Park of the week

36. The Mill Field

We live in Mill Hill. When I Googled the place recently, one of the suggested searches was ‘is Mill Hill posh?’ Posh isn’t a word I like, as it seems often to have an envious subtext, but I clicked it anyway. It took me to an estate agent’s site, where I read that Mill Hill is renowned for its beautiful parks and green spaces. 

The Mill Field, on The Ridgeway, Mill Hill is one of them, and a gem, hidden if you only look at the road when you’re driving. Jack asked to go to ‘the park near Sweet Tree Fields Farm’ (the wonderful inclusive farm he attends once a week), and when I looked at the map I realised The Mill Field was the one he meant. I’d driven past it many times and not noticed it. My excuse is that it’s on a winding bit of the where you have to concentrate, I mean concentrate more.

It’s a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation and is a public open space sloping slopes steeply down from the road. It’s thought that it might be the site of the windmill which gave the area its name. This was documented as early as 1321 but had disappeared by 1754. 

The upper part of the field has good views across west London. It’s managed as a park and has a football pitch. The lower slopes are less managed, with grassland, hedgerows marking former field boundaries, scattered trees, and areas of undergrowth. We walked in this part too, and it was dense enough with trees that I had to note landmarks and remember which way we’d walked so we didn’t get lost (something I find very easy to do). Here, a small stream, flows from a spring fed pond, where wildflowers grow. The stream is probably a tributary of Burnt Oak Brook  (It is a tributary of the Silk Stream, which is a tributary of the River Brent, which is a tributary of the River Thames. Here we go again). 

There are places to park along The Ridgeway but there are some parking restrictions. Guess how I know...

Judith Field

The Mill Field, The Ridgeway, London NW7 4EB