Park of the week

51. Tudor Sports Ground

Tudor Sports Ground is a park in New Barnet. It’s a large, grassed area with scattered mature trees. It’s largely used for sport, but there’s lots of room to walk in. You might miss it if you looked for it on a map, because some only show the footgolf course in the park. It has eighteen holes and the game involves kicking a football into a hole (larger than in normal golf) in as few kicks as possible. Once inside the park, follow the signs to ‘The Field of Dreams’. There’s also a cricket pitch, tennis court, basketball shooting area and playgrounds for younger and older children.

Overlooking the park is a run-down nineteen twenties art deco pavilion. This is included in Barnet Council’s local heritage list as being of ‘historical and architectural interest because of its social and community value, its age and rarity, and its landmark qualities’. It’s not much of a landmark at the moment but there’s a campaign to renovate it. It might then be used to house one or more of a café, public toilets, community space, events space, social enterprise and changing facilities. 

The space that makes up the park has been protected by the Fields in Trust charity since 1940 as a covenanted field. This means that there is a legal agreement between the landowner and Fields in Trust that the landowner will ‘retain it for use as a green space, usually a public park, playing field or recreation ground, in perpetuity.’

Tudor Sports Ground is one of sixteen Barnet's Premier Parks. Barnet describe them as ‘exemplar ideal parks which are attractive, accessible, well maintained and offer a wide range of facilities’. Barnet’s objective is to ensure that one is available within one mile of the majority of homes in the Borough.  I don’t know whether they’ve met this objective, but if I do find the time and inclination to sit down with a map and compasses, I’ll let you know.

There are no café or toilets. The park has its own car park, and it looks as though it’d be easy enough to find spaces to park on the surrounding streets.

Judith Field

Tudor Sports Ground, Clifford Road, New Barnet, EN5 5JS