28/11/2023 08:54:41 PM
122. Reveley Lodge
Reveley Lodge is a Grade II listed Victorian house and public gardens in Bushey Heath. It’s managed by the Reveley Lodge Trust, which was set up to preserve the house and gardens and to provide an arts and education resource for the local community. It also has a gallery, and I got the idea of visiting the garden after a friend put on an art exhibition there.
The house was built between 1842 and 1845 as a ‘gentleman’s cottage’ – a small country house within easy reach of London. The property included a chaise house (for a carriage) and stable.
The gardens are open to the public six days a week all year round and entry is free. There is a formal terrace and listed conservatory, lawns, rose garden, kitchen and flower garden, pond, woodland walk, summer meadow, herbaceous borders, medicinal plants, and beehives. There’s also a ‘human sundial’ - you stand in a marked place on one of the lawns and move your arms to set positions. However, I went at the beginning of October and there wasn’t any sun.
World War II impacted the lives of the owners of Reveley Lodge, and information boards about the war, based on their diaries and letters, are on display on the terrace. Towards the end of the war, the Nazis deployed V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets. The rockets travelled at supersonic speed and there was no audible warning. The nearest a V2 rocket landed to Reveley Lodge was between Harrow and Pinner. I don’t know if that’s the reason why there’s a rocket tucked away among the trees that looks like a half-sized V2. It was put in the garden in August 2022, and you can step inside it.
A time capsule was buried close to the roots of an oak tree in the garden in January 2022 to mark the 80th anniversary of The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR). The Association planted trees around the UK to thank all the British people who helped Jewish refugees find safety in Britain from Nazi Europe, and to celebrate the contribution that the Jewish refugees have made to British life.
There’s a tearoom and café, and toilets. Parking spaces for disabled visitors can be pre-arranged, otherwise there is space to park on nearby streets.
Judith Field
Reveley Lodge, 88 Elstree Road, Bushey Heath WD23 4GL
21/11/2023 10:04:29 PM
121. Waterfields Recreation Ground
This park, which I found by looking at an online map of the area, is a Green Flag-winning open space situated on the River Colne, just to the north of Watford Town Centre. The land it occupies used to be pasture. The park was laid out in 1901, with lime trees planted around the boundaries.
The park was refurbished in 2015 and has a playground, football pitch, table tennis and plenty of green open space, with some wild areas for biodiversity. The River Colne, a tributary of the Thames, runs though the grounds and visitors can walk along a riverside path on either side. The banks are lined with lime, willow and alder trees, and natural vegetation. This section of the river is designated as a ‘Local Wildlife Site 84/014 for Flowing waters (rivers and streams).’
Near the bridge over the river is an obelisk: a Grade II listed historical coal marker. The city of London placed these markers on coal transport routes to mark the places where tax had to be paid. At first the money raised was used to help pay for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire in 1666. The legislation was renewed in 1861 and the Marker in Waterfields dates from this time. The London Coat of Arms is marked on the southeast face of the obelisk.
Just inside the park is a small garden featuring a sculpture of a swimmer on a plinth, about to dive into the water. He wears a stripy Edwardian bathing costume, with his head covered with a knotted handkerchief. In the early nineteen hundreds this was the site of a freshwater lido, and in the nineteen thirties it was the home of the Watford Swimming Club. The statue is part of the Colne River Sculpture Trail, a series of five sculptures set up in 2014 to celebrate Watford’s cultural and social heritage.
There’s a small car park. Spaces are also available to park on nearby streets.
Waterfields Recreation Ground, Shaftesbury Road, Watford WD17 2RG
14/11/2023 11:13:08 AM
120. The Green Park
The Green Park, one of the Royal Parks of London, is in the City of Westminster, Central London. It was created by King Charles II in 1660, so that he could walk from Hyde Park to St. James’s Park without leaving royal soil.
It was landscaped in 1820 and has many trees but no lakes, buildings or formal flower beds although there are narcissi naturalised in the grass. One acre has been designated as the Queen's Meadow and includes a wide range of wildflowers. Buckingham Palace is on the south side of the park.
There are two refreshments points in The Green Park where you can buy snacks and drinks. The closest Underground Stations are Green Park and Hyde Park Corner.
The park contains three war memorials. The Canada Memorial is in the east. Near to Buckingham Palace are the Memorial Gates which pay tribute to the five million people from India, Africa and the Caribbean who served in two world wars.
