London parks and what they're good for

Also, heaths beat parks hands down for picnics. You can't really have impromptu games of rounders in a small park.

The Elthorne Peace Park is the best park in London to get murdered in.

Russell Square, for smiling nostalgically at five year olds grabbing a quick run around before they get dragged back into the British Museum.

Queen's Square always makes me think contemplatively about death.

They're lead-clad stone, I think, though I'm not sure what the outer layer is now they've been spruced up. I'm not even sure that corner of the park is open yet - the landscaping is about 12 months behind schedule and the only way you've been able to spy the big lizards since late 2001 is on a train on the loop between Palace and Sydenham just before it crosses Thicket Road.

Gunnersbury Park = quite cool. It has a boating lake. And my friend said there was a satantic ritual hapening their one evening. I think he was lying.

Regents Park - good for football, and flowers, and playing with the ducks.

Hampstead Heath - feeding swans and fucking. Also feeling boring but cute.

St James Park - being in a fairy tale. Also they have pelicans. Except when you're there with some stranger to London, and you say, "There are pelicans here", and the pelicans disappear.

Hyde Park - assembling for demonstrations, riding bikes, hiding from children.

Clapham Common - used to be good for attending free gay festivals and laughing on the dodgems, and playing chess. I don't know any more.

Green Park - one one this. Has no distinguishable features. Good for lying down in the sun when you've got no time to go anywhere else.

I hadn't actually tested out whether HH was good for fucking when I wrote that. But I did this afternoon, and I recommend it.

(this is Liz :x btw)

a gaping smile

http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/parks/green_park/

anyway, yesterday i hired a deckchair for the first time in my life, which was cool. i'll definitely be doing it again, it made lazing around reading all afternoon much more comfortable. i then wandered down to st james's park via the ica (i seem to do this quite a lot at the moment, it's nice to have a break inside looking at some art) and lazed around a whole lot more. i need to eat here sometime this summer:

http://russelldavies.typepad.com/ateaandathink/2004/05/inn_the_park_st.html

the only downside is that i was a bit less careful wih the sun than i'd thought and i now have a distressingly red nose.

guitar-strumming cohorts

http://msuma.wrzuta.pl/film/1zMf5QLJxZa/douchebag_with_guitar_-_family_guy_6x04

You're allowed to smoke in all London parks as far as I know, but I'm not sure you're allowed to barbeque in most of them.

i thought you werent allowed bbqs in london fields and everyone just ignored it, i've definitely seen ppl being told off before

Yes, where are you not allowed to smoke in parks?

Fuck Hackney, srsly.

― The Men Who Stare At Goatse (Matt DC), Tuesday, 1 June 2010 11:20 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

“I always get some good shots up here,” he said, as he headed for a pint at the Cat and Mutton, Broadway’s perpetually hopping pub.

I was sitting within 20 feet of the man who was shot last weekend in the incident you gloss over so briefly - it was horrific.

i think they meant 'light up' to mean 'a bbq'

lol tho of course a third meaning of 'light up' is 'rake with bullets' amirite

not exactly street legal even in hackers

Yes, where are you not allowed to smoke in parks?

Er, CenterParcs?

I don’t live anywhere near here,” she said, “but I can’t think of many better places to come and get shot at on a sunny Sunday.”

you guys are just jealous that these people are beautiful and have nice meat

(tesco finest??)

Florence isn't beautiful... actually it's only claimed her friends are, so strike that... can't comment on her meat

it's beautifully carved and pink

I'm vegetarian. Take your lambchop tools of the patriarchy away from me! ;-)

vegetables can be beautifully carved and pink

You're definitely not allowed to BBQ on London Fields, but like everywhere else, people just do it until they're told not to.

That Grazia article is totally awful, but it is quite possible to have a wanker-free existence in Hackney/London Fields. Still predominantly a family area.

london fields does the job just fine as a park imo...other parks may be prettier but would prefer less families as they make me feel aged..

Ha ha - I have the opposite experience! Wandering around near London Fields on the May Day bank holiday I was struck by the sheer number of unattached (or loosely tethered) twentysomethings milling about, seemingly with the whole day stretching in front of them to get slowly pissed in. I felt very out of place and very old. Definitely not my constituency thesedays.

