Park of the week

85. Wood Green Common 

Wood Green Common, in Wood Green, is a remnant of the original Wood Greene, which bordered the east side of Tottenham Wood, part of the Forest of Middlesex. It’s lined by London plane trees and is a nature conservation area.

The common is in two sections divided by a straight footpath, the west section is open grassland with a playground at the end, and the east section was laid out as a formal garden in the early twentieth century. In the formal part is a pergola, which is covered with wisteria in the spring. Four paths radiating from a circular area with a central drinking fountain (it doesn’t work). This is in memory of C W Barratt whose confectionery factory overlooked Wood Green Common from 1880 to around 1980, and who was an important local employer.

I found an article in the British Newspaper Archive, from the Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald of 20 July 1910, of a teenager charged with gambling on Wood Green Common. A policeman said that he had seen him and a group of friends playing with coins. The boy's defence was that in fact they’d been playing woggle. This apparently involves sticks and a ring, and he said the policeman had mistaken a small bit of wood (the woggle) for a coin. A number of witnesses corroborated this and the case was dismissed.

Have you ever woggled? I haven’t, but clearly it’s not illegal (or, it wasn’t in 1904) and as soon as I find out the rules and the weather improves I’ll be woggling in the garden. For anyone else old enough to remember the radio programme Round the Horne, this is worthy of Kenneth Williams's character Rambling Syd Rumpo.

Judith Field

Wood Green Common, Station Road, N22 7SY