Park of the week

11. Sunny Hill Park

Sunny Hill Park, in Hendon, is one of Barnet’s so-called Premier Parks: ‘exemplar parks which are attractive, accessible, well maintained and offer a wide variety of facilities.’ It’s a large, hilly, mainly open space with a network of paths and plenty of benches. It’s also a local nature reserve with are areas managed with nature conservation in mind:  wildflower meadows and an area of rough grassland and scrub where there are slow-worms and butterflies. The park is home to a weekly timed 5 Km parkrun.

The park opened in 1922, when the local authority bought Sunnyhill Fields, which had belonged to Church Farm. The fields had been used for growing hay, before the internal combustion engine took over from horses and hay was no longer an important crop. More land was added in 1929.

There are brilliant views from the higher points, just the sort of place to go to alleviate lockdown cabin fever. Once again, I found that looking into the distance, rather than at close range at a computer screen or other members of the household, gives a sense of liberation. We visited the park in May, but I find it as liberating today - just the thing with Pesach almost here. It reminds me of my Liverpool childhood, when you could walk for five minutes to the Mersey and look across to the hills of Wales, grey on the horizon. 

Close to the park entrance on the Watford Way is a café serving lovely Israeli-style food – before Covid, I used to go there specially, to sit outside and have lunch with friends. At the moment the café is only serving takeaway food. There is also a playground, tennis and basketball courts and football pitches.

Near the playground is a peculiar structure made from stacked regular dodecahedrons (-hedra?), meant for climbing on by the looks of it, although as that’s not Jack’s thing (or mine) we didn’t try.

There is access from Church End, Sunny Hill, Watford Way, Great North Way, Sunny Gardens Road, Sunningfields Crescent and Church Terrace – all NW4. There is a small carpark at the end of the Watford Way (A41 Southbound) entrance – look out for it on the left as you drive along, the third on the left after Fiveways Corner.

Judith Field

Sunny Hill Park, Watford Way, NW4 4XA