Park of the week

34. Edgwarebury Park

Because Jack makes a fuss if we visit a park more than once, we’re going further and further away from home in search of open spaces. That said, Edgwarebury Park is one that’s close to home. We accidentally visited it twice, the second time coming after I noticed it on a map and wondered why we hadn’t been before. Jack pointed out at top volume that we had. That’s what happens when I don’t read my parks list first. For everyone else, it’s worth more than one visit. 

It’s one of Barnet’s Premier Parks and a Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation – there are old oak and ash trees, and lots of birds. It was once part of the manor of Earlsbury, first mentioned in 1216. In the later Middle Ages it was owned by All Souls College, Oxford, and you can still see evidence of the older landscape of fields and woodland, such as old hedgerows. The local authority bought part of the land in 1929, and the rest in 1932, when the park opened. In the 1990s Watling Chase Community Forest (an area of 72 square miles located in north London and south Hertfordshire around Potters Bar, Radlett, Borehamwood and Barnet) planted a new block of woodland in the north east corner. 

So often during our walks we find streams and brooks, criss-crossing like interacting lines on the Underground map, all eventually finding their way to the Thames. I’ve spent much time looking at river maps – and that’s before you look for the hidden or lost ones. Edgwarebury Park’s no exception to this. To the south, the land slopes towards Edgwarebury Brook, a tributary of Deans Brook, which is a tributary of the Silk Stream, which is a tributary of the River Brent, which is a tributary of the River Thames. 

The park has formal and informal gardens. One garden has scented plants with rosemary, catmint and other aromatic species, designed for partially sighted visitors (and cats, I suppose). There’s also a rose garden, playground, tennis and multi-sports courts, football and cricket pitches and an outdoor gym. There are hard and soft paths and plenty of places to sit.
There is access from Edgware Way and Edgwarebury Lane. There’s no car park but it’s straightforward to find a space on nearby streets. 

Judith Field

Edgwarebury Park, Edgwarebury Lane, HA8 8QP

32. Northway Gardens

This park, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, consists of three areas of gardens stretching from Addison Way to Kingsley Way. The park is tucked away, making it another hidden gem, separated from the houses on either side by hedging. The Mutton Brook runs through the gardens in a channel with a bridge across, part lined by willows. The park is a Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.

It was laid out as part of the ‘New Suburb’ in 1911 when land was purchased to the east of the original Hampstead Garden Suburb. The first of the three sections, to the west, has woodland and grass. There are formal gardens and tennis courts in the middle area, and ornamental shrubs and trees in the third section, where there’s a children’s playground. There are no toilets nor a café. 

The park is being refurbished by local volunteers, the Northway Gardens Organisation.  They’ve done a lot of work clearing dead trees and shrubs, have completely replanted the previously abandoned rose gardens and put up a pergola. They’ve also replanted the flower beds.

The park is part of the Capital Ring Walk. This is a circular Walk London route, consisting of fifteen sections between Woolwich and Becton District Park and Northway Gardens is part of the section between Hendon Park and Highgate. The Transport for London website is full of information about the walk, including ‘did you know?’ snippets. One that caught my eye is that the benighted North Circular Road is considered the noisiest road in Britain, topping a poll organised by the UK Noise Association. All the more reason for me to avoid it. If only I didn’t have to take it as part of my quest to find parks to visit that don’t involve turning right at the end of our road – as stipulated by Jack. So far, our travels have taken us along it from Hanger Lane to the Great Cambridge Roundabout, and we haven’t finished yet. One hundred and forty-two parks and counting.

Judith Field

Northway Gardens, Northway, London NW11 6RJ

30. Newton Park West

This park is in Rayners Lane, Harrow. It was about a half hour drive from God’s Own Mill Hill, but I’m glad we visited because of the wildlife. It’s a large, open space with bordered with birch, hawthorn, cherry and willow and other trees. One side of the park borders a stream, leading to the River Roxbourne. This flows into the River Crane (I hadn’t heard of it), which eventually joins the Thames at Isleworth. It’s a site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.

We walked along a path towards the playground, with clover growing along either side. Would I find a four-leafed one? After looking for about ten seconds, I did. There is a playground and outdoor gym (but no toilets or café).

Among the trees growing around the edge are what I now know to be sweet chestnuts, after discussing ‘very spiky conkers’ with my husband (aka Mother Nature’s Son, which makes me Mother Nature’s daughter in law) when we got home. We do have a chestnut roaster for the fire so perhaps I should have picked some up, but they were too sharp, and I didn’t have anywhere to put them (my pockets were full of clover), so I decided to leave them for the squirrels.