Still predominantly a family area

i wouldn't say that. on a hot day L Fields is probably 50% families 50% unattached 20-35s.

Ha ha - I have the opposite experience! Wandering around near London Fields on the May Day bank holiday I was struck by the sheer number of unattached (or loosely tethered) twentysomethings milling about, seemingly with the whole day stretching in front of them to get slowly pissed in. I felt very out of place and very old. Definitely not my constituency thesedays.

love that this works both ways...i don't know why but the presence of families always makes me feel like suddenly rules or propriety is in effect...this is really heightened on sundays, i hate pubs where there are loads of families cos it makes me think of obligation and routine, not escaping that by being in the pub. it's not that i hate kids or something either, on the contrary i totally love kids...just not mixed into pub time.

i'd say ldn fields is v low on families, i'm not sure you see any hardly, maybe that's the part of it i tend to go to (near the shooting!) i wouldn't describe being at the shooting as "horrific" tho, obv it's an awful thing to happen but why wouldn't you "gloss over" it if by "gloss over" you mean go back to the park and live life as normal. the guy didn't die and even if he had, it's a public park and people should use it.

also yeah...that sense of the whole day to get pissed in the sun in ldn fields is pretty much the best feeling in the world, i love a saturday (and a sunday) spent in ldn fields more than just about anything else in this city, almost everyone i know will be there, float around from group to group, playing frisbee, maybe a bit of football, lots of beer, bbq, go for dinner when it gets dark, those are seriously the best days of my life...

apart from round the lido london fields is fucking vile man, get a grip

Long shot - but I've got a spare ticket for Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well, 3.20 NFT, if anyone fancies it at such short notice. Sorry to hijack the thread but writing on my phone, and just hit the first London thread that came up. PM if interested.

people who go and hang out in parks as soon as the sun come out and play frisbee and shit like that are exhibitionist scum

lol

hadn't been to london fields in the sunshine until yesterday. wasn't quite prepared for the sea of yoof. i felt underdressed. in a park. there's something a little bit :-/ about the vibe there. everyone goes to stare/bitch/judge/lol @ everyone else there? maybe i wasn't hungover enough. surrounded by ppl jamming on their guitars. come kind of clapton thing from the unplugged album. not funny, shut up. a spontaneous version of hallucination city would have been ok. next time i'm going suggest we meet in a park where we have a bit more space for kicking a ball. where we can have a little hi-fi playing without disturbing anyone else. somewhere where finding a legal place to urinate takes less than 30 minutes.

i just go there to drink...not really sure how you could detect that everyone in a place is there for a particular reason.

was in hyde park yesterday, after my nose stopped bleeding i had a great time.

Actually got lost wandering around in circles somewhere in Epping Forest on Friday afternoon.

xpost

ha, yes, i guess that says more about the various ppl that stopped by our area tbh. "oh i know that person from x, y and z. what IS she wearing". lots of spotting and being spotted going on.

i'm leading a charity bike ride from stamford hill up to broxborne in a few weeks, we're testing the route this weekend. looking forward to finding some nice spots up round there!

kensington park: owls

London Fields is shit. There are SO MANY better London parks. Even for just drinking in.

mmm yeah all london fields had going for it was proximity to my flat - now i live elsewhere i'm not exactly moved to go back to it. it does often feel overcrowded, and most of the people in it put me right off...everything.

i have warmed to finsbury park, mostly by heading deep into its northern end and centre - it's really quite varied, a lot of spots which still feel secluded despite everything.

clissold park is fine for weekday sunbathing, i can confirm, though i'm not sure i've ever sat and drunk there w/a group of people

surrounded by ppl jamming on their guitars.

these are the WORST SAVAGES by the way - had to move away from some in clissold park and gave them such a side-eye on my way past

Yeah all you need for a drinking park is a bit of space and a nice view and London Fields has neither. I am quite pro- Clissold Park though due to its giant rabbits.

Spent half-an-hour in Beckenham Place Park. Didn't see a lot of it, but what I saw I liked - blooming gardens, nicely landscaped vistas, bosky paths. Downside is golf, but a potentially A1 park to explore.

