Park of the week

108. New Southgate Millennium Green

Millennium Greens are areas of green space meant for the benefit of local communities in England. Starting in 1996, 245 were created in cities, towns and villages to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Each one is different, as local people had an input into the design of their green. They are run by local charitable trusts.

The land had previously been used in the nineteen seventies for housing, shops and a workshop until local redevelopment took place in the nineteen seventies. There had been plans to build on the land, but these were not implemented and the land was flattened and seeded with grass, with a few trees were planted in corners. It was owned by the local authority and regularly mown, but otherwise ignored by both the authorities and the public alike. 

Around twenty years later, the council sent a survey out to local people asking them what they wanted the land to be used for and over 70% said they wanted it to remain green. With the support of the local community association, an application was made to the Countryside Commission to create a Millennium Green and it opened in 2000. One entrance is decorated with a finial from a former Southgate gasworks.

The green receives  no regular funding from the local authority. There is a playground  (which we also visited as it had not one, but two big lying-down swings) almost opposite, so the Trust concentrates on the green being  a countryside haven, with high hedges and tall trees to block out the outside world as much as possible. It has a mix of more community features, such as paths, a paved area and sculptures (including wooden pigs – Jack’s favourite animal) with more country features, such as uncut grassland and an orchard of fruit trees, donated by Homebase. The trust is in the process of creating an arboretum. There are seats in the centre of the Green and a tree-seat in the shade. There is also a large picnic bench in the shade in the Orchard. 

In 1999 a boat sculpture was created, to commemorate the writer Jerome K Jerome, author of “Three Men in a boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)”, published in 1889, who lived nearby during his childhood. There is also a mosaic of a dog set into the ground near the north entrance. 

There’s are no café or toilets. We parked on the street nearby.

Judith Field

New Southgate Millennium Green, Inverforth Rd, Arnos Grove, London N11 1SY