NORTH-WEST AND NORTH LONDON
Open spaces on the border of West London--The Scrubs, Old Oak Common,
and Kensal Green Cemetery--North-west district--Paddington
Recreation Ground, Kilburn Park, and adjoining open spaces--Regent's
Park described--Attractive to birds, but not safe--Hampstead Heath:
its character and bird life--The ponds--A pair of moorhens--An
improvement suggested--North London districts--Highgate Woods,
Churchyard Bottom Wood, Waterlow Park, and Highgate Cemetery--Finsbury
Park--A paradise of thrushes--Clissold Park and Abney Park Cemetery.
Before proceeding to give a brief account of the parks and open spaces
of North-west and North London it is necessary to mention here a group
of open spaces just within the West district, on its northern border,
a mile and a half to two miles north of Ravenscourt Park. These are
Wormwood Scrubs, Little Wormwood Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal
Green Cemetery. As they contain altogether not far short of three
hundred acres, and are in close proximity, they might in time have been
thrown into one park. A large open space will be sadly needed in that
part of London before many years are passed, and it is certain that West
London cannot go on burying its dead much longer at Kensal Green. But it
is to be feared that the usual short-sighted policy will prevail with
regard to these spaces, and a good deal of the space known as Old Oak
Common has already been enclosed with barbed-wire fences, and it is now
said that the commoners' rights in this space have been extinguished.
Beyond these spaces are Acton and Harlesden--a district where town and
country mix.
From Wormwood Scrubs to Regent's Park it is three miles as the crow
flies--three miles of houses inhabited by a working-class population,
with no green spot except the Paddington Recreation Ground, which is
small (25 acres), and of little or no use to the thousands of poor
children in this vast parish, being too far from their homes.
Crossing the line dividing the West from the North-west district near
Kensal Green, we find the following four not large open spaces in
Kilburn--Kensal Rise, Brondesbury Park (private), Paddington Cemetery,
and Kilburn or Queen's Park (30 acres).
All this part of London is now being rapidly covered with houses, and
the one beautiful open space, with large old trees in it, is Brondesbury
Park. How sad to think that this fine park will probably be built over
within the next few years, and that the only public open space left
will be the Queen's Park--a dreary patch of stiff clay, where the
vegetation is stunted and looks tired of life. Even a few exceptionally
dirty-looking sparrows that inhabit it appear to find it a depressing
place.
Two miles east of this melancholy spot is Regent's Park, which now forms
one continuous open space, under one direction, with Primrose Hill, and
contains altogether 473 acres. It is far and away the largest of the
inner London parks, its area exceeding that of Hyde Park by 112 acres.
Its large extent is but one of its advantages. Although not all free to
the public, it is all open to the birds, and the existence of several
more or less private enclosed areas is all in their favour. On its
south, east, and west sides this space has the brick wilderness of
London, an endless forest of chimneys defiling the air with their smoke;
but on the north side it touches a district where gardens abound, and
trees, shrubs, and luxuriant ivy and creepers give it a country-like
aspect. This pleasant green character is maintained until Hampstead
Heath and the country proper is reached, and over this rural stretch of
North-west London the birds come and go freely between the country and
Regent's Park. This large space should be exceedingly attractive to all
such birds as are not intolerant of a clay soil. There are extensive
green spaces, a good deal of wood, and numerous large shrubberies,
which are more suitable for birds to find shelter and breed in than
the shrubberies in the central parks. There is also a large piece of
ornamental water, with islands, and, better still, the Regent's Canal
running for a distance of nearly one mile through the park. The steeply
sloping banks on one side, clothed with rank grass and shrubs and
crowned with large unmutilated trees, give this water the appearance of
a river in the country, and it is, indeed, along the canal where birds
are always most abundant, and where the finest melody may be heard. All
these advantages should make Regent's Park as rich in varied bird life
as any open space in the metropolis. Unfortunately the birds are not
encouraged, and if this park was not so large, and so placed as to
be in some degree in touch with the country, it would be in the same
melancholy condition as Hyde Park. The species now found are the
blackbird and thrush, greenfinch (rare) and chaffinch, robin, dunnock,
and wren (the last very rare), and in summer two or three migrants are
added. But most of the birds find it hard to rear any young owing to the
birds'-nesting boys and loafers, who are not properly watched, and to
the cats that infest the shrubberies. Even by day cats have the liberty
of this park. Wood-pigeons come in numbers to feed in the early morning,
and a few pairs build nests, but as a rule their eggs are taken. Carrion
crows from North London visit the park on most days, and make occasional
incursions into the Zoological Gardens, where they are regarded with
very unfriendly feelings. They go there on the chance of picking up
a crumb or two dropped from the tables of the pampered captives; and
perhaps for a peep at the crow-house, where many corvines from many
lands may be seen turning their eyes skyward, uttering at the same time
a cry of recognition, to watch the sweeping flight of their passing
relatives, who 'mock them with their loss of liberty.'
