| London Parks.... 14:47 - Oct 4 with 13178 views | Boston |
...got a favourite? People often ask me about things I like to do when back in town and the parks are something I always enjoy. Hard to pinpoint why exactly but appreciate the high level of maintenance and the general lay outs, Strangely, well I think it’s strange, my most pleasurable walks are in the colder months, particularly on the morning of a frost, Regents Park from south to north is a regular stroll, though love those smaller inner city spaces like Tavistock Square. Of course, Queens Park is rarely off my mind. |  |
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| London Parks.... on 13:37 - Apr 26 with 1556 views | Boston |
| London Parks.... on 13:26 - Apr 26 by SimonJames |
I was born at Hyde Park Corner, so I vote that one.
Also, I lived next to Richmond Park for the best part of twenty years, and there was no better way to start the day than an early summer morning jog, in a quiet park, with just the deer and woodpeckers for companions. |
Do you really want people to know you start the morning drinking cider down the park! | |
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| London Parks.... on 13:52 - Apr 26 with 1506 views | Northernr |
There's a very long thin strip of park and woodland runs all the way down from where the old Barnet ground was along the Dollis River down through Whetstone, Finchley, Mill Hill. You can basically run it all the way to Hampstead Heath if you want/fit enough. I spent so much time on it in the lockdown getting my government sanctioned 30 minutes of exercise/fresh air or whatever the fcking rule was that month. The bit through Whetstone, and then lower down at Mill Hill is proper thick woodland, zero noise bar the occasional tube, and very peaceful for built up London. I spent so much time down there escaping those bleak times, either running, or with a book, or just walking about trying to collect thoughts, it became quite a special place for me - it's weird how basically a strip of grass with some trees and a river can gain meaning through circumstance like that, particularly when you live in a city.
I've missed it a lot since I moved to Tooting, I'm not really getting on with Tooting Common TBH there's too many people/roads. Went back up to N20 for the dentist the other week and walked through there again and it was weird how calming I found it.
The sad thing I found post lockdown was that rather than some sort of renewed priority and realisation of the importance of these spaces people treated them like sht even more than they ever did before. If the bin is full, take your rubbish home with you guys, don't just add to the overspill spreading sht everywhere. Barnet Council introduce an £80 fee for mattress collection. Guess what... Run through there every morning and admire the fresh mattresses that have sprouted overnight.
There's also a sewage leak into the river now up by Woodside Park Tube. Reported to EA and council, they sent an engineer down and we took him round, he basically said some cowboy had pretty obviously plumbed a bathroom extension from one of the houses into the street/rainwater run off drain from the road, so some house up on the north side every time they went for a sht it was washing into the stream, probably unbeknownst to them, which was then in turn flowing into the little river and through the playground lower down where kids and dogs would splash around in it. Absolutely stank. What they doing about it? Nothing. Would be too difficult to trace which house apparently, so that's just a thing now, somebody's beer shts and tampons washing through an open sewer in the middle of the area's main park. Sigh.
I do wish we'd value and respect out open spaces. I find the trend for chopping down large amounts of trees in this country atm pretty fcking alarming. |  | | |
| London Parks.... on 14:22 - Apr 26 with 1437 views | Boston |
| London Parks.... on 13:52 - Apr 26 by Northernr |
There's a very long thin strip of park and woodland runs all the way down from where the old Barnet ground was along the Dollis River down through Whetstone, Finchley, Mill Hill. You can basically run it all the way to Hampstead Heath if you want/fit enough. I spent so much time on it in the lockdown getting my government sanctioned 30 minutes of exercise/fresh air or whatever the fcking rule was that month. The bit through Whetstone, and then lower down at Mill Hill is proper thick woodland, zero noise bar the occasional tube, and very peaceful for built up London. I spent so much time down there escaping those bleak times, either running, or with a book, or just walking about trying to collect thoughts, it became quite a special place for me - it's weird how basically a strip of grass with some trees and a river can gain meaning through circumstance like that, particularly when you live in a city.
I've missed it a lot since I moved to Tooting, I'm not really getting on with Tooting Common TBH there's too many people/roads. Went back up to N20 for the dentist the other week and walked through there again and it was weird how calming I found it.
The sad thing I found post lockdown was that rather than some sort of renewed priority and realisation of the importance of these spaces people treated them like sht even more than they ever did before. If the bin is full, take your rubbish home with you guys, don't just add to the overspill spreading sht everywhere. Barnet Council introduce an £80 fee for mattress collection. Guess what... Run through there every morning and admire the fresh mattresses that have sprouted overnight.
