Park of the week

186. Brook Farm Open Space

This large, grassy open space is in Whetstone and is part of the Dollis Valley Green Walk. This 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.

During the 18th Century, because the clay-based fields that make up the space were too heavy to plough, they were used to grow hay to feed horses travelling up the Great North Road. Now the old meadows are left uncut until the end of summer, allowing a wide variety of grasses, wildflowers and butterflies to thrive. The fields feature several ancient oak trees and old farm hedgerows which, no longer needed for containing livestock, have been left to grow.
In 1918 the local authority agreed that some of the site should be ploughed up for allotment use as a temporary wartime measure. It wasn’t until 1936 that the authority realised that the allotments, still in use by then as they are today, were occupying land that was meant as public open space. Eventually it was agreed that they could stay. 

The space has trees, footpaths and picnic tables and it's a nice place for a walk, enough room that we weren't on top of other people. Two paths run through it, I read somewhere that one is for pedestrians and the other for cyclists but we walked along both without getting run over. Dollis Brook does run through the space, with woodland along most of the bank. The stream is mainly shallow and most of it gets too much shade for aquatic plant growth.

A play area was opened at the Totteridge Lane end in 2022. The equipment still appears fresh and lacks graffiti, at least as of the time of writing this. It doesn’t have a basket swing, but does have one that’s a chair, and it’s large enough to accommodate even Jack’s not inconsiderable width.

There’s a pavilion at the northern end of the space with a car park, but we entered from Totteridge Lane. There are a few parking spaces outside the shops next to Totteridge and Whetstone station but we parked in a nearby side road. 

Judith Field

Brook Farm Open Space, London N20 8QL

183. Halliwick Recreation Ground

This is a small park in Muswell Hill. It was probably purchased with the nearby allotments in 1927. It contains has grassed open space, a tennis court, table tennis playground and two playgrounds. There are plans to renovate the playground for use by those up to age 14, including those with special needs. I hope that it will include a basket swing.

The park has undergone other improvements in recent years, including landforms (hills in this case) created from excavated materials, gravel footpaths, planting native and ornamental trees. There are also gabion baskets with seating on top. This was a new term to me. A gabion is a wire basket looking like something we’d use to take the cat to the vet, which can be filled with stones and used for things like erosion control and landscaping. I’ve seen them before and wondered what they were.

A new wetland area with a viewing platform was opened in the relandscaped park in 2024. This is part of a sustainable urban drainage scheme designed to capture and store surface water runoff from the park and surrounding streets. This system diverts rainwater away from overburdened sewers and directs it into a newly constructed basin, significantly reducing the risk of downstream flooding. Specialist plants that reduce pollution have also been installed in the new wetlands to help treat as rainwater. It has creating new habitats for wildlife.

I wondered why there were several nearby places named Halliwick. There’s a block of flats, a road and the park. There was Halliwick Hospital, opened in 1958 as a “neurosis unit”, part of Friern Hospital. It eventually it became a unit for newly admitted patients and those convalescing from Friern Hospital. This was formerly the Colney Hatch Asylum, built in 1851 in the style of an Italian monastery, with its own gasworks, shoe¬makers, brewery, bakery and farm Both were closed in 1993 and later demolished. 

I’d thought these places were named after the hospital, but in fact all were/are named after the Manor of Halliwick, one of two historic manors in the parish of Friern Barnet. The Halliwick manor house was built around 1602 and located on the corner between Colney Hatch Lane and Woodhouse Road. The other manor was Friern Barnet Manor, whose manor house was the predecessor of the house in Friary Park.

There isn’t a café or toilets. We parked on a nearby street.

Judith Field

Halliwick Recreation Ground, 66 George Crescent, London N10 1AN

181. Clayhall Park

I’ve decided to explore the open spaces of Redbridge, starting with Clayhall Park, in Ilford. If you don’t mind driving along the Benighted North Circular, it takes no longer to get to many of them from Mill Hill than it does to Watford or Islington, and you don’t have to put up with the traffic lights every 20 feet that you get along the Holloway Road.

