, using funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Bandstand events are held in the summer.
It is quite hilly and it’s a popular place for sledging when the snow comes.
The London Outer Orbital Path, usually known as the London Loop, runs through the park. This is a 150-mile signed walk along public footpaths and through parks, woods and fields around the edge of Outer London, sometimes described as “the M25 for walkers”.
Hilly Fields Park doesn’t have toilets or a café. Nor does it have a playground, but for once Jack didn’t seem to mind. There was so much space to walk in that I had to take note of landmarks, so we didn’t get lost. My sense of direction hasn’t improved since we got lost at the Hill House Pergola (see Park of the Week 3). I think that might make a good T shirt slogan.
Judith Field
Hilly Fields Park, Phipps Hatch Lane, EN2 0AG
