25/06/2024 11:11:59 AM
151. Woodside Park
This park is actually in Wood Green.
The site was originally part of the much larger Chitts Hill Estate which covered a large part of Wood Green and beyond. Most of what later became the park was developed as Earlham Grove House and grounds in 1865.
Former occupants include philanthropist Catherine Smithies (1785–1877), who founded the Bands of Mercy animal welfare group which later merged with the RSPCA. Wood Green local board of health purchased Earlham Grove House, with eleven acres of land, in 1893.
I found out that, in 1899, before land was converted to a park and opened in 1900, three men were prosecuted for playing pitch and toss there on a Sunday, in breach of Sunday gambling laws. One of the accused had got away at first, over a barbed wire fence, but when one of the police officers ‘attempted the same feat, came to grief, tearing his uniform and losing certain money.’ The men were fined 2s 6d with costs, i.e. 12.5p, equivalent to about £21 today.
The park has a mix of open grassland, trees, (horse chestnut, lime and oak), a play area, sports pitch, bowling club and a sensory garden with seating and aromatic plants.
An interesting building in the park is the Mushroom House or Round House, Wood Green’s oldest building. This is the former gate house to Chitts Hill House, built in 1822 and now Grade II listed. It’s tiny, with only two bedrooms, but the 1871 census shows it was home to the coachman, his wife and six children plus a lodger. It became a tearoom, then a children’s playhouse, then fell derelict, but it was restored and is now in residential use.
There’s a café, toilets and benches. There isn’t a car park, but we parked on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Woodside Park, 294 High Rd, London N22 8YX
18/06/2024 12:46:42 PM
150. Chalkhill Park
This small park is in the Chalkhill Estate in Wembley Park and was opened in 2013. The park resulted from an arrangement when Asda took over some of the estate land for its superstore and the site of a former medical centre and car park was earmarked for a park.
I was interest to find that 'Wemba lea’ is first mentioned in a charter of 825. The name means ‘Wemba’s clearing’, the clearing the Anglo-Saxon Wemba chose. So, at one time, its real pronunciation was the same as in today’s football chants. Chalkhill was a manor within the ancient parish of Kingsbury at the time of Domesday Book. The land here once belonged to Edward the Confessor, and later to Westminster Abbey.
The estate was one of three large council developments built in Brent in the early 1970s. It became run-down and vandalised and was demolished in 2002, thirty years after its construction. New homes were built in its place.
The park has a children’s play area, outdoor gym, picnic tables, playing field, seating, an outdoor auditorium and a sculpture garden of white granite columns with an obelisk. On the day we went, it suddenly began to chuck down with rain. Luckily, we had left the car on the street right next to the park, where I sat taking photos of the rain spattered view. I’ve spared you these, but I think the shimmering pavements left by the rain, and the rainbow overhead afterwards, give an added something to my photos.
Judith Field
Chalkhill Park, 104, Chalkhill Road, Wembley, HA9 9FR
11/06/2024 08:33:29 PM
149. Downhills Park
This park is in South Tottenham. It’s surrounded by residential streets, enclosed by iron railings, and is a Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.
The park is named after an Eighteenth-Century house that had stood on the land. In 1901, in response to a campaign by local residents worried about the loss of open space (as the site was earmarked for housing), the council bought the land, grounds and adjoining fields. The council demolished the house and incorporated its gardens into a new park, opened to the public in 1903. They kept many features of the house grounds and also built several new features such as a bandstand and conservatory. The park was extended in 1904 on the recommendation of the District Medical Officer following a smallpox epidemic.
The park's facilities, especially tennis, were very popular in the nineteen thirties and in 1934 the borough introduced a giant draughts board, “the first in the Metropolis”.
I often check the British Newspaper Archive when writing these posts, and according to an article from the Daily Mirror of 7th August 1942, as part of the Council’s holiday-at-home week about three hundred babies were entered into a baby contest in the park, instead of the anticipated fifty “for three hours we struggled through the list, judging the babies in batches of a dozen”. Some of the babies got separated from their mothers and had to be offered from the stage for claiming, but eventually a winner was chosen.
The article mentions that an official had said, “with apprehension,” that there was to a dog show the next day.
After the Second World War the older features of the park were gradually lost. From the nineteen eighties onwards, Haringey Council built new children's play facilities and planted the bandstand site with trees. The old playground became a wildflower meadow, and a cafe was built on the site of the former bowling club. There are a variety of trees in the park, including some of the original cedars and a hornbeam avenue from the grounds of the house.
The park has a woodland area, open space, a rose garden, tennis and basketball courts, football and rugby pitches, an outdoor gym, playground, a café, and toilets. There’s no car park, but we found space on one of the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Downhills Park, Downhills Park Road, London, N17 6PE.
04/06/2024 09:18:03 PM
148. Barnard Park
This park, in Barnsbury in the west of Islington, is one of the Borough’s biggest green spaces.