Clayhall Park is one of Ilford's largest open spaces and has a bowling green, children's play area, outdoor gym, tennis courts, café and toilets. It was opened in 1934, on the Manor of Clay Hall. The Manor was first mentioned in 1203. The manor house, which must have once been a substantial building, was demolished in the mid-eighteenth century and replaced by a farmhouse. The park opened to the public in 1934 and the farmhouse, outbuildings and chapel were demolished in 1935. 

The park is flat and is interspersed with sycamore, ash, oak, lime and horse chestnut trees. The grass is mostly short mown but, where it has been allowed to grow, wild plants grow including yarrow, cat's-ear and smooth hawk's-beard. 
It has kept its Green Flag Award for 2024-25. There is car parking on a road leading into the park, but you’re meant to pay using an app I didn’t have, and I didn’t fancy standing there trying to sort it out with Jack striding away into the distance. I’m hoping there’s no charge on a Sunday and will be anxiously looking at the post for the next couple of weeks.

As we waited by the “big lying down swing” for four sweet little kids to get off, their father turned and said hello to me with a smile, and soon persuaded the children to finish their turn. I thanked him, told them they were kind, that their kids were lovely, and wished them a good day. I spend so much time on the lookout for nastiness, so this different sort of encounter made my afternoon. 

Jack spotted another nearby park on the way back and I plan to visit it in the next few weeks. A406/A1400, here we come.

Judith Field

Clayhall Park, Longwood Gardens, Ilford, IG5 0EB

179. Stonegrove Park

This park is in Edgware, close to Edgware and District Reform Synagogue (sometimes referred to as “Stonegrove”). Stonegrove (the road) is a continuation of the A5 Burnt Oak Broadway/Edgware High Street and was originally known as Watling Street. I remember the A5 as part of the London to Liverpool route before the M1 was opened and brought further into London. There were very few places to stop and eat, and even some of those kept you waiting for ages.

By the early nineteenth century houses had been built along Stonegrove and larger scale development in the area started during the 1920s. and the park was opened in May 1934. At that time, new houses in the adjacent road were selling for £1150. Today’s average is about £700,000.

The park is small and irregularly shaped, between the main road and residential streets. It has a circular boating pond, now drained and weed-filled, in the middle of a grassy area with various deciduous trees. On the southern side are small formal beds, tennis courts, a  basketball court, a skateboard area and two playgrounds. There is a perimeter path with benches, these have cast-iron supports and armrests in the shape of lion heads, dating from the time the park was first opened. Next to the park is the rear of the gothic-style Day’s Alms-houses (built in 1828), with a grass terrace and evergreen planting. They were founded by Charles Day, who had made a fortune from manufacturing boot polish and felt he wanted to give thanks for his success. 

An underground waterway, part of the Silkstream, runs under the park. Thames 21, a volunteer group working with communities to improve rivers and canals had plans to expose it, but these were shelved owing to lack of funding.

Judith Field

Stonegrove Park, Stonegrove, Edgware HA8 7UB

177. Bloomsbury Square

This garden square, near the British Museum, is one of the oldest in London. Some sources say that it’s the oldest.
The square was developed for the 4th Earl of Southampton in 1665 and formed part of the Bedford Estate. The garden was redesigned in the early 19th Century by Humphry Repton, the successor to Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. He coined the term 'landscape gardening’ to describe his approach of marrying the skills of the landscape painter with those of the practical gardener. 

The literary critic and writer Isaac D'Israeli lived at number 6 from 1817 to 1829 and for part of that time his son, the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli lived with him. He dropped the apostrophe from his surname at the age of 17, when he began working for a firm of solicitors in the City of London. In the 20th century most of the buildings came to be used as offices.

The southern end of the Square was redesigned in the mid-20th Century to a geometric pattern. Further alterations took place in 1971-3, when an underground car park was built under the square and the gardens were redesigned to their present layout. There’s an extensive central paved area, surrounded by tree-shaded lawns, with three large, slightly raised islands of grass with flowering shrubs and some perennials and bedding. There are lawns, a flower garden and a children’s playground but no café or toilets. The garden is Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

This engraved plaque in the central paving shows the first Bloomsbury square as it would have looked in diarist John Evelyn’s time, when it was called Southampton Square, with a quotation from his diary in 1665: "Dined at my Lord Treasurers the Earle of Southampton in Blomesbury, where he was building a noble square or piazza, a little towne."

Judith Field

Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2HL