Park of the week

154. Dartmouth Park

We’d driven past the Dartmouth Park Hill side of this park several times, but all I’d seen was the Victorian reservoir tanks in the middle surrounded with a metal fence, and it didn’t look like a place you’d be able to get into or want to do so. However, a very helpful reply from Islington Council, in reply to my question about which of their parks had “big lying down swings”, told me that there was one, in each of the two playgrounds in Dartmouth Park so I decided to give it another go and approach from a side road. 

The Dartmouth Park area takes its name from the Earl of Dartmouth who bought land here in the mid eighteenth Century. Housing development had accelerated and the need to increase the supply of fresh water to serve London’s expanding population meant that water companies were building new facilities. Two reservoirs were constructed on Dartmouth Park Hill in 1855. They are covered in grassland and are still in use.

Dartmouth Park was laid out on the edge of the reservoirs and opened to the public in 1972. The land slopes steeply to the north and the east of the reservoirs. The top of the slope gives a great view over London.

The park has a seating area surrounded by a hedge, which local children helped to plant in 1991.

It has been designated as a Site of importance for Nature Conservation and has a variety of grassland types. Locally uncommon plants grow there, including burnet saxifrage, grey sedge, sheep's and common sorrels (on which the small copper butterfly feeds) and field woodrush. 

The park hosted one of the beacons lit nationwide on 21 April 2016 to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday.

Judith Field

Dartmouth Park, 80-18 Bickerton Rd, London N19 5JT