Finsbury Park
Finsbury Park is a public park in Middlesex, in the Finsbury Park neighbourhood. It was one of the first of the great London parks laid out in the Victorian era. The park borders the districts of Finsbury Park, Harringay, Stroud Green, and Manor House.
Facilities
The park has a mix of open ground, formal gardens, avenues of mature trees and an arboretum. There is also a lake, a children's play area, a cafe and an art exhibition space. Sports facilities in the park include football pitches, a bowling green,[1] a skatepark,[2] an athletics stadium, and tennis and [asketball courts.[3] Unusually for London, the park hosts two facilities for "American" sports: an American football field, home to the London Blitz, and diamonds for softball and baseball, home to the London Mets.
Parkland Walk, a linear park, provides a route that links the park with Crouch Hill Park, Crouch End, and Highgate tube station.
History
Before the park
The park was landscaped on the northeastern extremity of what was originally a woodland area in the Manor or Prebend of Brownswood. It was part of a large expanse of woodland called Hornsey Wood that was cut further and further back for use as grazing land during the Middle Ages. In the mid-18th century a tea room had opened on the knoll of land on which Finsbury Park is situated. Londoners would travel north to escape the smoke of the capital and enjoy the last remains of the old Hornsey Wood. Around 1800 the tea rooms were developed into a larger building which became known as the Hornsey Wood House/Tavern. A lake was also built on the top of the knoll with water pumped up from the nearby New River. There was boating, a shooting and archery range, and probably cock fighting and other blood sports. The Hornsey Wood Tavern was destroyed in the process of making the area into a park, but the lake was enlarged. Once the park had opened, a pub across the road from its eastern entrance along Seven Sisters Road called itself the Hornsey Wood Tavern after the original. This pub was later renamed the Alexandra Dining Room and closed for business in April 2007. It was subsequently demolished.[4]
Creation of the park
During the early part of the second quarter of the 19th century, following developments in Paris, Londoners began to demand the creation of open spaces as an antidote to the ever-increasing urbanisation of London. In 1841 the people of Finsbury petitioned for a park to alleviate conditions of the poor. The present-day site of Finsbury Park was one of four suggestions for the location of a park.[5]
Originally to be named Albert Park,[4] the first plans were drawn up in 1850.[6] Renamed Finsbury Park, plans for the park's creation were ratified by an Act of Parliament in 1857.[7] Despite some local opposition, the park was opened in 1869.
During the wars
During the First World War the park was known as a location for pacifist meetings.[8]
During the Second World War, the park was used as military training grounds and also hosted anti-aircraft guns.[9]
Regeneration
Through the late 20th Century the park began to fall into a state of disrepair with most of the original features gone by the 1980s. This decline was worsened in 1986 when the then owner, Greater London Council was wound up and ownership was passed on Haringey Council but without sufficient funding or a statutory obligation for the park's upkeep.[10]
A £5 million Heritage Lottery Fund Award, made in 2003, enabled significant renovations including cleaning the lake, building a new cafe and children's playground and resurfacing and repairing the tennis courts. The park now contains tennis courts, a running track, a softball field and many open spaces for various leisure activities.[11]
Live music in Finsbury Park
The park has hosted several live music performances and music festivals, including: Acid Daze in 1987, Madstock! in 1992, Gathering of tribes in 1992, XFm's Great Xpectations Festival in 1993, Rise Festival in 2006-2010, Feis festival in 2011, Wireless Festival in 2014-2016, and Hospitality in the Park in 2016. Concerts include Jimi Hendrix in 1967, The Damned in 1986, Bob Dylan in 1993, Sex Pistols in 1996, KISS in 1997, Pulp in 1998, Oasis in 2002, New Order in 2002, Limp Bizkit in 2003, Rage Against the Machine in 2010, The Stone Roses in 2013, and Arctic Monkeys in 2014.
References
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Finsbury Park) |
- ↑ "Finsbury Park Bowls Club". bowlsclub.org. http://bowlsclub.org/club/1667/. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
- ↑ "Finsbury Park Skatepark". The Skateparks Project. https://www.skateparks.co.uk/london/finsbury-park-skatepark/. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- ↑ "Finsbury Park". Green Flag Award. https://web.archive.org/web/20171201101322/http://www.greenflagaward.org/park-summary/?park=373. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hayes, Hugh (2001). A Park for Finsbury. Friends of Finsbury Park. ISBN 0-9540637-0-8.
- ↑ The Times, 9th August 1869
- ↑ "Finsbury Park". Historic England. https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000804. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
- ↑ "Finsbury Park, Finsbury, England". ParksAndGardens.org. http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/1328. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
- ↑ "War Office Official Topical Budget". Imperial War Museum. May 1918. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060023185. "Newsreel item on the break-up of a pacifist meeting in Finsbury Park, London"
- ↑ Edgerton, David (9 August 2011). Britains War Machine: Weapons, Resources, and Experts in the Second World War. Oxford University Press. pp. 30. ISBN 978-0-19-991150-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=IKZC256tZ0IC&pg=PT30.
- ↑ Jackson, Hazelle (October 2006). "Rising from the Ashes:The Resurrection of Finsbury Park". London Gardens Trust. http://www.londongardenstrust.org/features/finsbury.htm. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
- ↑ "Heritage Lottery Fund Improvements". Haringey Council. http://www.haringey.gov.uk/libraries-sport-and-leisure/parks-and-open-spaces/improving-parks/heritage-lottery-fund-improvements. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
Outside links
- Location map: 51°34’16"N, 0°6’3"W