Park of the week

126. Laycock Green

Laycock Green is a small park in Islington. It’s just around the corner from busy Highbury Corner with its Tube station and shops, and provides a relatively quiet green space, except for at the end of the school day as it’s near a primary school. It’s a good place to relax if you happen to be in the area. It was opened in 1977 by Marie Betteridge, former parliamentary communist candidate and a well-known tenants’ leader, local resident and campaigner.

We visited the green because it’s on a list I’ve pulled together of parks in Islington with Jack’s favourite “big lying down swings”. We’ve visited over half of them already – oh dear. It had gone 4pm and was raining by the time we arrived, so this post includes photos taken in daylight at in soggy darkness. But we were the only people there, which suits me. Fortunately, it is open 24 hours a day.

Two hundred years ago, the green was the site of Laycock’s Dairy, home to seven hundred cows. From the sixteenth century, Islington had been known as “Cow Town” and “the place where growthe creame”. Apprentices journeying to Islington on a day out were known as the “cream and cake boys”. Until the nineteenth century, Islington was farmland and pastures, with only a few small dwellings and dirt track roads. Islington was then the dairy capital of London because the rich soil produced the best grasses on which the cattle fed.

The space offers a green area for relaxation, a children’s playground outdoor gym, basketball/netball court. There are also wildflower meadows and cherry trees. There is no café or toilets.

There are entrances on Highbury Station Road and Laycock Street, N1.

Judith Field

Laycock Green, 49 Highbury Station Rd, London N1 1SY, United Kingdom