12/02/2021 12:46:20 PM
4. Highlands Gardens
This small, little-known park is a hidden gem in New Barnet. You can park on the street itself or any nearby side-roads. At the main entrance, at the junction of Abbotts Road and Leicester Road, New Barnet, is a wooden lych-gate, and once you go through there’s a sense of intimacy – because it used to be a private garden.
The grounds belonged to Highlands House, built in the late nineteenth century. The owner installed a lot of “rock works” in the garden. Most have gone, but you can see an example as you come in: an archway and rocky path. The garden was opened to the public in 1931 when the house was demolished and replaced with flats (rebuilt in 1972). During the Second World War, it was used for vegetable plots.
We visited at the end of August, so of course it was pouring with rain. It was well worth walking round with umbrellas. We usually like to sit on a bench and there were plenty, but we had to give that a miss. There are lots of mature trees, including palms, yucca, monkey puzzle and yew. It has a fishpond with a stream and a waterfall. Fortunately, I keep a tub of goldfish food in the car in case we find ourselves in such a place and the fish came up to feed despite the rain plopping onto the water. There are flower beds and lawns, with tree-lined paths meandering through – quite secluded where they wind their way round the water features.
It’s a shame that Jack makes a fuss if we go to a park more than once, because I’d like to visit Highlands Gardens again. Perhaps when there’s less work and I can go where I like when I like I’ll go on my own, everything else permitting. I hope that day comes soon, because it’s one of the forty-five “low-quality low-value” where Barnet Council propose to install solar panels and/or storage units for renewable electricity.
Judith Field
Highlands Gardens, Leicester Road, New Barnet EN5 5EB
04/02/2021 06:20:08 PM
3. Hill House Pergola and Golders Hill Park
I have a confession. I have a rotten sense of direction, and often when we visit parks that aren’t completely open spaces, to be able to find the way out again, I have to remember landmarks. For example, we came in with the playground on our right - I hope that there’s only one playground.
I only realised this when we visited Golders Hill Park on Mother’s Day, last March. Jack had been there before with his school, but I hadn’t for many years. We were lucky enough to find a space to park on North End Way, NW11, and used the entrance there opposite the end of Hampstead Way. I should have taken a warning from the sign that read, in this order:
Hampstead Heath
Golders Hill Park.
However, Jack strode off to the left and I followed him.
Soon we were alone in a wood, but Jack seemed to know where he was going. We came out on the other side by a footpath leading to a garden with a raised, paved pergola covered with flowers. This was Hill House Garden, part of Hampstead Heath, part of the grounds of the former Hill House, created for the soap baron Lord Leverhulme at the turn of the 20th century.
I followed Jack through the pergola, down a spiral staircase at the other side and back into the deserted wood. Jack stopped. I asked him where to go next. He said he didn’t know, in the tone I’d adopt if someone asked me to explain the maths behind General Relativity – or the Special Sort, come to that. My heart thumped. I was in no doubt that there was a story idea or two there (Hampstead hamadryads, anyone?) but all I could manage was to stop myself from thinking we are lost. We wandered in the general direction of anywhere until I heard voices in the distance. We moved towards them and we blundered out through the trees into Golders Hill Park.
There are many different sections to the park including a cycling route, a wide expanse of grass with trees and bushes, and formal flower gardens. There’s a pond crossed by a small bridge – we stood on it and watched the swans and ducks. We sat outside the café and ate home-made ice cream. I’ve noticed that some park cafés are open at the moment, so it’s worth taking a look. It was too early in the year to go into the butterfly house. It’s usually open from late March to the end of October, but I haven’t been able to find out what’s happening this year.
The part Jack most liked was the small (free to enter) zoo. It’s worth considering, as London Zoo is closed at the moment. It has deer, donkeys, lemurs, emus, pheasants, kookaburras and other birds. I made sure people socially distanced from us by singing “kookaburra sits in the old gum tree-ee” (but only quietly) until Jack made me stop. I reckoned people were going to stare at us anyway, so they may as well have something to listen to as well. The address for the park is given below, but if you want to enter close to the mini zoo, use the entrances on West Heath Avenue or West Heath Road (both NW11), there’s room to park there and in nearby streets.
