If you head north east from Highgate Village you will cross the Archway Road into Shepherd’s Hill, a wide avenue lined with late Victorian mansions running down to Crouch End. Turn left down Priory Road, follow the footpath to Queen’s Wood and then head down the path on your right. This will take you along …
Sunday in Victoria Park, Hackney
The glorious sun which succeeded a week of grim, grey, damp and dreary days had everyone out in Victoria Park on Sunday – the families, the dogs, the cyclists, the runners. In fact, most of the population of Tower Hamlets and Hackney which bound the park – and were jointly responsible for running it until …
Walthamstow Wetlands
As the population of London grew during the 19th century (from just under 2 million in 1801 to just over 6 million in 1897) the need for more clean, fresh water became urgent. The Victorian planners’ answer was to develop the already boggy land around the River Lea in east London into reservoirs. The first …
Christmas at Jackson’s Lane
Straddling the borders of Highgate and Haringey on the Archway Road, is the Jackson’s Lane Arts Centre, originally a Wesleyan Methodist church built in 1902. Since the 1970s however, it has been a largely volunteer run arts centre, nurturing dance, circus and theatrical talent (alumni include Eddie Izzard and David Walliams) while running a collection …
The Elms in Fitzroy Park – all is revealed….
Those of you who followed this blog during the first days of lockdown last year may remember my post about The Elms, a rather grand house in Fitzroy Park. It had been in a sad state of disrepair in the 1990s when I first came across it (indeed, it had got onto the ‘buildings at …
Working with Heath Hands
I would hesitate to say that the steamingly hot mug of tea and handful of biscuits that you get half way through your gardening session (here being dispensed by the lovely Ash in the Hill Garden) is the main attraction of working with Heath Hands – but it certainly puts a kick in your spade! …