There's also a sewage leak into the river now up by Woodside Park Tube. Reported to EA and council, they sent an engineer down and we took him round, he basically said some cowboy had pretty obviously plumbed a bathroom extension from one of the houses into the street/rainwater run off drain from the road, so some house up on the north side every time they went for a sht it was washing into the stream, probably unbeknownst to them, which was then in turn flowing into the little river and through the playground lower down where kids and dogs would splash around in it. Absolutely stank. What they doing about it? Nothing. Would be too difficult to trace which house apparently, so that's just a thing now, somebody's beer shts and tampons washing through an open sewer in the middle of the area's main park. Sigh.
I do wish we'd value and respect out open spaces. I find the trend for chopping down large amounts of trees in this country atm pretty fcking alarming. |
This is what solicitors are for. | |
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| London Parks.... on 14:56 - Apr 26 with 1391 views | joe90 |
| London Parks.... on 13:52 - Apr 26 by Northernr |
There's a very long thin strip of park and woodland runs all the way down from where the old Barnet ground was along the Dollis River down through Whetstone, Finchley, Mill Hill. You can basically run it all the way to Hampstead Heath if you want/fit enough. I spent so much time on it in the lockdown getting my government sanctioned 30 minutes of exercise/fresh air or whatever the fcking rule was that month. The bit through Whetstone, and then lower down at Mill Hill is proper thick woodland, zero noise bar the occasional tube, and very peaceful for built up London. I spent so much time down there escaping those bleak times, either running, or with a book, or just walking about trying to collect thoughts, it became quite a special place for me - it's weird how basically a strip of grass with some trees and a river can gain meaning through circumstance like that, particularly when you live in a city.
I've missed it a lot since I moved to Tooting, I'm not really getting on with Tooting Common TBH there's too many people/roads. Went back up to N20 for the dentist the other week and walked through there again and it was weird how calming I found it.
The sad thing I found post lockdown was that rather than some sort of renewed priority and realisation of the importance of these spaces people treated them like sht even more than they ever did before. If the bin is full, take your rubbish home with you guys, don't just add to the overspill spreading sht everywhere. Barnet Council introduce an £80 fee for mattress collection. Guess what... Run through there every morning and admire the fresh mattresses that have sprouted overnight.
There's also a sewage leak into the river now up by Woodside Park Tube. Reported to EA and council, they sent an engineer down and we took him round, he basically said some cowboy had pretty obviously plumbed a bathroom extension from one of the houses into the street/rainwater run off drain from the road, so some house up on the north side every time they went for a sht it was washing into the stream, probably unbeknownst to them, which was then in turn flowing into the little river and through the playground lower down where kids and dogs would splash around in it. Absolutely stank. What they doing about it? Nothing. Would be too difficult to trace which house apparently, so that's just a thing now, somebody's beer shts and tampons washing through an open sewer in the middle of the area's main park. Sigh.
I do wish we'd value and respect out open spaces. I find the trend for chopping down large amounts of trees in this country atm pretty fcking alarming. |
I love Tooting! Never cared much for it growing up, but love it now.
If you like South Indian food I highly recommend 'Saravana Bhavan'. |  | | |
| London Parks.... on 15:16 - Apr 26 with 1352 views | doogi10 |
if you can avoid the drug dealers | | | |
| London Parks.... on 15:17 - Apr 26 with 1346 views | Northernr |
| London Parks.... on 14:56 - Apr 26 by joe90 |
I love Tooting! Never cared much for it growing up, but love it now.
If you like South Indian food I highly recommend 'Saravana Bhavan'. |
Oh yeh the pubs, bars, restaurants, and particularly the curries are a vast improvement - loving all of that! | | | |
| London Parks.... on 15:32 - Apr 26 with 1314 views | robith |
And building on your post without quoting the whole thing Clive, cash strapped councils having to take cash for festivals etc in parks that basically privatise the public space for weeks at a time. Playing cricket at Victoria Park, the month of All Points East etc, a third of the park is completely out of commission and it turns into a dump. Every year the council has to relay the artificial cricket wickets cos people lit disposable bbqs on them. Player in another team had to go to A&E last year after sliding over a discarded bottle top.
