Park of the week

209. Claybury Park

This park is in Woodford Bridge, Redbridge. It was once part of the Claybury estate, held by Barking Abbey from the 12th century and contains Claybury and Hospital Hill Woods, remnants of ancient woodland of Hainault Forest. This is a nature reserve, with oak and hornbeam trees.

From 1786 Claybury was developed into a fine gentleman's estate with a mansion house, and Humphry Repton was commissioned to advise on landscaping the parkland. In 1887 it was sold and Claybury Asylum was built by 1893, the first mental hospital built by the new LCC. When it was completed patients were transferred from other establishments, but there were some places reserved for acute admissions. At that time in London, 70 people were certified insane each week. The first Medical Superintendent, Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones was among those campaigning for the preservation of Hainault Forest and supervised walks in the extensive hospital grounds were part of the patients' regime. The grounds also had facilities for recreation, including tennis. 

In 1997 the Health Authority sold the Hospital estate for a private housing development, renamed Repton Park, but 18 hectares of ancient woodland and 38 hectares of parkland became part of Claybury Park. 

The park holds the Green Flag Award and has an outdoor gym and a natural play area. The latter includes two of these odd structures, opposite each other.

They look like tiny versions of “sound mirrors”, precursors to radar. We tried them out but couldn’t get them to work. There’s a lake in the park, we walked to the place shown on the map at the end, but it had dried up. 

In the early 1980s I worked in the pharmacy at Claybury Hospital, where we had to lock ourselves in. At this time, it had around 1245 patients, over half of whom were over the age of 65. The staff and patients ate in the same enormous canteen. I was told to take my white coat off before going in – I think that was in case it might upset the patients. It was the only place I ever worked where you could help yourself to as many chips as you wanted.

The housing estate Repton Park is said by some to be haunted. I don’t believe in ghosts (despite writing about them in many of my novels and stories), but if I did, I’d say that they were probably former patients, trying to find the place where they lived for so long. On the other hand, perhaps they’re versions of me, trying to get more chips.

Judith Field

Claybury Park, 76 Roding Lane North, IG8 8NG