In an extract from his illustrated guidebook, Green London, David Fathers takes us on a verdant walk from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park. Mainly along an old railway line, it's almost entirely traffic-free. En route you'll encounter an ancient wood, a palace that's not a palace, the site of the world's first television broadcast, and the infamous residence of a mass murderer. It's a total walking distance of 9.6km.
1. Alexandra Palace
The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park ushered in a trend for industrialised nations to showcase to the world the advances they were making in industry, science and the arts. In 1860, a plan was put in place by the architect Owen Jones, who had worked on the Great Exhibition project to create a large exhibition centre and a leisure park on the Northern Heights, above Hornsey. Alexandra Palace was an Italianate structure, partially created from building materials salvaged from the 1862 International Exhibition in South Kensington.
A railway track from Finsbury Park was installed in time for the opening of Alexandra Palace on 24 May 1873, by Princess Alexandra, the Princess of Wales. The Palace attracted over 100,000 visitors before it was badly damaged by fire only 16 days after its opening. But such was the enthusiasm for the complex that it was repaired and reopened two years later.
The Palace, now often referred to as 'Ally Pally' or the 'People's Palace', stands on a three hectare site and included at its inception a large hall, a concert room, a restaurant and a theatre. Amenities within the 90 hectare Alexandra Park included a horse racing track (which remained operational until 1970), a cricket field and a boating pond. The park also became famous for its firework and hot-air balloon displays. Regardless of these attractions, the palace and park were not a financial success and by 1901 it was placed under the control of the local council. Since 1980, it has been managed by Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust, with Haringey Council being the sole trustee.
During the First World War, the Palace accommodated Belgian refugees (1,000 beds were packed into the Great Hall) and from 1915 it became an internment camp for German prisoners of war plus 17,000 Germans and Austrians living in Britain who were seen as a threat to security.
In 1980, the Palace burned down for a second time after a fire started beneath the organ. Again, the building was repaired, and it reopened eight years later. The redesigned structure included an ice rink that added to its list of attractions. The Great Hall still features popular events such as music concerts, international darts tournaments, beer festivals and exhibitions. Today, the park, with over 7,000 trees, features a children's zip-wire playground, a boating pond with giant swan pedalos, a pitch-and-putt golf course and a farmer's market. Fantastic views of London can be seen from the South Terrace walkway.
2. The world's first television broadcast
In 1935, the BBC acquired a lease on the East Court of Alexandra Palace to create two television studios. The former dining rooms were converted into experimental TV studios. The BBC began trialling two rival systems at Alexandra Palace to decide which option would be chosen to transmit the world's first regular 'high definition' television broadcast. The team, headed by Sir Isaac Shoenberg of Marconi-EMI, beat the (John Logie) Baird Company and the first broadcast was transmitted from Alexandra Palace on 2 November 1936, with a variety show entitled Here's Looking at You. The transmitter was located on the roof of the building. All the initial broadcasts went out live. A live transmission of the coronation of King George VI, in December 1936, was only made possible by a cable that ran from Hyde Park to the studios at Alexandra Palace.
The BBC also transmitted the first children's television programme For the Children from the Alexandra Palace studios in 1946. It featured a wooden puppet, Muffin the Mule, who went on to be very popular with children and their parents. The BBC television news continued to be broadcast from here until 1969.
3. Alexandra Palace Theatre
The theatre, which opened in 1875, was a planned feature of Alexandra Palace. It employed state-of-the-art Victorian technology to present plays and musical entertainment to audiences of up to 3,000. The theatre closed during the First World War and didn't reopen until 1922. One of its post-war impresarios was Archie Pitt, the first husband of Gracie Fields. Fields was to become a very popular British actress of stage and film.
One of her most famous theatre productions, The Show's The Thing, debuted at Alexandra Palace Theatre before heading to the West End. Despite this and other productions, the theatre struggled to attract large audiences and it closed in 1935. Soon after, it was acquired by the BBC and became a storeroom.
The theatre suffered much damage and decay over eight decades and an extensive restoration programme was needed to bring it back to life. In 2018, with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Haringey Council, the theatre was finally reopened.
5. The Muswell Hill serial killer
In early 1983, after several occupants at 23 Cranley Gardens complained of a blocked drain, a plumber was called to fix the problem. What he found obstructing the pipe were possible human remains, and the police were called. A forensic examination revealed that these were the body parts of a young male.
The top-floor tenant, Dennis Nilsen, a civil servant, was questioned by the police and he immediately confessed to killing the man. He also admitted to murdering at least two other men at this address and nine at his previous address in Cricklewood, north-west London.
Nilsen picked up young, often homeless, homosexual men and invited them back to his flat for food and alcohol. Having intoxicated his victim, he would usually strangle and then drown them in the bath. In Cricklewood, he buried the bodies under the floorboards of his ground-floor flat before cremating the remains in the garden. This wasn't possible in the top-floor flat at Cranley Gardens without access to a garden. Instead, he dismembered the bodies, boiled up the fragments and flushed the smaller bones down the toilet.
Nilsen was tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment, although this was later changed to a whole-life tariff. He died in prison in 2018.
6. Highgate Wood
This richly wooded area, once known as Gravelpit Wood, is a small section (28 hectares) of the former ancient Forest of Middlesex. Today, the wood, despite being enclosed by Muswell Hill Road and the A1, is a quiet haven for walkers. The forest was once used by the Bishops of London to hunt deer. From the 16th to the 18th century the wood was leased out to tenants who coppiced the trees to supply wood for fuel, fencing and building.