Finsbury Park is even worse for it in how it's situated in the park |  | | |
| London Parks.... on 15:53 - Apr 26 with 1255 views | Northernr |
| London Parks.... on 15:32 - Apr 26 by robith |
And building on your post without quoting the whole thing Clive, cash strapped councils having to take cash for festivals etc in parks that basically privatise the public space for weeks at a time. Playing cricket at Victoria Park, the month of All Points East etc, a third of the park is completely out of commission and it turns into a dump. Every year the council has to relay the artificial cricket wickets cos people lit disposable bbqs on them. Player in another team had to go to A&E last year after sliding over a discarded bottle top.
Finsbury Park is even worse for it in how it's situated in the park |
yeh Finsbury Park is basically unusable for much of the summer now, which is a shame because there's a lovely walk you can do on the old tube line down from Highgate to there.
I notice that the Friends of the Scrubs and their "we don't want football supporters traipsing across the Scrubs every two weeks" mission were also considering (not sure if it's going ahead) letting Secret Cinema use it for one of their all singing, all dancing, multiple-night for weeks immersive experiences. | | | |
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| London Parks.... on 16:26 - Apr 26 with 1217 views | robith |
| London Parks.... on 15:53 - Apr 26 by Northernr |
yeh Finsbury Park is basically unusable for much of the summer now, which is a shame because there's a lovely walk you can do on the old tube line down from Highgate to there.
I notice that the Friends of the Scrubs and their "we don't want football supporters traipsing across the Scrubs every two weeks" mission were also considering (not sure if it's going ahead) letting Secret Cinema use it for one of their all singing, all dancing, multiple-night for weeks immersive experiences. |
yep that walk is an absolute delight, can confirm.
I live in Walthamstow and we managed to rattler our crooked council in to not letting Secret Cinema take over the Low Hall sports centre for the entire summer (full with their standard cast of unpaid workers) | | | |
| London Parks.... on 16:58 - Apr 26 with 1195 views | flynnbo |
| London Parks.... on 15:17 - Apr 26 by Northernr |
Oh yeh the pubs, bars, restaurants, and particularly the curries are a vast improvement - loving all of that! |
Wandsworth Common was my local common and the Nightingale in particular was my local drinking pub. Going down there tomorrow in fact to see my mum.
EDIT: She's not in the pub although I was born next door! [Post edited 26 Apr 2023 16:59]
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| London Parks.... on 17:00 - Apr 26 with 1193 views | SK_hoops |
The view at the top of Severndroog Castle is one of the best you can get of London. | | | |
| London Parks.... on 17:32 - Apr 26 with 1155 views | SimonJames |
| London Parks.... on 13:37 - Apr 26 by Boston |
Do you really want people to know you start the morning drinking cider down the park! |
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| 100% of people who drink water will die. |
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| London Parks.... on 22:57 - Apr 26 with 1047 views | CiderwithRsie |
| London Parks.... on 16:20 - Apr 25 by johann28 |
That's cutting a very long story short. I was involved in the negotiations at the time (trying to save Bedford) and I'm still bitter about the way it was all handled. The property was leased from so-called Crown Estate (which of course isn't owned by the Crown, but the State) but the then Principal (a devious crook called Dorothea Wedderburn) and her minions decided not to renew it. There was nothing inevitable about the 'merger' with RHC. Meanwhile, Wedderburn, surprise, surprise, got a nice salary rise by becoming joint principal of the 'new' University and promptly set off on a round of staff cuts / sale of artwork etc). No disrespect for those there now, but it could have remained as part of London Uni given sufficient willpower and I still find it very sad that the lease was effectively sold to highest bidder and thus subsequently taken up by a very privileged American institution. |
Didn't know about the Wedderburn thing but I do recall my dad thought the whole thing was a shame.
Start of a wave of mergers of London Colleges so the survivors have all ended up as more or less separate universities which I think a shame - Back In My Day I was able to do modules at SOAS, King's and Goldsmiths (mind you, the last one was shocking) and there were University lectures at the Senate House open to all colleges. (First saw David Starkey there when he was at the LSE, I wasn't even doing his period but a mate told me to go for the entertainment. Back then he was still actually writing history, not being a celeb) | | | |
| London Parks.... on 23:09 - Apr 26 with 1037 views | johann28 |
| London Parks.... on 22:57 - Apr 26 by CiderwithRsie |
Didn't know about the Wedderburn thing but I do recall my dad thought the whole thing was a shame.
