Grovelands Park is a public park in Winchmore Hill

Winchmore Hill

Winchmore Hill is a district in the Borough of Enfield, North London, in the N21 postal district.- Location :With the Winchmore Hill conservation area as a focal point, Winchmore Hill is a ward of Enfield borough, bounded on the east by Green Lanes , Barrowell Green, Firs Lane and Fords Grove, and...

 and Southgate

Southgate, London

Southgate is an area of north London, England, primarily within the London Borough of Enfield, although parts of its western fringes lie within the London Borough of Barnet. It is located around north of Charing Cross. The name is derived from being the south gate to Enfield Chase...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, that originated as a private estate.

History

The mansion, which was initially called 'Southgate Grove', was built in 1797-98 to the designs of John Nash

John Nash (architect)

John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...

 for Walker Gray, a Quaker brewer. The grounds were landscaped by Humphry Repton

Humphry Repton

Humphry Repton was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of the 19th century...

. In 1816 the building was described as being "a regular building of Ionic order, and presents a fine example of that beautiful style". Lucinda Lambton

Lucinda Lambton

Lady Lucinda Lambton, Lady Worsthorne is a British writer, photographer and broadcaster on architectural subjects, born 10 May 1943, in Newcastle upon Tyne.Her father was the Conservative government defence minister Lord Lambton She is married to the journalist Peregrine WorsthorneShe left school...

 has called the building an "idiosyncratically flounced, classical villa", and mentions that the owner bought much of the parkland to avoid the sight of other people's chimneys. She goes on to describe the interior: "Inside, there survives one of the most delicate delights in all London: Nash's octagonal dining-room, painted as if you are in a bamboo birdcage, looking our through the bars at the fields, woods and sky."

After Gray's death the property was acquired by John Donnithorne Taylor (also connected to the Taylor Walker & Co Brewery), whose family continued to live at Grovelands up to World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Part of the estate was purchased by the Municipal Borough of Southgate

Municipal Borough of Southgate

Southgate was a local government district of Middlesex from 1881 to 1965. It was part of the London postal district and Metropolitan Police District....

 in 1913 to become a public park. The house is part of the Priory Clinic. In 1998, General Pinochet was held under house arrest initially in Grovelands House while a patient at the Priory Clinic.

Recreation

The park comprises a wooded area with a pumped stream that flows from a lake to a gill, a grassed area including several football pitches and associated facilities, a children's playground and a pavilion. A small aviary used to be present but was removed in the early 1990s.

There is also a single basketball court that has recently been refurbished and a nine-hole pitch and putt

Pitch and putt

Pitch and putt is an amateur sport, similar to golf. The maximum hole length for international competitions is with a maximum total course length of . Players may only use three clubs; one of which must be a putter...

 golf course that is open in the summer months.

The park hosts a weekly 5K run on Saturday mornings at 9am as part of the Parkrun

Parkrun

parkrun is the name given to a collection of 5 km running events that take place every week in several different countries. They are free to take part in and require runners to register on-line for a unique athlete number and to print their own identification barcode before taking part.parkrun...

 events.

Flora and fauna

A dangerous algal

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

 bloom formed on the lake in the late 1990s.

When the lake was drained to install a new pumping and drainage system to curb flooding problems, a large number of terrapin

Terrapin

A terrapin is a turtle living in fresh or brackish water.Terrapin may also refer to:* Terrapin , a transport vehicle used for amphibious assault by the Allies during the Second World War...

s were found to be living in the lake. The terrapins were believed to be the descendants of discarded pets that were able to survive and breed. Feral terrapins are a recurring problem in many London waterways.

External links

• Grovelands Park on the VisitWoods website
• Grovelands Park information at digilondon.com
• The Friends of Grovelands Park website