Basic HTML Version
Britain’s newest park, The Queen Elizabeth Olympic
Park opens on 27 July 2013. A further section around
the Velodrome will open by the end of 2013 with the
southern half containing the Aquatic Centre, the Orbit
and the Olympic Stadium opening by Easter 2014.
Some Olympic venues are being removed; others will
be modified. 2000 new trees will be planted and
bridges over the Bow Back Waters that dissect the
park will be removed or modified. There’s even a
plan mooted to move MPs and Lords to the Media
Centre in the park while the Palace of Westminster
undergoes a £1 billion refit. The Olympic Park could
become a temporary Eastminster!
I have been to many parks abroad: Güell Park in
Barcelona (tries a bit too hard and bakes a bit too hard
too), The Boboli Gardens in Florence (pretty but
fussy), Majorelle Garden in Marrakesh (very blue,
very busy and very spiky) and the quite wonderful
Vondlepark in Amsterdam among them. Although the
Vondlepark comes close I am not sure if any country
has quite got the hang of parks in the way we have.
Britain, for sure, has more park per person than just
about anywhere else: visitors from overseas are often
astonished at just how many parks we have in
London. It mightn’t be stretching the truth too far to
say that we are the best in the world both at making
and in using parks.
Parks are part of our individual British life stories:
a backdrop to our memories of childhood and
adolescence, for our courting and romance, the
Sunday league and tennis court years, our love affair
with canines, the pushing of prams and swings, the
park bench reflections of middle age and the marking
of loss. Where are your significant parks? My park
story begins with the swing park, a hilly scrap of the
old farmland on which my estate had been built in
the 1950s and which in the 60s and 70s was
virtually mediaeval in its bone crunching capacities.
Remember the American Swing? In essence this was
a twelve-by-one foot rolled steel joist that swung
sideways, battering ram style, periodically smashing
the teeth and jaws of a passing six or seven year old
whose head was at just the right height for full
impact. We were lucky my generation, the last of the
We British Are Good at Parks