The Friends of Albert Road Recreation Ground (FARRG) want to tell you about an exciting new venture.
We are applying to the Mayor of London’s Greener City Fund for a community tree-planting grant. The Mayor has committed £3m to help Londoners plant trees and make our city greener.
The Greener City Fund is focused on planting more trees and creating an accessible network of well-designed green spaces across the capital.
At present there is limited shade for playing, relaxing and picnicking in the park during the summer. We intend to increase the shaded area by planting a number of semi-mature trees and hedging whips.
We also wish to increase biodiversity in the park by increasing the number of native tree species and associated wildlife.
An additional important benefit would be an improvement in air quality.
If we are successful in our application we will be contacting you again as we intend to engage both children from local schools and adult volunteers from our community to help with the tree planting in the late Autumn.
At this stage we are trying to inform and gain support for the project from different local community groups / schools etc.
We would also value any ideas and suggestions you may have for improving the park.
We would be very grateful if you were able to respond to this post stating your support for our application.
Kirstie Watkins
FARRG Committee Member
Replies
I think it's a great idea. Where did you have in mind to plant the trees? Much of the Rec seems to be used for sports, but I guess the part over by the boundary with the garden centre is less used - ? But on the other hand, the upper part of this section does get a bit water-logged in winter.
Grant's suggestion about daylighting the Muswell Stream has prompted me to read Haringey's Hidden Streams Revealed, which I bought at the last Local History Fair, and wondered if I would ever use! It shows the stream on the 1890s OS map, but this is rather difficult to interpret because modern features such as Durnsford Road are not there - it was all open countryside. So Alex has superimposed a 1930s map of the area (with LOTS of new houses) on the 1890s map. I have put the resulting image on the Gallery, because otherwise it is too small to read.
It looks like the stream unfortunately goes through the middle section of the Rec (where the words 'Recreation Grounds' are printed), used for sports. It has also caused problems with flooding (in spite of being culverted), and flood tanks were installed under the Rec in the 1990s. But it would be great for local wildlife if it could be de-culverted. Some maps apparently show a lake in the Rec opposite the junction between Durnsford and Albert Roads. I notice the curve of Albert Road seems to follow the course of the stream.
The Muswell Stream originates in three or more streams which run down from Muswell Hill (one of them rising at the original Mus-Well in Muswell Road) and converge around the Maid of Muswell junction. In the 1870s it fed three lakes in Alexandra Park which at that time reached down to this junction. Running across the corner where the Library now stands, it fed another small lake on the other side of Albert Road down one side of the small copse now belonging to Rhodes Ave. School (in the 1890s it was in the grounds of Tottenham Wood House). It then crosses the Rec, leaving it at the point where the Garden Centre fence meets Durnsford Road, running under gardens to what was then the Hornsey and Wood Green Steam Laundry (marked Laundry on the 1890s map) with its huge factory chimney that still stands (did they empty the used washing water down the stream?!). This building was later renamed the Piano Works in the 1930s, and is now used by Alfie Bines gardening company (amongst others?). Most of the stream was culverted in the late 1920s-30s.
Tottenham Wood House is very prominent on the 1890s map - but it no longer existed in the 1930s. It was on what is now Rhodes Avenue, and I gather the portico is still there, next to Rhodes Avenue School, marked 'school' on the map. Alexandra Park School is presumably where the two fields above it lie.
btw I noticed that the lovely dell used by children for climbing - to the left of the Pavilion - seems to have been clay pits.
Sounds like a really good project. On a kind-of-related subject, I wonder if FARRG have given any thought to the possibility of 'daylighting' the Muswell Stream which (I think) runs in a culvert through the southern part of the Rec? Clearly any tree planting will have to be complimentary to any underground assets currently containing the stream, but there could be huge gains to habitats and biodiversity if Alexandra's lost river was brought back to life.
I'm fully in support of FARRG's application to the Greener City Fund for a community tree-planting grant. What is the deadline for application and when will you know if you are successful? I'd also like to know a bit more about the varieties of trees you plan to plant.
This looks like an excellent opportunity to further improve the Rec.