The water-birds (wild) are no better off in this park than the songsters
in the shrubberies, yet it could easily be made more attractive and safe
as a breeding-place. As it is, the dabchick seldom succeeds in hatching
eggs, and even the semi-domestic and easily satisfied moorhen finds it
hard to rear any young.
* * * * *
The other great green space in the North-west district is Hampstead
Heath, which contains, including Parliament Hill and other portions
acquired in recent years, 507 acres. On its outer border it touches the
country, in parts a very beautiful country; while on its opposite side
it abuts on London proper, forming on the south and south-east the
boundary of an unutterably dreary portion of the metropolis, a congeries
of large and densely-populated parishes--Kentish and Camden Towns,
Holloway, Highbury, Canonbury, Islington, Hoxton: thousands of acres of
houses, thousands of miles of streets, vast thoroughfares full of trams
and traffic and thunderous noises, interminable roads, respectable and
monotonous, and mean streets and squalid streets innumerable. Here,
then, we have a vast part of London, which is like the West-central and
East-central districts in that it is without any open space, except the
comparatively insignificant one of Highbury Fields. It is to the Heath
that the inhabitants of all this portion of London must go for fresh
air and verdure; but the distance is too great for most people, and the
visits are consequently made on Sundays and holidays in summer. Even
this restricted use they are able to make of 'London's playing ground,'
or 'Happy Hampstead,' as it is lovingly called, must have a highly
beneficial effect on the health, physical and moral, of the people.
[Illustration: VIEW ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH]
To come to the bird life of this largest of London's open spaces. Owing
to its very openness and large extent, which makes it impossible for the
constables to keep a watch on the visitors, especially on the gangs of
birds'-nesting boys and young men who make it a happy hunting-ground
during the spring and summer months, the Heath is in reality a
very unfavourable breeding-place for birds. Linnets, yellowhammers,
chaffinches, robins, several warblers, and other species nest every
year, but probably very rarely succeed in bringing up their young.
Birds are nevertheless numerous and in great variety: the large space
and its openness attract them, while all about the Heath large private
gardens, woods, and preserves exist, which are perfect sanctuaries for
most small birds and some large species. There is a small rookery on
some elm-trees at the side of the High Street; and another close to the
Heath, near Golder's Hill, on the late Sir Spencer Wells's property. And
in other private grounds the carrion crow, daw, wood-pigeon, stock-dove,
turtle-dove, white owl, and wood owl, green and lesser spotted
woodpecker still breed. The corncrake is occasionally heard. The
following small birds, summer visitors, breed on the Heath or in the
adjacent private grounds, especially in Lord Mansfield's beautiful
woods: wryneck and cuckoo, grasshopper-, sedge- and reed-warblers,
blackcap and garden warbler, both whitethroats, wood and willow wrens,
chiffchaff, redstart, stonechat, pied wagtail, tree-pipit, red-backed
shrike, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house martin, swift, and goldfinch.
