The Park Visitor Centre (i) is between the Grove car park and the cafe in the Grove. Open Sundays and first Saturday of each month from 2pm till 4pm. Maps, leaflets, quizzes and drawing materials for children.
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Alexandra Park is a delightful mixture of informal woodland, open grassland, formal gardens and attractions such as the boating lake, cafés and the pitch-and-putt course. It covers 196 acres around Alexandra Palace in North London.
The Friends of Alexandra Park is a voluntary group that promotes the use of the Park, encourages the conservation of its wildlife and protects the Park from unwanted development.
Become a Friend here - buy our book "A History Of Alexandra Park" in our shop
Our activities include:
Organising walks and talks about trees, bats, fungi, moths, insects, birds and the history of Alexandra Park, and conservation work.
Sending a newsletter every month to all our members.
Opening the Park Visitor Centre
Art in the Park
Thursday 24th April from 10am to 11:30am
An opportunity for park lovers to join others in a relaxed and friendly group to enjoy time spent outdoors, observing nature through drawing, painting or photography. Bring something to sit on and your own materials (though some basics are provided).
The group is free and open to all, whatever your level.
Email allyparkn10@gmail.com to find out more.
Conservation Work in the Anthill Meadow
Thursday 24th April from 10:00am to 12:30pm
A few years ago large areas of the Ant Hill Meadow (previously called the Butterfly Meadow) had been invaded by brambles. We have been removing the brambles and improving the margins to encourage insect and bird life. Progress has been made but there is always more to do! Do join us for this or future sessions, if you are free. No special skills required; enjoy exercise, plenty of fresh air and good conversation. Please bring gloves and a drink/snack for the break we take halfway through. We will provide tools, but bring secateurs if you have them.
We work from 10 am to 12.30 pm, but come for as long as you want. Meet at the Ant Hill Meadow, or if you're not sure where that is, please email us at AllyParkN10gmail.com
Spring Flower Walk
Saturday 3rd May from 2:30pm
Caroline will take you on a walk to look wildflowers coming out all over the park....
Email AllyParkN10.com to book place(s).
Spring Bird Walk
Sunday 4th May from 8am to 10am
Spring Bird Walk will be led by Gareth.
Meet in the Grove Car Park. What 3 Words
No booking required.
AGM and Talk
Thursday 8th May - meet up at 6:30pm for drinks/snacks and 7pm prompt start for the meeting.
New committee members to be elected or confirmed.
Mark Evison, Park Manager, to give an update on Alexandra Park and Katy Fathui to give a report and explanation of the Art in the Park activities for adults and children. Questions welcome.
Butterfly Walk
Sunday 17th May from 1:30pm to 2:30pm
A look around the park to find as many butterflies as possible. To be led by Dee Cullen. Pictured is the gardener's friend, the large white.
Please wear sensible as we will go off the paths and a little bit of uphill.
Meet at the Gas Hut at the Bedford Road entrance to the park.
What 3 Words: https://what3words.com/shins.boots.trendy.
Family Art in the Park
Sunday 18th May from 10:30am to 11:30am
Art activities for children in the park.
Further details to follow......
Email AllyParkN10.com to book place(s).
Conservation Work in the Anthill Meadow
Tuesday 20th May from 10:00am to 12:30pm
A few years ago large areas of the Ant Hill Meadow (previously called the Butterfly Meadow) had been invaded by brambles. We have been removing the brambles and improving the margins to encourage insect and bird life. Progress has been made but there is always more to do! Do join us for this or future sessions, if you are free. No special skills required; enjoy exercise, plenty of fresh air and good conversation. Please bring gloves and a drink/snack for the break we take halfway through. We will provide tools, but bring secateurs if you have them.
We work from 10 am to 12.30 pm, but come for as long as you want. Meet at the Ant Hill Meadow, or if you're not sure where that is, please email us at AllyParkN10gmail.com
Art in the Park
Thursday 22nd May from 10am to Noon
An opportunity for park lovers to join others in a relaxed and friendly group to enjoy time spent outdoors, observing nature through drawing, painting or photography. Bring something to sit on and your own materials (though some basics are provided).