Coppicing involved cutting the tree back to encourage new growth for later harvesting. Trees such as oak and hornbeam are still plentiful in Highgate Wood, and were a good source of such material.
Pottery and kiln remains from the Romano-Briton era have been unearthed and dated at between AD 50 and AD 100. There is still evidence of a woodbank (or earthwork) cutting across the woods. This was a small wall of earth with bushes planted along the top and a ditch on one side (marked with a white broken line on the map above). It may have been created to protect the wooded areas being eaten by deer in search of low-hanging leaves.
When the railway line was constructed around the wood in 1873, locals were concerned that it might be built over with houses. Following a campaign to prevent this, Ecclesiastical Commissioners handed the wood over to the City of London Corporation in 1886 for use by the public in perpetuity. It has since been designated a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. During the Second World War barrage balloons were stationed on the cricket pitch.
7. Peter Sellers
The comic actor and Goon Peter Sellers (1925–1980) lived here from 1936 for four years. A plaque marks the house.
8. Queen's Wood
Unlike the flat terrain of Highgate Wood, Queen's Wood is situated on sloping terrain. This wood, too, was once part of the ancient Forest of Middlesex and used as a hunting ground. Oaks were plentiful here and farmers paid the Bishop of London a fee to graze their pigs upon the acorns. This woodland was formerly known as Churchyard Bottom Wood.
As London continued to expand through the 19th century, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners did consider selling off the wood for housing development. Local residents resisted and succeeded in getting the local council to acquire the wood and make it accessible to all. The wood was opened to the public in 1898 and was renamed Queen's Wood in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of that year. A small stream rises in the wood and during wet periods can be seen flowing eastward. This stream merges with several other tributaries to form the River Moselle. The name Moselle is probably a corruption of Muswell (Hill) or Mossy Well.
9. Uncle Adolf
In 1930, a mother and her son moved into 26 Priory Gardens. She had been abandoned by her husband some 16 years earlier. While this may have created some local gossip, it was nothing compared to discovering the family surname was Hitler. Bridget Dowling had married Adolf Hitler's half-brother, Alois, in London in 1910 and their son, William was born a year later.
As Adolf Hitler rose to power during the 1930s, Alois renewed contact with his half-brother. Meanwhile, Willy, wanting to reunite with his father in Germany, joined him in 1933, and thanks to the family surname and connections was soon able to find work. But as the rush towards war gathered pace, Willy returned to Priory Gardens in 1939. The same year, he and his mother were invited to America to give a lecture tour on life with the Hitler family.
Trapped there by the outbreak of the Second World War, Willy was awarded American citizenship. He ended up joining the US Navy and fought against the Nazis.
10. Bat caves
After descending the slope from Holmesdale Road into Parkland Walk, turn immediately left and head towards the former railway tunnels. The tunnels, now sealed off with railings, provide a safe sanctuary for seven breeds of bats, including the common pipistrelle, the Daubenton and the Natterer. The Parkland Walk is also a natural feeding and roosting strip for the bats. The adjacent wooded areas, such as Finsbury Park, Highgate and Queen's Wood, also have bat populations that are linked by the Parkland Walk. Many bats roost in the trees, under the bridges and in human-made bat boxes.
11. Parkland Walk
The Parkland Walk was opened to the public in 1984 after much campaigning and discussion about what to do with the former railway track. The Edgware, Highgate and London Railway opened in 1867 with a branch to Alexandra Palace opening five years later.
In the 1930s, a plan was proposed to electrify the line and to integrate it with the Underground network. The scheme was partially completed, with the track from Highgate to Barnet being electrified. The outbreak of war in 1939 ceased all further development. The track to Edgware was only updated as far as Mill Hill East and it remains a spur on the Northern line. The train service to Alexandra Palace was discontinued after 1954, though the track continued to be used by freight trains until 1964, when it was finally lifted in 1971.
The new owners, Haringey Council, initially planned to build houses on the old railway line. A later proposal to construct a dual carriageway was soon quashed by public opposition and the favoured scheme for a walkway was enacted. New entrances were created and the path resurfaced.
The Parkland Walk finally opened in 1984 and, at 2.7km, it is the longest nature reserve in London. Over the years the embankments, cuttings and grasslands of Parkland Walk have encouraged a diverse gathering of flora and fauna, and more than 20 different species of butterfly have been recorded here. Now a much-loved asset and thoroughfare in north London (it has been compared to the High Line in New York), it also forms a section of the Capital Ring walking route.
12. Crouch End Hill station
At the intersection of the Parkland Walk and Crouch End Hill the former station platforms are still in place. Although overgrown with the likes of birch and buddleia, the platforms remain apparent.
13. The Spriggan
Embedded high into one of the railway arches is a sculpture created by Marilyn Collins in 1993, entitled The Spriggan. Some believe that the Spriggan was a mythical goat-man creature that haunted the old railway line during the 1970s and 1980s. However, Collins confirmed that the Spriggan celebrates permaculture, a system of self-sufficient and sustainable agriculture. The first talk on the subject in the UK was given in Crouch End by the Australian environmentalist Bill Mollinson.
14. The Blockhouse
On the right-hand side of the path is an education and dance facility with a wooden ramp leading down to the walkway. This was originally designed as a power switching station (or blockhouse) for the proposed electrification of the railway track from Finsbury Park to Edgware. The scheme never came to fruition and the blockhouse was converted into a community centre.
Green London by David Fathers, which features 14 walks exploring London’s green spaces and highways, is published by Conway, an imprint of Bloomsbury.
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All images © David Fathers unless otherwise stated.