Wheatears visit the Heath on passage; fieldfares may be seen on most
days throughout the winter, and occasionally red-wings; also the
redpole, siskin, and the grey wagtail. The resident small birds include
most of the species to be found in the county of Middlesex. The
bullfinch and the hawfinch are rare.
My young friend, Mr. E. C. H. Moule, who is a keen observer, has very
kindly sent me his notes on the birds of Hampstead, made during a year's
residence on the edge of the Heath, and taking his list with my own, and
comparing them with the list made by Mr. Harting, published in Lobley's
'Hampstead Hill' in 1885, it appears that there have been very few
changes in the bird population of this district during the last decade.
It would be difficult to make the Heath itself a safer breeding-place
for the birds, resident and migratory, that inhabit it. The only plan
would be to establish small sanctuaries at suitable spots. Unfortunately
these would have to be protected from the nest-robbers by spiked iron
railings, and that open wild appearance of the Heath, which is its
principal charm, would be spoiled.
With the ponds something can be done. There are a good number of them,
large and small, some used for bathing in summer, and all for skating
in winter, but so far nothing has been done to make them attractive
to the birds; and it may be added that a few beds of rushes and other
aquatic plants for cover, which would make them suitable habitations for
several species of birds, would also greatly add to their beauty. How
little would have to be done to give life and variety to these somewhat
desolate-looking pieces of water, may be seen on the Heath itself. One
of the smallest is the Leg of Mutton Pond, on the West Heath, a rather
muddy pool where dogs are accustomed to bathe. At its narrow end it has
a small bed of bulrushes, which has been inhabited by a pair of moorhens
for several years past. They are very tame, and appear quite unconcerned
in the presence of people standing on the margin to gaze at and admire
them, and of the dogs barking and splashing about in the water a few
yards away. There is no wire netting to divide their own little domain
from the dogs' bathing place, and no railing on the bank. Yet here they
live all the year round very contentedly, and rear brood after brood of
young every summer. Here, as in other places, it has been observed that
the half-grown young birds assist their parents in building a second
nest and in rearing the new brood, and it has also been remarked that
when the young are fully grown the old birds drive them from the pond.
There is room for only one pair in that small patch of rushes, and they
know it. The driven-out young wander about in search of a suitable spot
to settle in, but find no place on the Heath. Probably some of them
spend the winter in Lord Mansfield's woods. A gentleman residing in the
neighbourhood told me that at the end of the short frost in January
1897, when the ice was melted, he saw one morning a large number of
moorhens, between thirty and forty, feeding in the meadow near the ponds
in Lord Mansfield's grounds.
I have been told that no rushes have been planted on the Heath, and
nothing done to encourage wild birds to settle at the ponds, simply
because it has never occurred to anyone in authority, and no person
has ever suggested that it would be a good thing to do. Now that the
suggestion is made, let us hope that it will receive consideration.
I fancy that every lover of nature would agree that a pair or two of
quaint pretty moorhens; a pair of lively dabchicks, diving, uttering
that long, wild, bubbling cry that is so pleasant to hear, and building
their floating nest; and perhaps a sedge-warbler for ever playing on
that delightful little barrel-organ of his, would give more pleasure
than the pair of monotonous mute swans to be seen on some of the ponds,
looking very uncomfortable, much too big for such small sheets of water,
and altogether out of harmony with their surroundings.
With the exception of this omission, the management of the Heath by the
County Council has so far been worthy of all praise. The trees recently
planted will add greatly to the beauty and value of this space, which
contains open ground enough for all the thousands that visit it in
summer to roam about and take their sun-bath.
