Park of the week

145. Gillespie Park and Ecology Centre

Gillespie Park, winner of the Green Flag Award in 2019 and the London Conservation Area of the Year award in London in Bloom 2015, is Islington’s largest nature reserve. It hosts the Islington Ecology Centre, built in 1992, a visitor and education centre providing environmental education for schools and organises walks and talks for adults.

It’s built on a site that had been railway sidings and the Stephens Ink Factory. The factory closed in the nineteen sixties and a council estate (including Quill Street – I liked this writerly name) built on the site in 1972. In 1980, the idea for a park on the area was put forward by interested local groups. By 1981, a ten-year lease from British Rail was secured by Islington Council, who insisted that the site be kept open. A determined effort by local people, acting with the Council, resisted pressure from central government to sell off public land, saved the land from development. The site is protected by Fields in Trust through a legal ‘Deed of Dedication’ safeguarding the future of the space as public recreation land for future generations to enjoy.

The nature reserve has reedbeds and ponds, home to tiny water creatures, bugs, frogs, toads and newts. There are also woodland and meadow areas.

The goldfish eat the tadpoles, unfortunately.

The reserve is also home to wildlife. Eighty species of birds, twenty species of butterflies, eight species of dragonflies and two hundred flowering plants have been recorded so far. Grasslands on the park extension on the former sidings have been declared of metropolitan significance by the London Ecology Unit, and a rare lichen, Peltigera didactyla, has also been seen growing there. In 1990, the first recorded breeding of the long-tailed blue butterfly in the UK was found in the nature reserve, and in 1991 Islington’s only orchid, a common spotted, was discovered.

The site is open from 8am to dusk on weekdays and 10am to 4pm at weekends. I believe it’s usually closed when Arsenal are playing at home, as it’s near the Emirates Stadium. There are entrances on Drayton Park and Quill Street, N5.

Judith Field

Gillespie Park, 191 Drayton Park, London N5 1PH