Park of the week

136. Montesole Playing Fields

This open space, a nature conservation area, is in Pinner. There’s a lot of open space for walking, basketball hoops, a football pitch, playground, skateboard area, tennis courts and an outdoor gym. It’s home to Pinner Cricket Club.
The park is on land acquired by the local Council for recreational use in 1935 and is named after E B Montesole, a Councillor and resident of Pinner. He was dedicated to preserving the open spaces of the area and helped achieve their legal protection in the nineteen thirties when the land as under threat from housing development. 

At the top of the site, just north of the playing field, are an unmowed area, and a wooded area known as Dingle's Wood that has a number of mature oak trees that contains a section of the ancient Grim's Dyke earthworks. These may have marked an Anglo-Saxon, or even Iron Age, boundary. The earliest document mentioning the name Grim’s Dyke dates from AD 1535. Grim is the Saxon word for devil or goblin and it was given to various linear earthworks similar to the one in Harrow. It’s likely that the earthworks name was given during the Saxon times of the Fifth Century.

The tree in this picture is decorated with flowers and the Albanian flag, but I don’t know why. We visited in October – perhaps it marks a special day, or someone had a party. Does anyone have ideas?

There are entrances on James Bedford Close, Jubilee Close, Pinner Hill Road and Uxbridge Road. There’s a car park at the Pinner Hill Road entrance.

Montesole Recreation Ground, Uxbridge Road, Pinner, HA5 3RX