The group is free and open to all, whatever your level.
Email allyparkn10@gmail.com to find out more.
Spider Walk
Saturday 31st May from 10:30am to 12:30pm
Edward Milner will take us on a walk in the park to look for and identify spiders....
Email allyparkn10@gmail.com to book place(s) and we will let you know the meeting place
RECENT EVENTS IN THE PARK
Spring Fungi Walk: 19th April
With the recent dry spell, we were a little apprehensive as Clifford Davy started to lead a dozen or so of us on his 3rd Spring Fungi Walk, but he immediately found some King Alfred's Cakes and cutting one in two showed unusual concentric rings inside.
Two types of fungi were found a sycamore stump nearby - a Ganoderma adspersum and a smoky bracket.
On the fallen trunk of that same tree were some dried up remains of jelly ear as well as an inkcap (Coprinus domestica) pictured on the left (top and bottom).
After a look at a rather sadly rotting Chicken-of-the-Woods, Clifford walked towards the Palace to point out some brittle cinder fungus on a couple of dead and dieing sycamores.
We revisited some Ganoderma resinaceum brackets on cut down cherry laurel before crossing the road and heading for the south slope.
Clifford inspected a dead red-horse chestnut trunk and it rewarded us with several fungi including these turkeytails.
After a look some more Ganoderma fungi on a silver maple tree, we headed into woodlands and found large remains of a giant elm bracket before Clifford showed us an intriguing cupped slime mold.
The walk ended with a look at a fallen birch tree and the birch polypore that had come off this tree.
A list of the fungi seen on this walk and on Clifford's previous walks.
Members Nature Walk: 5th April
Just nine of us met up at the Boating Lake on a cold start to the day (6-7 dec C), but with lovely sunshine. The Egyptian Goose family interrupted the start of the walk by passing in front of us (Mum, Dad plus 5 youngsters) before moving into the grass to one side of the toilet block. No other young birds seen as we walked around the lake looking at trees and birds including a new crab apple planted by Cadent after their tree removal work for the gas pipeline.
We saw coltsfoot flowers growing by the lake and moved away while admiring the sun highlighting artwork on the graffiti wall.
In flower in the Pavilion Car Park were were two cherry trees and two amelanchiers. Also shrubs were giving some good colour including flowering currant and forsythia.
In the Rose Garden there two ducks on the fountain pond and the first of the waterlilies was flowering.
Walking down towards the Blandford Hall area, we heard a nuthatch singing loudly on the large dead oak and we managed to spot it (picture left). The walk finished with a young oak sporting three types of oak gall - marble, ramshorn and cola-nut.
Art in the Park: 18th March
This was our fourth year drawing together beneath the cherry blossoms for our own hanami (flower viewing) ritual.
We had a really good turn out again – 11 of us. The weather was slightly deceptive as it appeared warmer than it was at the breezy top of the hill, but the extra bit of time the season allows meant there were some really lovely work made. However, as we all know, the real joy is not in the finished product but in the doing and the being there in this moment of fleeting beauty!
Conservation Work: Hedge building by the Spinney: 18th March
Fifteen of us finished laying the hedge alongside the path edging the Spinney. Lots of birdsong accompanied us on a gloriously sunny, though rather chilly, day. The work was quite physical and involved various tasks: trimming and cutting into the saplings to be laid; honing the stakes to a point; hammering in supporting stakes along the hedge and plaiting them together with binders; cutting the stakes to the same height.
Special thanks to Rubén and the O’Conner’s team for harvesting materials for the stakes and binders for us and then helping on the day. It was a good job done with teamwork. The evidence that the hedge does protect the Spinney from excessive footfall is the abundance of spring flowers in bloom right now – especially scillas and aconites (photo). Do have a look when you’re next up that way. Your subscriptions pay for the tools we use and the seeds and bulbs we buy.
Tree Walk and a look at the Wetlands Work: 15th March
Part of the bid to Rewild London was for the Friends to lead three walks to share details of the Wetlands Project with park users. For this walk Adrian focused on the trees while Beatrice explained the hydraulic side of the project. It was interesting to have a proper look at the work that had been done, and we all remained perplexed about the source of the water seeping from the muddy bank in the Conservation Area.
