The Parkland Walk: urban wilderness or relic of industry?
by Patrick Hegarty Morrish
The ribbon of land which is now the Parkland Walk has experienced several metamorphoses: from a forest, 'dense with foliage', to agricultural land farmed by villains, to a railway line serving Alexandra Palace, to an abandoned post-industrial landscape overgrown with plants, and finally to a nature walk treasured by local residents. Each transformation has brought a unique set of relationships between humans, plants, and animals, which will be the subject of this talk. For example, while wildflowers thrived in the poor soils of the old track bed, supporting butterfly populations, innumerable dogs depositing phosphates and nitrates has recently enrich the soil such that wildflowers have been crowded out by vigorous alien species, in turn causing certain butterfly populations to decline.
Ghostly chickens
by Alicia Pivaro
Eco-squatters, ghost chickens, local homebrew, midnight dips - our local green and public spaces form a rich and vital role in our personal and civic lives in Highgate. History, ownership, rules and use dictate what we might do in each space and how free we are to be ourselves. Increasingly in the neoliberal city spaces have become privatised or monetised but Highgate still holds a rich mix of spaces - Omved Gardens, Pond Square, our allotments, our ponds - which hold powerful potential for the remaking of the city in 21st century. Alicia Pivaro is an artist, architect and urbanist working to create a fairer, greener, more equitable city. She teaches at UCL and London School of Architecture, is chair of the Highgate Neighbourhood Forum and co-founder of the Highgate Festival.
Highgate Woods
by Peter Barber
The Highgate Woods are one of the most important green lungs surrounding Highgate . Most people believe that they were saved from being built-over in the 1880s and 1890s thanks to a David and Goliath struggle between the heroic and altruistic Chairman of Hornsey’s vestry, Henry Reader Williams (commemorated in Crouch End Clock Tower) and their then owners , the aloof and money-grabbing Church of England. The reality seems to have been a bit different. As Peter Barber will explain, Reader Williams was not primarily motivated by ‘green’ considerations while the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were not as avaricious or deaf to public opinion as might be supposed.