Park of the week

86 Town park, Enfield

The village of Enfield was one of the largest medieval parishes in Middlesex and was fully cultivated by the time of the Domesday Survey. Town Park is a surviving fragment, along with Bush Hill Park Golf Course of the pre-Elizabethan Old Park estate of Enfield Manor. Many rich people moved to Enfield from the seventeenth century onwards and built fine houses such as Chase Side House. Town Park was created on 23 acres of the former Chase Side House estate, which the local authority bought in 1894. It was laid out and opened to the public in 1902. A bathing lake opened in 1905. 

From the entrance on Cecil road, the park opens onto flower beds and hedged rose gardens on either side of a path with a Giant Redwood Tree growing in the middle, with seating around its trunk.

There are also oak, lime and horse chestnut trees. To the south are playing fields and open grass leading to a remnant of the Enfield Loop of the New River, which separates the park from the private golf course. 

This river is an artificial waterway opened in the seventeenth century to supply London with fresh drinking water. When the river loop was piped underground in the late nineteenth century, a public campaign lobbied for the preservation of the remnant for its ornamental value, and it was saved from being filled in.

The bathing lake is no longer in use, but it contained three ponds, surrounded by raised beds planted with a variety of ornamental shrubs. Today one of the ponds has an island planted with shrubs and another is now an interactive water play park. 

The park also has a cafe, toilets, a playground and interactive aquatic play areas for young children. There are tennis courts and multi-use games areas. As far as I can tell there isn’t a car park and we parked on a nearby street.

Judith Field

Town Park, Enfield, Cecil Rd, Enfield EN2 6LE