Park of the week

2. Stoneyfields Park

This medium-sized park is in Fairmead Crescent, Edgware. You can park on the street itself or in surrounding side roads. 

We visited this peaceful place at the end of May, during the first lockdown. The park has open grasslands and mowed lawns to walk in, and small woodlands. There’s a playground, multi-sports court and a basketball hoop. 

It’s one of the few places where you can get access to Deans Brook. This rises on Mill Hill Gold course and runs to Edgware, where it joins the Silk Stream, which then joins the Brent, which eventually joins the Thames at Brentford. Where Deans Brook crosses the park, it has been dammed to create a lovely ornamental lake, one of the biggest in Barnet. Jack likes to stroll round a pond and look at the wildfowl, so this was his favourite part. We saw swans and mandarin ducks. The Brook flows out of the lake into a cascade, then into a small wooded area. The mature oak and hazel trees growing in the park were once part of an ancient woodland. Stoneyfields Park and Deans Brook are a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade II.

We walked all around the park and the lake, then sat down opposite the locked playground, watching the same people riding their bikes round…and round…and round…and walkers jumping out of the way. A man and a woman, looking like they were aged in their twenties, climbed over the railings. A few passers-by complained, but I applauded, and then had to explain to Jack why I was, starting with “well, I think it’s a funny thing to do” and ending with “but of course you shouldn’t do it, the playground is really for little children”. Talk about digging a hole for yourself with your mouth. Meanwhile the couple, looking a bit sheepish, sat at the top of one of the slides and shared a picnic.

Judith Field
Stoneyfields Park, Fairmead Crescent, Edgware HA8 9TB