Judith Field
Hill Garden Pergola, Inverforth Close, London NW3 7EX
Golders Hill Park, North End Way, London NW3 7HE
28/01/2021 06:05:47 PM
2. Stoneyfields Park
This medium-sized park is in Fairmead Crescent, Edgware. You can park on the street itself or in surrounding side roads.
We visited this peaceful place at the end of May, during the first lockdown. The park has open grasslands and mowed lawns to walk in, and small woodlands. There’s a playground, multi-sports court and a basketball hoop.
It’s one of the few places where you can get access to Deans Brook. This rises on Mill Hill Gold course and runs to Edgware, where it joins the Silk Stream, which then joins the Brent, which eventually joins the Thames at Brentford. Where Deans Brook crosses the park, it has been dammed to create a lovely ornamental lake, one of the biggest in Barnet. Jack likes to stroll round a pond and look at the wildfowl, so this was his favourite part. We saw swans and mandarin ducks. The Brook flows out of the lake into a cascade, then into a small wooded area. The mature oak and hazel trees growing in the park were once part of an ancient woodland. Stoneyfields Park and Deans Brook are a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade II.
We walked all around the park and the lake, then sat down opposite the locked playground, watching the same people riding their bikes round…and round…and round…and walkers jumping out of the way. A man and a woman, looking like they were aged in their twenties, climbed over the railings. A few passers-by complained, but I applauded, and then had to explain to Jack why I was, starting with “well, I think it’s a funny thing to do” and ending with “but of course you shouldn’t do it, the playground is really for little children”. Talk about digging a hole for yourself with your mouth. Meanwhile the couple, looking a bit sheepish, sat at the top of one of the slides and shared a picnic.
Judith Field
Stoneyfields Park, Fairmead Crescent, Edgware HA8 9TB
19/01/2021 03:19:05 PM
1. Coldfall Wood
I’m finding the pandemic tough to deal with, as I’m sure everyone is. I find getting out of the house makes all the difference, particularly if I’m in an open space, and close to the natural world. I can forget work and what’s going on at home for a while, let my eyes focus on the distance and inhale the fresh north-west London air.
At the start of the first lockdown, my son Jack’s college closed without warning, he was left with nothing to do, and I had a 24-year-old autistic young man to fit into the at-home-all-day mix. Since mid-March, he and I have visited parks and open spaces once or twice a week. There were rumours at the start about parks having to close, but that didn’t happen, thank goodness. During the first lockdown all the playgrounds were locked. Jack likes outdoor gyms, and they were open. Now it’s the other way round, and the gyms are closed.
Jack wants us to go to a new place each time so, with our sometimes managing more than one in a day, we’ve visited eighty-seven as of the time of writing this. Some have been very crowded, which wouldn’t have registered with me before the pandemic. One or two have been disappointing, such as the park that no longer existed, having been devoured by Brent Cross Shopping Centre. I’ve taken photos at each one, and many of them look remarkably similar. I think that this is the point, in a way: there are so many open spaces not that far away.
I’ll start with Coldfall Wood, Creighton Avenue, London N10 – between Muswell Hill and East Finchley. You can park on the road itself. It’s probably best to wear wellies because there aren’t any paved paths, for that reason it’s not the best place to go with a baby buggy. It’s an ancient woodland, the direct descendant of the original ‘wildwood’, which covered most of Britain until about five thousand years ago. There are bridges across a stream. We saw squirrels, jays, crows and we heard parakeets. Apparently, it’s also host to bats although we didn’t see any as we went during the daytime. We hardly saw anyone else, so it was good from the social distancing point of view, but someone had stuck a rainbow picture on a tree. It was fascinating to see what the area was like before the land was farmed, and later covered in houses.
Judith Field
Coldfall Wood, Creighton Avenue, London N2 9BJ
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