In the west of the park is the Bomber Command Memorial, commemorating the 55,573 young men who died flying with Bomber Command during World War II; more than the number who serve in the entire Royal Air Force today. Although World War II could not have been won without Bomber Command, the memorial wasn’t erected until 2012.
At the heart of the memorial is a bronze sculpture of a Bomber Command aircrew. Within the memorial, the space is open to the sky with an opening designed to allow light to fall directly onto the sculpture. This is shown below – the sky was an improbably blue colour when I visited.
I visited the memorial as close as I could get to Armistice Day, to pay my respects to my father’s cousin, Maitland Ellick. He and my father were the same age. I already knew that Maitland had joined the RAF, and been killed in 1944, aged twenty-two. Recently, I found out more. He was a sergeant, an air gunner in a Lancaster III Bomber (a plane in which I am particularly interested), nicknamed The Queen of Sheba. On 31st March 1944 they were on their way to bomb Nuremberg, but the plane was blown up north of Frankfurt by a German night fighter ace, Martin Becker. Although the pilot and bomb-aimer were thrown clear, surviving to fall into enemy hands, the rest of the crew were killed. Maitland is buried in Hanover War Cemetery. The inscription on his tombstone reads God gave us strength to bear the loss. What it cost to lose him no one will ever know.
Judith Field
Green Park, London SW1A 1BW
07/11/2023 05:54:37 PM
119. Lowlands Recreation Ground and The Grove Open Space
One recent Sunday, I’d planned to visit another park in Islington but couldn’t face yet another stop-start drive along the Archway and Holloway Roads. Instead, I decided to head towards Harrow. This involved the Jack-forbidden turning right at the end of the road. He shouted at me all the way there and called me several names, not all of which were words he’d made up.
Harrow has a lot of open spaces, so it’s good to withstand all that and visit them. Lowlands Recreation Ground and The Grove Open Space are opposite each other, on either side of Lowlands Road, near Harrow College.
Lowlands Recreation Ground is a small park, next to Harrow on the Hill Underground Station. It includes a multi-use building said to contain a café (the building wasn’t open when we visited on a Sunday) and a large multi-purpose space functioning as a nursery, meeting hall, yoga studio and a theatre. The building has large barn doors that open out onto an external stage area, with amphitheatre-like terraces of seating in the park for the staging of concerts and plays. The park has also been designed to be used for the occasional market and Christmas fair. There are also two play areas, table tennis tables and an outdoor gym. There’s lots of green space, and benches.
The Grove Open Space is a steep grassy slope on the north side of Harrow Hill. There is evidence of early medieval, or possibly earlier, agricultural use on the Hill. The land here was once part of the estate of Harrow Manor, recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 when the Archbishop of Canterbury owned it. Today, the space is crossed by tarmac paths, with trees around the edges, and good views over Harrow from the top. A steel sculpture of a leaf has been put up in the north-west corner, symbolising the greenness of Harrow.
We parked in the station car park, for which we had to pay. There didn’t seem to be many spaces elsewhere, but that might have been because I don’t know the area and once we’d found the park, I had missed an available spaces that there might have been further back.
In the evening Jack apologised to me, unprompted.
Judith Field
Lowlands Recreation Ground, 73 Lowlands Rd, Harrow HA1 3AW
31/10/2023 09:21:04 PM
118. Jubilee Park, Edmonton
Jubilee Park is a large open space in Edmonton. It was planned in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V in that year although it wasn’t opened until 1939, after the King’s death. The main entrance, in Galliard Road, has a set of art deco gates, in keeping with the period. These lead to a semi-circular drive into the park, where there are formal gardens with shrubs, beds and trees including eucalyptus, copper beech and conifers.
Much of the area that the park covers had originally been a brick works. This had been a major industry in the Enfield/Edmonton area and continued to be so until the late nineteen-seventies.
There was a paddling pool in the park, but it became disused and in 2003 it was converted into an ornamental garden with an emphasis on fragrant plants. Facilities today include a multi-use games area, playground, tennis courts, pitch and putt course, outdoor gym and a bowling green, leased to Jubilee Park Bowls Club. The park is also regularly used by the Old Edmontonians Football Club. There’s plenty of space to walk in, and benches for a rest. The site includes the Henry Barrass Sports Ground, and next to the north side of the park are allotments. All this provides a big expanse of green space in a built-up area.
There is a wildlife area next to the tennis courts. Jubilee Park won a Green Flag Award in 2008-2010. The park is part of the Fields in Trust historic protection programme and has been protected since August 2012 under the Queen Elizabeth II Fields protection type.