* * * * *
Near the Heath, on its east side, in the North London district, we
have a group of four highly attractive open spaces. They are ranged in
pairs at some distance apart. One pair is Highgate Woods (70 acres)
and Churchyard Bottom Wood (52 acres), not yet open to the public;
the second pair is Waterlow Park (26 acres) and Highgate Cemetery
(40 acres). The two first have a special value in their rough, wild,
woodland character, wherein they differ from all other open spaces in
or near London. But although these spaces are both wildernesses, and so
close together as to be almost touching, they each have an individual
character. A very large portion of the space called Highgate Woods is
veritably a wood, very thick and copse-like, so that to turn aside from
the path is to plunge into a dense thicket of trees and saplings, where
a lover of solitude might spend a long summer's day without seeing a
human face. Owing to this thick growth it is impossible for the few
guardians of this space to keep a watch on the mischievous visitors,
with the result that in summer birds'-nesting goes on with impunity; the
evil, however, cannot well be remedied if the woods are to be left in
their present state. It would certainly greatly add to their charm if
such species as inhabit woods of this character were to be met with
here--the woodpeckers, the kestrel and sparrow-hawk and the owls, that
have not yet forsaken this part of London; and the vociferous jay,
shrieking with anger at being disturbed; and the hawfinch, with his
metallic clicking note; and the minute, arrow-shaped, long-tailed tits
that stream through the upper branches in a pretty procession. But
even the warmest friend to the birds would not like to see these woods
thinned and cut through with innumerable roads, and the place changed
from a wilderness to an artificial garden or show park.
The adjoining Churchyard Bottom Wood is the wildest and most picturesque
spot in North London, with an uneven surface, hill and valley, a small
stream running through it, old unmutilated trees of many kinds scattered
about in groups and groves, and everywhere masses of bramble and furze.
It is quite unspoiled, in character a mixture of park and wild, rough
common, and wholly delightful. Indeed, it is believed to be a veritable
fragment--the only one left--of the primæval forest of Middlesex.
It is earnestly to be hoped that the landscape gardener will not be
called in to prepare this place for the reception of the public--the
improver on nature, whose conventional mind is only concerned with a
fine show of fashionable blooms, whose highest standard is the pretty,
cloying artificiality of Kew Gardens. Let him loose here, and his first
efforts will be directed to the rooting up of the glorious old gorse
and bramble bushes, and the planting of exotic bushes in their place,
especially the monotonous rhododendron, that dreary plant the sight of
which oppresses us like a nightmare in almost every public park and
garden and open space in the metropolis.
Waterlow Park, although small, is extremely interesting, and contains
a good amount of large well-grown timber; it is, in fact, one of the
real old parks which have been spared to us in London. It is indeed
a beautiful and refreshing spot, and being so small and so highly
popular, attracting crowds of people every day throughout the summer
months, it does not afford a very favourable breeding-place for birds.
Nevertheless, the number of songsters of various species is not small,
for it is not as if these had no place but the park to breed in; the
town in this district preserves something of its rural character, and
the bird population of the northern portion of Highgate is, like that of
Hampstead, abundant and varied. There is also the fact to be borne in
mind that Waterlow Park is one of two spaces that join, the park being
divided from the cemetery by a narrow lane or footpath. To the birds
these two spaces form one area.
Of Highgate Cemetery it is only necessary to say, in passing, that its
'manifest destiny' is to be made one open space for the public with its
close neighbour; that from this spot you have the finest view of the
metropolis to be had from the northern heights; and when there are green
leaves in place of a forest of headstones, and a few large trees where
monstrous mausoleums and monuments of stone now oppress the earth, the
ground will form one of the most beautiful open spaces in London.
There are two little lakes in Waterlow Park where some ornamental fowls
are kept, and of these lakes, or ponds, it may be said, as of the
Hampstead ponds, that they are too small for such a giant as the mute
swan. On the Thames and on large sheets of water the swan is a great
ornament, his stately form and whiteness being very attractive to the
eye. On the small ponds he is apt to get his plumage very dirty and to
be a mischievous bird. He requires space to move about and look well in,
and water-weeds to feed on. It is not strange to find that our small,
interesting, wild aquatic birds have not succeeded in colonising in this
park.