Start of a wave of mergers of London Colleges so the survivors have all ended up as more or less separate universities which I think a shame - Back In My Day I was able to do modules at SOAS, King's and Goldsmiths (mind you, the last one was shocking) and there were University lectures at the Senate House open to all colleges. (First saw David Starkey there when he was at the LSE, I wasn't even doing his period but a mate told me to go for the entertainment. Back then he was still actually writing history, not being a celeb) |
Your Dad was the master of understatement. I love Regent's Park for other, general personal reasons as with so many others, and to lose Bedford College was one of those 80s moments for me, where life had changed for the worst. We fought so hard to save Bedford and still makes me well up thinking about it. There's some photos of a very young Alan McDonald posing with R park zoo parrots (oh yes) that we used (with permission) which also brings back memories. So, I'll try not to cry myself to sleep now. |  | | |
| London Parks.... on 08:37 - Apr 27 with 941 views | E17hoop |
| London Parks.... on 13:52 - Apr 26 by Northernr |
There's a very long thin strip of park and woodland runs all the way down from where the old Barnet ground was along the Dollis River down through Whetstone, Finchley, Mill Hill. You can basically run it all the way to Hampstead Heath if you want/fit enough. I spent so much time on it in the lockdown getting my government sanctioned 30 minutes of exercise/fresh air or whatever the fcking rule was that month. The bit through Whetstone, and then lower down at Mill Hill is proper thick woodland, zero noise bar the occasional tube, and very peaceful for built up London. I spent so much time down there escaping those bleak times, either running, or with a book, or just walking about trying to collect thoughts, it became quite a special place for me - it's weird how basically a strip of grass with some trees and a river can gain meaning through circumstance like that, particularly when you live in a city.
I've missed it a lot since I moved to Tooting, I'm not really getting on with Tooting Common TBH there's too many people/roads. Went back up to N20 for the dentist the other week and walked through there again and it was weird how calming I found it.
The sad thing I found post lockdown was that rather than some sort of renewed priority and realisation of the importance of these spaces people treated them like sht even more than they ever did before. If the bin is full, take your rubbish home with you guys, don't just add to the overspill spreading sht everywhere. Barnet Council introduce an £80 fee for mattress collection. Guess what... Run through there every morning and admire the fresh mattresses that have sprouted overnight.
There's also a sewage leak into the river now up by Woodside Park Tube. Reported to EA and council, they sent an engineer down and we took him round, he basically said some cowboy had pretty obviously plumbed a bathroom extension from one of the houses into the street/rainwater run off drain from the road, so some house up on the north side every time they went for a sht it was washing into the stream, probably unbeknownst to them, which was then in turn flowing into the little river and through the playground lower down where kids and dogs would splash around in it. Absolutely stank. What they doing about it? Nothing. Would be too difficult to trace which house apparently, so that's just a thing now, somebody's beer shts and tampons washing through an open sewer in the middle of the area's main park. Sigh.
I do wish we'd value and respect out open spaces. I find the trend for chopping down large amounts of trees in this country atm pretty fcking alarming. |
My lockdown space was Walthamstow and Tottenham marshes - almost always empty and even now surprisingly quiet.
From where I am, I can run the River Lea south to the Limehouse basin - 9 miles round trip - or up to Ware and Hertford - 16 miles one way. There are few people on the route and once you're past the M25 almost now roads nearby making it super quiet. |  |
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| London Parks.... on 19:23 - Apr 27 with 850 views | Boston |
| London Parks.... on 08:37 - Apr 27 by E17hoop |
My lockdown space was Walthamstow and Tottenham marshes - almost always empty and even now surprisingly quiet.
From where I am, I can run the River Lea south to the Limehouse basin - 9 miles round trip - or up to Ware and Hertford - 16 miles one way. There are few people on the route and once you're past the M25 almost now roads nearby making it super quiet. |
Covid ruined my favourite neck of the woods. Lovely and peaceful roaming for 20 years, just the occasionally dog walker like myself - then bang. Every fcking bod with two feet are all over the forest, and it hasn't reverted since the masks came off. Yesterday I rounded a corner to find a middle aged woman (whom I recognized), masturbating a gent who wasn't her other half. Now I don't have a problem with these antics per se, but ffs, that's not the type of nature I had in mind when popping out for a stroll. [Post edited 27 Apr 2023 19:25]
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