There is no café but there are toilets. It has a small car park and when we visited there was space to park on nearby streets.
Judith Field
Jubilee Park, Galliard Road, London N9 7RH
24/10/2023 08:23:34 PM
117. Caledonian Park
This is a large green space in Islington. Before London grew outwards, the area was known as Copenhagen Fields and was open fields and paths. It had been the grounds of a mansion, Copenhagen House.
In the Nineteenth Century, Copenhagen Fields was the site of several mass meetings, such as the 1834 Trade Unionist rally against the treatment of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. A petition was handed to Parliament and the sentences were eventually repealed in 1836.
The centrepiece of the park is a 155ft Grade II listed clock tower. This is all that remains of the Metropolitan Cattle Market, opened in 1855 by the City of London Corporation as a replacement for the market at Smithfield. As a result, Smithfield closed as a live cattle market, re-opening as a 'dead meat market' in 1867, which it remains today.
The cattle market at what’s now Caledonian Park closed at the outbreak of World War II and never re-opened. The meat market closed in the 1950s and the area was eventually cleared for the development of council housing. The public park was laid out and opened in 1958. In the 1960s the park was planted with ornamental gardens and in the early 1980s many trees were planted.
The clock tower suffered from vandalism in the Twentieth Century, but it was refurbished and reopened in 2019 and is meant to have the original working mechanism, although the one in the photo didn’t because we were there in the afternoon. You can climb the 220 steps to the top of the tower on Saturdays. but there are a lot of health warnings about needing to be fit, and about the steep steps, ladders and confined spaces. It’s unsuitable for the under tens.
In 2010 the Darwin Trail was set out in the park, 10 slate markers with information designed showing how the work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) remains with us today, encouraging an understanding of the importance of urban ecology, wildlife habitats and biodiversity.
The park also has woodland areas, a community orchard and garden, grass meadows and a large open grass space, children’s playground and a tarmac ball court. There are a café and toilets. We managed to find a space to park on a nearby street.
Judith Field
Caledonian Park, Market Road, London N7 9PL
16/10/2023 08:39:17 PM
116. Harrington Square Gardens
If I remember right, “Harrington Squares” were a brand of towelling nappy – at least when my elder daughter was a baby and I used them. However, this Harrington Square is a garden square in Camden Town, next to Mornington Crescent Underground station.
It’s actually a triangle, with grade 2 listed building along one side. in the middle is Harrington Square Gardens which is a public green space. The garden is mostly filled with a large rough lawn, with a circular path running through the centre. There are a lot of tall London Plane trees, and in the centre of the lawn, a young oak tree planted in 2000, and a plaque notes that it’s the 2000th tree of the Millennium Tree Planting Project. There are benches, but no café or toilets.
Harrington Square was originally part of the Duke of Bedford's estate. Under a Special Act of Parliament of 1800, the garden enclosure was to be kept as open space. It was laid out in 1843, when the neighbouring Southampton Estate was turned from fields into houses. It was originally part of a pair of squares, with Mornington Crescent Gardens on the other side of Hampstead Road.
The crescent is no longer a park, as in 1926, the Carreras cigarette factory, with its Egyptian frontage was built on it. It’s said to have been inspired by the Egyptian temple of the cat-goddess Bast. In 1998 the factory was converted to offices and is now named Greater London House. My daughter Laura worked there for a year. Other famous inhabitants of Harrington square include Alexander Graham Bell, and Oliver Lodge, a physicist who was involved in the development of radio.
It was the loss of Mornington Crescent park next to Harrington Square that led to the creation of the 1931 London Squares Preservation Act, which is why Harrington Square survives as a park for the local residents.
I imagine it’s difficult to park in the area, but it’s only about a 5-minute walk from Mornington Crescent station.
Judith Field
Harrington Square, London NW1 2JJ
10/10/2023 09:17:35 PM
115. Dalmeny Park
Dalmeny Park, in Tufnell Park, is a small, secluded park behind Victorian housing, originally reserved ‘for use by children and the elderly.’ It contains containing a playground, sandpit, grass and trees and benches.
In the 1870s building was beginning to cover the area, which had been rural before that. By the 1890s much of the surrounding housing had been completed although land to the south of the park remained unbuilt on until the early Twentieth Century. The park was for the private use of the residents of the surrounding houses, but it’s now public, owned by the local authority. It’s a conservation area.
