Clissold Park

Clissold Park is an open space in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney.[1] It is bounded by Greenway Close (to the north), Stoke Newington Church Street (to the south) and Green Lanes (west) and Queen Elizabeth's Walk (east). It was named by the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington, which was the local authority when the park was established. The park is 22.57 hectares (55.8 acres) in extent.

Clissold Park
LocationStoke Newington, London, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates51°33′40″N 0°5′17″W
Area22.57 hectares (55.8 acres)
Created1889
Operated byLondon Borough of Hackney

Its facilities include children's playgrounds, sports fields, an unkempt bowling green, a skatepark bowl , tennis courts, the café and other attractions including an aviary with assorted captive species, captive deer and goats, and two small lakes hosting wild ducks, geese, swans and other water birds. The park also comprises remains of the New River, and the Capital Ring has some of its paths running through a small section of the park.

History
Clissold Park Café is at the late-18th century villa; the spire of St Mary's Church, Stoke Newington can be seen in the background

Clissold House (formerly Paradise House) was built, in the latter half of the 18th century, for Jonathan Hoare,[2] a City of London merchant, Quaker, philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner. (His brother, Samuel, half-brother of Sir Joseph Hoare Bt, was one of the founders of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.) The park was created to be his idyll, and the stretch of water which wends its way around the house was once part of the New River, an artificial waterway that supplied London with clean water from Hertfordshire.[3]

Hoare, in financial difficulties, mortgaged the estate, and then lost it by foreclosure to a Robert Pryor. It was sold by Pryor's executors to Thomas Gudgeon, a merchant, who owned it around the beginning of the 19th century.[4][5] Gudgeon sold it in 1811, to William Crawshay I.[6]

Subsequently the estate passed, through a Crawshay family connection, to Augustus Clissold. When he died in 1882 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners bought the property, intending to profit from development. However, John Runtz and Joseph Beck persuaded the Metropolitan Board of Works to purchase it in 1887, to open it as a public park. The two lakes were named Beckmere and Runtzmere in their honour.[7]

Restoration

Clissold House, the former villa within the park, is a Grade II listed building; the house serves as refreshment rooms and as an event location.[8] In 2007, Clissold Park was voted the Heart of Hackney, in an I Love Hackney Poll organised by Hackney Council. On 30 March 2007 the Heritage Lottery Fund announced the award of a development grant to put forward a bid for a full £4.5 million Park Restoration Grant[9] to restore the park and house to its original 18th-century design.

Clissold Park lake

Work on the Clissold Park and House Restoration Project commenced in January 2010, and over the next two years an estimated £8.9 million[10] was spent upgrading the house and its surrounding parkland. Funding was received from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Big Lottery Fund, and Hackney Council. Plans[11] for the park included:

  • Restoring the Grade II listed Clissold House
  • Restoring a section of the New River
  • Extensive maintenance to the two park lakes
  • Renovating the current animal enclosures
  • Creating a new play and wheels park area.

Clissold Park received a Green Flag award in July 2008.[12] Clissold House was added to the English Heritage 'Heritage at Risk Register' in 1991 but removed in 2012 following the completion of the restoration programme.[13]

Access

There are no nearby tube stations to the park. However, Arsenal, Finsbury Park and Manor House on the Piccadilly line are a mile away. Buses 141, 341 and 393 stop on Green Lanes adjacent to the park.

  • Clissold Park, and its pond, feature in the Hank Wangford song: "Jogging with Jesus".
  • The album Ham by London-band The Chap features a song entitled: "Clissold Park".
  • The London-based Astrophonica record label features a song by label owners Fracture & Neptune, titled "Clissold" named after the Park.
  • In Nick Hornby's novel Slam, the character Sam and his girlfriend Alicia often go to Clissold Park.
  • The Aphex Twin track 19 [Slo]w early morning clissold sunrise is part named after the park.
  • 2018 novel The Psychology of Time Travel has a chapter set in Clissold Park.
  • The 2017 song 'Shadows' by Manik MC (ft. Loyle Carner) opens with the line 'I'm billing up in Clissold Park'.
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References
  1. Clissold Park: A Short History Archived 5 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine (Clissold Park User Group) accessed 20 Sept 2009
  2. Quaker history page Archived 1 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 July 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2010.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton and Patricia E C Croot, Stoke Newington: Other estates, in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes, ed. T F T Baker and C R Elrington (London, 1985), pp. 178-184. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp178-184 [accessed 17 June 2018].
  5. "Clissold Park, Hackney - 1000800, Historic England". Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  6. "londongardensonline.org.uk, Clissold Park". Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  7. "Clissold Park, Hackney". hidden-london.com. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  8. www.clissoldpark.com
  9. BBC News 16 April 2007 accessed 17 April 2007
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 19 May 2010. Retrieved 7 April 2010.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Clissold Park User Group accessed 7 April 2010
  11. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 May 2010. Retrieved 7 April 2010.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Hackney Council Clissold Restoration Project accessed 7 April 2010
  12. Hackney Today 188 21 July 2008
  13. "Heritage at Risk: latest findings". English Heritage.
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