Park of the week

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