We've found 54 parks

This was a landfill site for many years until the mid-1960s, when it was levelled, seeded and fenced. In 1999 the Friends of Muswell Hill Playing Fields was set up to counter a bid to develop the site as a golf course. The playing fields provide sports pitches, playgrounds, a skatepark and other facilities. In 2012 Muswell Hill Playing Fields was granted special status as a Queen Elizabeth II Field, giving protection from development in perpetuity.

Nightingale Gardens were laid out on former rural open space between 1894 and 1913, linking the slightly earlier public gardens of Avenue Gardens to the south and Trinity Gardens to the north. The site was enlarged at the north east corner by 1956 and the path at the north end was subsequently realigned to its present position and the formal rose garden with rough artificial stone walls and crazy paving paths was created.

Albert Road Recreation Ground was laid out in the early 1900s as the area was being developed for housing. The park was later extended and a tennis and bowling club was established in 1925, and other facilities included mini golf and a swimming pool. The pool closed in the 1980s and is now a garden centre. In 2021, Haringey Council renamed the park O R Tambo Recreation Ground in honour of the South African anti-apartheid activist Oliver Tambo. A memorial to Tambo had been installed in the park in 2009, consisting of a bust and commemorative garden, with a statue added in 2019.

OmVed Gardens was founded by Karen Leason in 2017, but was the site of Highgate Garden Centre up until 2013. Prior to this there were a number of nurseries in this area from at least the late C19th, marked on the OS maps from 1893 onwards. By 2017 it was a vacant site, little more than a tarmacked hillside. Committed to connecting people to nature, community and sharing knowledge, the aim was to create an urban greenscape, restore the ecosystem and increase biodiversity using permaculture principles. Designed by Paul Gazerwitz the new landscape comprised a number of different spaces: a sinuous path through landscaped beds; a wildflower meadow; a willow circle; a vegetable garden surrounded by an orchard; and a pond at the bottom of the hill. Built structures include a geodesic dome, the kitchen and a pavilion. Since 2022 OmVed has provided outdoor and garden education in partnership with Camden Public Health, working particularly with Brookfield School as part of its commitment to engage schoolchildren with the natural world and where food comes from as well have an impact on mental wellbeing.

Page Green Common is former commonland, which was laid out c.1897 as a public garden by Tottenham UDC, who commissioned F F McKenzie, then Superintendent of Epping Forest, to advise on how the various Tottenham commons might be improved. He recommended Page Green be laid out as a garden with a gravel circle and seats around the existing feature of the Seven Sisters trees, which originated as a circle of seven elm trees possibly planted as early as C14th, according to tradition by seven sisters who had to part. The trees have been replanted numerous times since then.

The Parkland Walk is the disused track of the former Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace Railway. The first section of the line was in use by 1867, with the final section completed by 1873. Use of the line diminished by the 1920s and the last passenger train ran in 1954, with the tracks finally lifted in 1971. In 1990 it was declared a Local Nature Reserve and laid out as a public walk, with former railway structures still visible.

The park is named after The Priory, an early C19th house. It was laid out in two phases following initial land purchase by Hornsey Local Board in 1891. Originally known as Middle Lane Pleasure or Recreation Grounds, what is now the eastern part of the park opened in 1899 and this area preserves much of its C19th landscaping. The park was re-named The Priory Park after further land to the west was purchased in 1926 and added to the park, with tennis courts and other facilities added.

A remnant of the Great Forest of Middlesex, this was once called Churchyard Bottom Wood and was reputedly the site of a plague pit. Following a 2-year campaign, it was purchased in 1898 by Hornsey Local Board from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who were about to sell it for development. Renamed Queen's Wood in commemoration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, funds were then raised for drainage, fencing and other works such as a Keeper's Lodge. The wood was opened 'for the free use of the public for ever' on 23 July 1898. A large pond in the centre of the wood was replaced by a concrete paddling pool and refreshment pavilion in 1935, now disused. The Keeper's Lodge was restored in 1998 and used as a Café.

Located just off Green Lanes, Railway Fields Local Nature Reserve was opened in 1986 after Haringey Council acquired the land in the early 1980s. The railway had opened here in 1868; until the 1950s the land was a railway goods yard used for coal and chalk, and fragments of coal can still be found on the nature reserve. In 1980 there was a community centre here, but this burnt down. The land was converted into a wildlife haven and environmental teaching centre for local schools, the pond was dug in 1987, and in 1990 was officially declared a statutory Local Nature Reserve.

Rectory Gardens were laid out by 1894 on former rural open space lying between Hornsey High Street to the south and the grounds of The Rectory to the north. The line of the straight approach drive to the house as shown on the 1864 OS Map now forms part of the roadway, Rectory Gardens, which divides the public gardens today. The original layout included boundary trees, probably London planes of which at least one survives, and a winding walk with many bays for seats running east to west.

Riversdale Gardens was laid out as public gardens between 1894 and c.1912, possibly at the same time as the nearby Crescent Gardens to the south-west. The original layout included curving paths with dwarf fencing around areas of turf inset with trees and shrub beds.

Now redeveloped as private housing, this is the former site of Southwood Hospital, which was here from 1951-91 on the east side of Southwood Lane. To the rear of the hospital were remains of the gardens of The Limes, a villa built in 1815. The hospital gardens comprised a sloping lawn flanked by belts of mature trees, including magnolia, yew, plane and some exotic specimen trees with early C20th planting that included a number of conifers.