Park of the week

74. Roxeth Recreation Ground
 

Roxeth Recreation Ground is a large park in South Harrow. It’s one of Harrow’s Green Flag parks, having first received the award in 2009. 

It’s named after the medieval manor and hamlet of Roxeth, near Harrow on the Hill. The name Roxeth derives from ‘Hroces Seath’, which may be Old English for a lake or spring where rooks drink, or for ‘rooks’ heath’, or for a lake belonging to a family called Hroc. I think it means ‘place you have to reach by turning right at the end of our road’ (a Jack no-no).  The old medieval manor of Roxeth had connections with King Stephen, and until the late nineteenth century Roxeth was mainly an agricultural area.

It was laid out as a park in about 1908 but it existed as a space with the same name before that. I found a newspaper advertisement from May 1898 from the local authority, inviting tenders for grazing sheep on Roxeth Recreation Ground, until the end of March 1899. In reply they seem to have received only one tender, for £10, which they accepted. That’s worth about £1530 today. It was a rural area until later in the twentieth century when railway links were built. During the Second World War it was made into a market garden but was then returned to recreational use. 

Conifers have been planted near the toilet block and car park, but otherwise the park is largely playing fields, with paths around it.  It’s one of the places where we’ve picked blackberries – just one each as is our ritual. In the south of the park is an area of rough grassland where wildflowers grow, and there’s an allotment plot inside the ground. It has a children’s playground, outdoor gym, football pitches, cricket square, tennis and multi-use courts and a basketball goal. There are toilets but no café. It has a car park, open from 7.30am to dusk, but there are also parking spaces available on nearby streets.
Judith Field

Roxeth Recreation Ground, Kingsley Rd, Harrow, HA2 8LF