Watling Park

Watling Street after which the estate and park are named was a pre-Roman route. Until the arrival of the Northern Line in 1924 there was little development in Burnt Oak, which prior to this was largely agricultural, with a few privately owned farms and scattered villas. Evidence of pre-Roman occupation was found on the Watling Estate in 1971 when C3rd/C4th pottery, building materials, and bronze coins were excavated; the Roman settlement of Sullonicae may have been here.

Watling Park is within the Watling Estate, a large LCC housing estate built in the 1920s for inner city slum clearance, designed by LCC architect George Topham Forrest. The decision to build the estate was taken in 1924 and by 1927 the first residents moved in. Prior to this much of the land had been owned by Goldbeaters Farm, which the LCC purchased. By 1930 4000 homes were built over an area of c.64 hectares, and eventually schools, churches, shops and other community facilities were provided, although the estate was not designed as a self-contained community. Among the few pre-estate buildings are St Rose's Convent and Gate House (both listed LBII). The design of the estate was influenced by the Arts and Crafts and Garden City movements, with buildings simple in plan and design and good quality materials used. Its layout had well-spaced buildings often arranged symmetrically around green spaces and street trees, so that the overall estate layout was softened with greenery. Roads tended to follow old field boundaries, allowing existing trees to line the new roads as well as planting new trees on corners. Grass verges were a characteristic of the estate and there was wide use of hedges. The Watling Estate was designated a Conservation Area covering 158 hectares of land.

Tracts of open space were created through the estate, following the meandering course of Silk Stream and its tributary. Many of the old trees from Goldbeaters Farm were retained, and in June 1929 land reserved for Watling Park was cleared of building materials and the park laid out and opened in 1931. In addition to Watling Park the open spaces included The Meads, an unlandscaped, natural area; Silkstream Park (q.v.); and Lyndhurst Park, which had been reserved on the original estate plan and was subsequently made into a public park. Watling Park was landscaped with paths, pedestrian bridges and a variety of mature trees, and has its main entrance on Watling Avenue, which retains the original ornamental gates. A series of rustic hump-backed bridges cross Burnt Oak Brook before it flows underground into a culvert surrounded by brick terrace, flanked by steps either side. A rose garden with an elaborate arrangement of some 17 geometrically shaped beds provides evidence of the planting scheme, together with semi-circular beds along the east border and a small hedged area with seating to the west. It remains a pleasant tree-filled park with willows on the banks of the stream and numerous oaks in the undulating parkland, some predating the park's creation, recalling its rural history.