Its history as a recreational space goes back to the 18th century, when it was a cricket ground in open fields, known as Copenhagen Street Open Space. The park can claim to be the birthplace of cricket, because the White Conduit Club (WCC) was established here, moving in 1794 via Marylebone (MCC) to Lords.
Housing was eventually built on the site, but much of it was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.
It was developed from a bomb site to a park in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies and renamed in appreciation of Councillor George Barnard’s dedication to sport in Islington.
There are a children’s playground, an adventure playground, a football pitch, community garden, perennial meadow, plenty of grass, trees and plants – the park's volunteer gardeners have won prizes in the Islington in Bloom contest. On the western edge of the park is a cobbed path, all that remains of one of the original streets that ran where the park is now. Views from the park reach over King’s Cross to the West End. It is due for further in 2025. There are toilets but no cafe. There’s no car park, but we found room to park on one of the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Barnard Park, Copenhagen St, London N1 0ER
27/05/2024 08:44:45 PM
147. Fortune Street Garden
I visited this pocket park, just north of the Barbican, after visiting Charterhouse Square, which I’ll write about another time. The park is named after the street on which it is situated. In pre-war times that street was known as Playhouse Yard, which was in turn named after the old Fortune Theatre that once stood there.
In 1600, the theatre was built for Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe, and modelled on Shakespeare’s The Globe to act as a competitor. The wooden structure burnt down in 1621, but it was rebuilt in brick and was mentioned in Samuel Pepys’s diary. Following an ordnance the dismantling of playhouses issued by the Puritans, the building was dismantled in 1649.
Other buildings were constructed on the same site, but when the Fortune Street area was heavily bombed during the Second World War, it was decided that the area would remain cleared, and it was laid out as a park in the early nineteen sixties.
It was refurbished in 2002, and this included landscaping and re-siting of play equipment. A large wall covered in mosaics was added by local school children. The park won the Green Flag Award in 2006.
There are trees, grassed areas, wildlife areas, benches to sit on, toilets and the Giddy Up café.
On the way back, I decided to get a bus part of the way. This took me through Islington, past some more parks and gardens that I’ve added to our to-visit list.
Judith Field
Fortune Street Park, Fortune Street, London EC2Y 8DQ
20/05/2024 08:48:43 PM
146. Finsbury Gardens
This small garden is nowhere near Finsbury Park, Finsbury Square or Finsbury Circus. It’s actually in Bounds Green, but in Finsbury Road.
The land in this area probably formed part of the large Bowes Farm Manor Estate, granted by Henry IV to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral in 1412. In 1852 the Finsbury Freehold Land Society purchased 92 acres of Wood Green Farm and developed the Wood Green Estate.
The New River Company (now Thames Water) had plans to realign the New River, which brought fresh water to north London, and bought what is now Finsbury gardens to run the river in a tunnel underneath, opened in 1859. In 1895 land above the tunnel was leased to Haringey and became Finsbury, Nightingale, and Avenue Gardens (see number 68 for our visit to the two), public gardens laid out with grass, trees set in shrubberies, and curving paths. They first appear on a map in 1912. The tunnel, and the river it contains, are the reason no houses were built on the site.
Among the mature trees in the garden are five horse chestnuts on the east side that may date from the original planting, there are also two large conifers. The north end of the garden is laid out with hard surfacing and a children's playground and park area including sandpit, small hill to climb and this giant wooden lizard.
Judith Field
Finsbury Gardens, Finsbury Road, London N22 8PA
14/05/2024 01:06:38 PM
145. Gillespie Park and Ecology Centre
Gillespie Park, winner of the Green Flag Award in 2019 and the London Conservation Area of the Year award in London in Bloom 2015, is Islington’s largest nature reserve. It hosts the Islington Ecology Centre, built in 1992, a visitor and education centre providing environmental education for schools and organises walks and talks for adults.
It’s built on a site that had been railway sidings and the Stephens Ink Factory. The factory closed in the nineteen sixties and a council estate (including Quill Street – I liked this writerly name) built on the site in 1972. In 1980, the idea for a park on the area was put forward by interested local groups. By 1981, a ten-year lease from British Rail was secured by Islington Council, who insisted that the site be kept open. A determined effort by local people, acting with the Council, resisted pressure from central government to sell off public land, saved the land from development. The site is protected by Fields in Trust through a legal ‘Deed of Dedication’ safeguarding the future of the space as public recreation land for future generations to enjoy.
The nature reserve has reedbeds and ponds, home to tiny water creatures, bugs, frogs, toads and newts. There are also woodland and meadow areas.
The goldfish eat the tadpoles, unfortunately.
The reserve is also home to wildlife. Eighty species of birds, twenty species of butterflies, eight species of dragonflies and two hundred flowering plants have been recorded so far. Grasslands on the park extension on the former sidings have been declared of metropolitan significance by the London Ecology Unit, and a rare lichen, Peltigera didactyla, has also been seen growing there. In 1990, the first recorded breeding of the long-tailed blue butterfly in the UK was found in the nature reserve, and in 1991 Islington’s only orchid, a common spotted, was discovered.