I saw it listed on a website among other Islington parks, without any details. I sometimes manage to see what’s in a park using the images available on Google Maps, but not this time. I took the chance that it’d have the sort of swing Jack likes, and it did.
It’s known locally as ‘the secret park’, and I’m not surprised. The entrance is between two houses, and because of my usual rotten sense of direction, I couldn’t find it. We walked up and down the round a few times until, with the help of the satnav, I noticed it.
It’s a quiet, peaceful place. When we first arrived, we were the only people there and I sat while Jack went on the big swing, without anyone staring or commenting. Since my birthday last week. I’ve been wondering when ‘elderly’ begins. Ten years ago, the first of my series of (fourteen and counting) stories about an elderly couple was published, and I’m now older than my characters were at the start. I think, perhaps, it’s a matter of attitude as much as the physical side of it. Jack and I, a child, and an elderly person, both pedalled the roundabout shown below.
When we went, it was easy to find a distraction from my own problems and to relax into the space. I wish it were that easy now.
Judith Field
Dalmeny Park, 13-14 Dalmeny Road, London N7 0HH
04/10/2023 12:37:09 PM
114. Garston Park
Garston Park is in Garston, a suburb of Watford. It’s another one that I found by looking for green spaces on a map. About half of the park is a Local Nature Reserve. Garston Park is one of Watford’s most important areas for wildlife and has also been designated a County Wildlife Site by the Hertfordshire Biological Records Centre. It is a Green Flag Award winner.
The Nature Reserve is made up of various wildlife habitats including grassland, wetland, and woodland. A wide variety of wildlife can be found there including slow worms, muntjac deer, foxes, and pipistrelle bats. The reserve has woodland which is mainly oak, ash and sycamore. Mammals seen there include muntjac deer, red foxes, and pipistrelle bats. birds include great spotted and green woodpeckers and several species of butterflies.
I usually try to find out some historical information about the parks we visit, but I couldn’t find anything about the origins of Garston Park. Although I can’t tell you when it opened, it must have been before 1947 because I found a newspaper article from August 1947 about the Watford Fair, held in the park in aid of the Printers’ Pension Corporation. It included sheepdog demonstrations, bicycle polo and bathing beauties.
The park outside the nature reserve is mown grass which has, table tennis tables, football pitch, outdoor gym and a small skatepark. There are picnic tables, but no café or toilets. There’s also a children's playground, which not only has one of Jack’s favourite swings but three large percussion instruments: xylophone, glockenspiel, and tubular bells. We both like these and I usually manage to produce a passable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
There’s a small car park and spaces are available on the surrounding streets.
Judith Field
Garston Park, Coates Way, WD25 9NY
27/09/2023 02:43:05 PM
113. Minchenden Oak Garden
This is a small, well-hidden walled garden in Southgate. Entry is through a narrow, unsignposted gap in the wall onto the main road. Inside, it’s a mix of lawn with raised beds along the wall, shrubs, and a variety of trees. There’s a sunken area to one side that might be a drained pond or an empty sunken garden. Dotted around are pieces of carved stone, remnants from the former seventeenth-century Weld Chapel that was attached to the church next door.
The garden used to be part of the estate of Minchenden House, built in 1740 and demolished in 1853. The estate was sold off in the 1930s for housing, which fills most of the area now. The space was opened as a garden of remembrance, in 1934.
Part of the reason the garden was created is the oak tree that stands in the middle – the Minchenden Oak, thought to be 800-years old and a survivor of the ancient Forest of Middlesex. It’s one of the oldest in London. The canopy of the tree was described as the largest in England in 1873. The tree canopy is smaller these days owing to its age, for example two limbs were lost in a gale in 1899 and the tree was badly pruned after that.
In 2013, rot was discovered inside the main trunk and, the canopy was cut back to reduce the weight. The timber was reused in the garden for the benches. To insure against a future loss of the oak, a sapling grown from one of its acorns was planted in May 2015, at the same time as some restoration work was carried out on the rest of the park. The tree is surrounded by a low fence.
I get the impression that the garden is never very crowded as it’s in a residential area of London with only local residents and the local school for regular users. When we were there, we were the only people, and I took the time to sit and relax on one of the many benches. This map shows where it is, not that you can tell. You need to find house number 144 and then walk along the brick wall next to it till you find the doorway.
Judith Field
Minchenden Oak Garden Waterfall Rd, Arnos Grove, London N14 7JN