* * * * *
A mile and a half east of Waterlow Park there is the comparatively large
park, containing an area of 115 acres, which was foolishly misnamed
Finsbury Park by the Metropolitan Board of Works. It is the largest
and most important open space in North London, and with the exception
of that of Battersea is the best of all the newly-made parks of the
metropolis. It promises, indeed, to be a very fine place, but its
oldest trees have only been planted twenty-eight years, and have not yet
attained to a majestic size. There is one feature which will always to
some extent spoil the beauty of this spot--namely, the exceedingly long,
straight, monotonous Broad Walk, planted with black poplars, where the
trees are all uniform in size and trimmed to the same height from the
ground. Should it ever become necessary to cut down a large number of
trees in London for fuel, or for the construction of street defences,
or some other purpose, it is to be hoped that the opportunity will be
seized to get rid of this unsightly avenue.
The best feature in this park is the very large extent of well-planted
shrubberies, and it is due to the shelter they afford that blackbirds
and thrushes are more abundant here than in any other open space in the
metropolis, not even excepting that paradise of birds, Battersea Park.
It is delightful to listen to such a volume of bird music as there is
here morning and evening in spring and summer. Even in December and
January, on a dull cold afternoon with a grey smoky mist obscuring
everything, a concert of thrushes may be heard in this park with more
voices in it than would be heard anywhere in the country. The birds are
fed and sheltered and protected when breeding, and they are consequently
abundant and happy. What makes all this music the more remarkable is the
noisiness of the neighbourhood. The park is surrounded by railway lines;
trains rush by with shrieks and earth-shaking thunder every few moments,
and the adjoining thoroughfare of Seven Sisters Road is full of the loud
noises of traffic. Here, more than anywhere in London, you are reminded
of Milton's description of the jarring and discordant grating sounds
at the opening of hell's gates; and one would imagine that in such an
atmosphere the birds would become crazed, and sing, if they sang at all,
'like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.' But all this noise
troubles them not at all; they sing as sweetly here, with voices just as
pure and rapturous, as in any quiet country lane or wood.
[Illustration: DABCHICK FEEDING ITS YOUNG]
The other most common wild birds are the robin, tits, starling,
dabchick, and moorhen. The chaffinch, greenfinch, hedge-sparrow, and
wren are less common.
* * * * *
Half a mile to the east of Finsbury Park we have Clissold Park (53
acres), comparatively small but singularly attractive. This is one
of the old and true parks that have remained to London, and, like
Ravenscourt and Brockwell, it has an old manor house standing in it;
and this building, looking upon water and avenues of noble elms and
wide green spaces, gives it the appearance of a private domain rather
than a public place. Close by is Abney Park Cemetery, which is now so
crammed with corpses as to make it reasonable to indulge the hope that
before long it will be closed as a burial place, only to be re-opened as
a breathing space for the living. And as the distance which separates
these two spaces is not great, let us indulge the further hope that it
may be found possible to open a way between them to make them one park
of not less than about a hundred acres.
Clissold Park is specially interesting to bird lovers in London on
account of the efforts of the superintendent and the park constables in
encouraging and protecting the bird life of the place. In writing of the
carrion crow, the jackdaw, and the little grebe, I have spoken of this
park, and shall have occasion to speak of it again in a future chapter.
South of Clissold, with the exception of the strip of green called
Highbury Fields, there is no open space nearer than St. James's Park,
four miles distant. Highbury Fields (27 acres) was opened to the public
about twelve years ago, and although small and badly shaped, it is by
no means an unimportant 'lung' of North London. To the inhabitants of
Highbury, Canonbury, and Islington it is the nearest open space, and
though in so vast and populous an area, is a refreshing and pretty spot,
with good shrubberies and healthy well-grown young trees. A few years
ago a small rookery existed at the northern extremity of the ground,
where some old trees are still standing, but the birds have left, it is
said on account of the decay of their favourite tree. Skylarks also bred
here up to the time of the opening of the ground to the public. The only
wild birds at present, after the sparrows, are the starlings that come
in small flocks, and a few occasional visitors. A few years ago it was
proposed to make a pond: I fear that the matter has been forgotten, or
that all the good things there were to give have been bestowed on the
show parks, leaving nothing for poor Highbury and Islington.