Park of the week

78. Aberford Park

This park is in Borehamwood. The local authority purchased the land it now occupies in 1888, but don’t seem to have done anything with it until after the First World War when they built a sewage works on it. By the nineteen fifties this had fallen out of use and the area was used for landfill. In the nineteen sixties it was turned into a public park with lakes, which form part of a flood relief system for the town. The lakes are home to a wide variety of wildlife and waterfowl, and swans nest there. Tykes Water, a minor tributary of the River Colne, runs through the park. The Colne eventually joins the Thames, in Surrey. Because it is close to the BBC and to Elstree Film Studios, the park has been used in several films and TV programmes such as East Enders and Grange Hill.

The park has a community centre, wildlife area, picnic area, café, toilets, multi-sports court, cycleway, and a car park. There’s a skateboard park, two children’s play areas and a field suitable for smaller ball games and general running about.
The park first received a Green Flag Award in 2008 and has held it ever since. At the most recent awarding, the judges said that they hoped the local residents realised how luck they were to have a place like it. 

I don’t know who lives inside this tree, but there doesn’t seem to be a way of opening the door, from the outside anyway. Could something, or someone, have been shut inside? Such a nuisance that I’ve already written a story about a hamadryad (the nymph, not the snake) stuck in a tree who gets released when...but I’m giving away the plot. It’s in my book in the FRS Atrium.

Judith Field

Aberford Park, Brook Road, Borehamwood WD6 5HQ