It has a dilapidated pile with a charity shop inside. I resisted buying BBC TV's Bread: The Family Board Game.

iirc london parks are good for drinking cheap cider, pissing it out & sleeping it off.

i've never seen giant rabbits in clissold park, are you sure you don't mean the deer?

i don\t mean to sound antisocial but really my #1 priority in both pubs and parks is PERSONAL SPACE and NO CROWDS OF CUNTS

lex, do you have a garden?

not grassy or sunny enough :(

Also likely proximity of Arsenal fans.

Apparently the rabbits in Clissold Park were all killed by foxes :(

somewhere where finding a legal place to urinate takes less than 30 minutes.

u+k

london fields has plenty space...the only really crowded part is that one bit that everyone chooses to sit on, you could sit in space anywhere else on it if you wanted to. and even the busy part isn't particularly stressful, plus you don't need much space to chat/drink.

i played frisbee or football there most times last year tho so obv there is space.

it's not particularly pretty but who cares...i can go there and i know i'll meet friends without having prearranged to do so. other parks may be prettier but not worth travelling further to if you already live near one where your friends are likely to be.

victoria park is actually closer to my house but the atmosphere there is moribund family vibe...so london fields it is.

as for 30 mins to find a legit toilet, were you on stilts or something? prob about 10 mins, plus in the summer there are temporary toilets set up.

Apparently the rabbits in Clissold Park were all killed by foxes :

Shit really? I live right by the park (it's the whole reason I moved to the area actually) and used to love wandering up by the rabbits*. I thought they'd just moved them whilst they were doing their neverending redevelopment.

Aside from repping for the home team, I'll echo the comments upthread about springfield park - a real hidden gem.

(*can be a tricky business though... is there a thread for that thing where you really want to do something innocent but bottle it because you're a grown man and don't want to look too paed-y?)

Norwood Park has the best views in London, official. (I took in the views from both One Tree Hill and Norwood Park, and One Tree Hill is so overgrown I reckon Norwood pips it.)

At the moment, I am really feeling Upper Dulwich Woods.

Also, where are the wells in Sydenham Wells Park? I found only one. It had a megalith floating bizarrely on top of it. Why?

clissold park possibly now more tightrope than grass

gonna give a shout out to well street
common, peaceful and beautiful and quiet, even on a day like today

Grangewood Park is such an odd, odd place. The ridge of land is so high up, you can see for miles, but also sound carries in such an odd way. I was wandering around, and I kept hearing *chanting*. Sudden bursts of singing, monosyllabic buzz, the coordinated sound of hundreds of people all chanting together. It was very odd, almost spooky, especially wandering around this deserted hilltop oak forest. My mind was running wild, and I always wanted to believe it was the ghosts of druids or something.

Then I walked further on, and looked down into the valley below. The mystery solved: about half a mile below me was Crystal Palace F.C., like the hill is so far up you can peer straight down into it, and the wind was carrying the football chants right up the hill. I stood and watched/listened, mesmerised for about ten minutes, because I've never heard a football crowd before; I had no idea they were so *loud* but also so organised. Like, I really did think it was a religious service of some kind, by the sound of it. Completely extraordinary.

(I mean, the particular local conditions which carry the sound of a football match up into a forest; I'm sure football matches are perfectly ordinary events.)

^good post

the phenomenon of football crowd chanting must seem faintly amazing to an outsider - there are few if any other circumstances where you'd hear massed human voices chanting as one, entirely in rhythm, not entirely in tune. the comparison to a religious service is far from facile

to be amongst that morass is an exquisitely positive, communitarian feeling & is one of the reasons I enjoy attending football matches. but to observe it from afar, in arboreal surrounds, surely carries with it other comforts - and the phenomenon of displacement that brought the chanting to the forest surely evocative of an entirely other order of worship

my recent park exploit was the thin strip of forested land by the ravensbourne river, between catford and bellingham, while looking for a cricket ground i was due to play at - for a patch of railwayside wasteland it was surprisingly wild-seeming and green. would revisit. in season i'd imagine the butterfly-and-birdlife could be quietly surprising