The site is open from 8am to dusk on weekdays and 10am to 4pm at weekends. I believe it’s usually closed when Arsenal are playing at home, as it’s near the Emirates Stadium. There are entrances on Drayton Park and Quill Street, N5.
Judith Field
Gillespie Park, 191 Drayton Park, London N5 1PH
07/05/2024 09:44:53 AM
144. King Square Garden
This is a large municipal park in Clerkenwell, surrounded by tower blocks.
The area, mainly fields, was owned by St Bartholomew’s Hospital, who sold it to the Church Building Commission in 1822, to build a large church. They also planned to develop the fields into middle-class housing. The development was a typical garden square, surrounded on three sides by decent housing and the church on the fourth.
It’s thought that Lenin stayed in King Square for a few weeks in 1907 while attending a conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
During World War II, the area was badly affected by bombs, with most of the houses surrounding it suffering damage, especially to the southeastern corner. The houses were cleared, and on three sides large council housing blocks built. The old roads around the square were removed and the square enlarged. The row of houses to the south was also demolished and replaced with parkland.
By 1996, the estate and the parkland were complete. The sports pitches were refurbished in 2010 and the playground areas revamped in 2011. Rebuilding work in 2016 uncovered a burial ground.
The park is now designated as a Site of Local Importance to Nature Conservation. In 2018, Islington’s first Word Garden opened in the park to celebrate the power of words and reading, inspired by stories and memories. It features special benches customised with poetry, a new games table and a new planting scheme. The new planting will add colour and fragrances, designed to enable people who have sensory impairments to enjoy spending time in the space.
Part of the garden is paved, and the rest has grass, flowerbeds, shrubs and trees, including lime, London plane, horse chestnut and ornamental cherry. There’s also a community garden and a nature education area, a children’s playground, sand pit and a water play feature. It has toilets but no café.
Judith Field
King Square Garden, King Square, London EC1V 8DB
30/04/2024 10:46:54 AM
143. Ashley Lane Nature Reserve
This lane, running between Mill Hill and Hendon, connects the public roads Oakhampton Road and Ashley Lane. It’s a peaceful green sanctuary, running between Hendon Golf Course and Hendon Cemetery.
We first walked along it during the first lockdown, and it’s just about wide enough to avoid other people as we had to during that difficult time, with its unfounded rumours that They were going to close parks. That didn’t happen, although park benches were spread with plastic netting to stop people spending too long there. There are no benches along the lane in any case.
It's a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade II. The lane is first mentioned by name in 1594 but it appears to have been part of an important medieval road. It’s said that Cardinal Wolsey travelled along it on his final journey to York in 1530.
The lane still has its ancient hedgerows, which have developed into narrow belts of woodland. The main trees are oak and ash, with some wild service-trees. The plants at the bottom of the hedge include bluebells, ramsons (wild garlic) and dog’s mercury, which are ancient woodland indicators. A small unnamed stream, a tributary of Dollis Brook, crosses the lane mid-way.
Some people have wondered whether it can be considered a nature reserve or just a bridle path. If the latter, I wouldn’t want to to ride a horse down it and out at the lower end, which opens onto the Great North Way.
Judith Field
Ashley Lane Nature Reserve, Oakhampton Road, London, NW7 1DU
24/04/2024 11:06:23 AM
142. Hartington Park
This is in a very residential area of north Tottenham. We visited because we were in the area, and I was glad that we did because it had plenty of green open space to walk around in with benches to sit and relax on. I found it well-maintained, which isn’t always the case when we visit places that I know nothing about. It has a newly installed outside gym, children’s play area and a basketball/mini football area.
The park is in Harringay, which (confusingly to me) is in the London Borough of Haringey, created in the nineteen sixties from a merger between Hornsey, Wood Green and Tottenham. Nobody seems to know why the 'one r, e instead of a' spelling of the name was chosen but apparently at the time local school children were taught that the new borough's name should be pronounced with the same ending as Finchley, Hackney and Hornsey. I’m afraid that, on the few occasions I’ve had to say the name, I don’t. But then, I'm a tourist.
I saw this road sign, at the southern end of the park.
This refers to a pedestrianised fly-tipped passageway, running west to east providing rear access to the houses on either side. It covers a lost 15th Century river, originally called Garbell Ditch, later Carbuncle Ditch, which was created to alleviate flooding by the River Moselle, and the Ditch is a continuation of the Moselle. The name Moselle comes from ‘Mosse-Hill’ (Muswell Hill), the location of one of its sources.
I can’t find an explanation for the origins of the name Carbuncle, but since a carbuncle is caused by bacterial infection, perhaps the ditch was associated with disease, especially as around this period the population of the area grew, and the once pure Moselle became heavily polluted.
Judith Field
Hartington Park, 1 Stirling Road, London N17 9UN