The stream is part of a formed wetland area with ponds planted with willows alongside. As we walked along it, we noticed a large flock of ducks on the bank feeding on birdseed. I wished we’d brought some and will add a little pack to the fish food in my car’s glove box. As we came closer, a glossy brown four-legged creature darted out too closely to photograph, towards the stream where it disappeared with splash. Jack thought it was a mouse. I thought it was a rat at first, but the glimpse I caught of its flatter face and short furry tail told me it was a water vole – Ratty from Wind in the Willows. My husband looked at a photo of the stream and reckoned it was the sort of habitat voles like. They are quite rare, so it made the trip worthwhile for me.

There is no car park but parking on nearby streets is fairly easy. There are entrances from Alexandra Avenue, Drake Road, Malvern Avenue and Ravenswood Crescent.

Judith Field

Newton Park West, Ravenswood Crescent, Harrow HA2 9JL

28. Markfield Park

This park is on the southeast boundary of London Borough of Haringey. I found it by looking for large patches of green on a map. This is something I do quite often, particularly when petrol is easy to come by. It doesn’t always give the best results, but in this case it did and I’m glad we came. 

The area the park now covers was a field in the Middle Ages. Markfield House was built on it in 1798, in what was then the fashionable rural village of Tottenham. The house was demolished when Tottenham was developed into a London suburb. In 1849, a corner of the park was given over to the Tottenham Sewage Works. In 1936 Markfield Recreation ground was established as one of the national ‘King George’s Field’ memorials to King George V, and it was opened to the public in 1938. The eastern boundary of the park is the River Lee, where we walked along the bank.

An old pumping station from the former sewage works, located in the park, is now the Markfield Beam Engine and Museum, containing original Victorian pumping engines.  It’s open on the second Sunday of each month all year round, which is this coming Sunday! We visited during the week so now my challenge is to get Jack to agree to go back so that I, I mean we, can see the engines in all their steampunk splendour.

There’s a café with an outdoor seating area, beneath a pergola trained with vines by the café owner. There are also toilets. Cycling is permitted, as are dogs on leads. There’s a range of deciduous and coniferous tree species, a large grassland area, rose garden, community garden, football and netball pitches, an outside gym and a children’s playground. There is also a skate park/BMX track, where art graffiti (an oxymoronic term) has been tolerated since the 1990s. The park is home to a sculpture called ‘Bull’, a gift to the Friends of Markfield Park from the sculptor Jack Gardner. 

There are entrances to the park in Crowland Road, Gladesmore Road, Markfield Road (where there’s a car park) and from the towpath along the river. 

Markfield Park, Crowland Road, London N15 4RB

26. Queen’s Wood

This is one of four ancient woodlands in Haringey. The others are Highgate Wood (on the other side of Muswell Hill Road) which, as we visited before the pandemic I won’t write about here, Coldfall Wood, the subject of my very first post, and Bluebell Wood, which we haven’t visited yet. All four are descendants of the original wildwood that covered Britain until about five thousand years ago. 

The ancient hornbeam and oak woodland used to be known as Churchyard Bottom Wood, but in 1898 the Local Authority bought it from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and renamed it in honour of Queen Victoria. It was declared a statutory local nature reserve in 1990 and is listed by the London Ecology Unit as a Site of Metropolitan Importance.  It first won a Green Flag Award in 2015 and has kept it ever since.

It contains plants that are most often found in ancient woodland, such as wood anemone and orchids, and a wide variety of birds. There are solid paths throughout the wood, which is quite hilly. Dog walking is allowed but cycling is not.

A small disused paddling pool has been converted into a frog pond with wild aquatic plants, home to amphibians. Water birds are “not encouraged”, because they eat the other inhabitants. I don’t know how you’d discourage them other than not chucking bread in the water. The pond is also used by birds and mammals such as bats and foxes to drink, bathe and feed. Two more ponds have been created in the wood, edged with ancient-looking dead hedging created recently from wood cut as part of coppicing. The wood is also the source of the Moselle, a stream that runs across parts of North London on its way (via Pymmes Brook) to the River Lea in Tottenham. It’s a quiet place to walk, given its location. 

There’s a café using organic vegetables grown in their own garden at the back. The items on the menu looked delicious, nearly all vegetarian which suited me, but I only bought an ice cream tub for Jack (thank goodness they had strawberry – and points to me for restraint). The café has toilets.

The main entrance is in Muswell Hill Road, N10, but there are also entrances in Summersby Road, Connaught Gardens, Wood Vale, Priory Gardens and Queens Wood Road. We used the main entrance and managed to find a space to park in a nearby road, which is often not easy.

Judith Field

Queen’s Wood, Muswell Hill Road, London N10