This time of year provides an opportunity to recognise the leafless trees from their buds or shape. Oaks, ashes, horse-chestnuts and even elms dominate in the Conservation Area, but as were reached the reservoir, Adrian pointed out how moisture-loving trees such as willows, poplars and alder predominate.
Nature Walk and a look at the Wetlands Work: 9th March
A group of about 30 people met up by the Gas Hut for a look at the nature in the conservation area and the progress made on the Wetlands Project.
We took a look at some primroses and a few of the trees in the area including oaks, sweet chestnut and wild service trees before following the flow of water through the nature conservation area and along the reservoir. We traced back the water to its sources and looked at how the new ditch channels had been dug and the leaky dams added by The Conservation Volunteers.
We saw an early blackthorn flowering as well as some coltsfoot flowers.
Beatrice explained more about the whole project and how its implementation was going ahead and John Miles also gave us some more information on the history and future of the project. We walked back along the reservoir seeing the new ponds that have been created and climbing along one of the heaps of mud that had been dug up. We mentioned the two further TCV work days to come and how we hope the project will look by the summer.
Moss and Liverwort Walk: 2nd March
For the first time on one of our bryophte walks..... sunshine. Starting at the Park Visitor Centre, we ascertained that all participants were new to the world of mosses and liverworts so Professor Jeff Duckett spent time explaining the ecology of these simple plants which cannot control their water content. They can dry out, but adding water, they almost miraculously spring back to life.
Right outside the Park Visitor Centre, Jeff pointed out a liverwort, Metzgeria furcata. These are flatter plants than the mosses.
Also close to the PVC was Homalothecium sericeum, a moss on a dead log. He mentioned that although common names have been invented for our bryophytes they are not normally used.
Also in the Grove, Jeff pointed out the algae all the way around the base of a plane tree pictured left and explained that they grow there due to the high incidence of dogs urinating on the base of the tree and provided much needed nitrogen nutrients.
We stopped to admire the clouds of pollen coming from a yew tree before making our way towards the Palace.
This walk takes place at this time of year, because the mosses are producing their reproductive capsules seen to great advantage on this Tortula muralis pictured on the left and growing on the handrail of the steps up to the Palm Court.
At the top on a wall opposite the Palm Court we spotted a Grimmia pulvinata moss growing and also showing off its capsules.
We carried on down the slope stopping to admire the cork oak (pictured left).
On the slope we looked at mosses growing in the grass. Jeff said that a moss lawn was a much more lower maintenance covering for a garden than grass - no cutting required. The main drawback is that the mosses do not react well to trampling and that is why there is less moss on the ground in our park than a more infrequently visited woodland.
Lots more was seen and some more pictures can be found here. An excellent book to improve your knowledge of mosses has been produced by the Bryological Society and can be obtained from them. Also they welcome new members!
Thanks again to Jeff for a great walk of discovery.
Winter Bird Walk: 23rd February
A stroll around the Boating Lake yielded plenty of wildfowl, including four common pochards and a vocal but elusive nuthatch. At the old deer enclosures, we heard a small flock of redwings chattering invisibly in the trees, before two kindly perched up for telescope views. Two gorgeous stock doves were seen in an oak tree, before we walked on down the steep path towards the station. Despite some enthusiastic ‘pishing’ by Gareth, the firecrest that has favoured the holly bushes by the path this winter failed to give itself up.
Having crossed Alexandra Palace Way, we stopped at the Conservation Pond, where Beatrice gave a talk about the exciting wetland project: the drainage work in the Nature Conservation Area, the digging of three ponds alongside Wood Green Reservoir and some thinning out of the trees here to let through the light necessary for these ponds to thrive.
The male and female peregrines then put on a fine show at and around the top of the mast. On the reservoir, three pairs of shovelers showed well, whilst the young grey heron (pictured, © Greg Smith) did likewise on the Balancing Pond. Pied and grey wagtails were spotted at the Filter Beds, with two of the latter also being seen by the New River near Hornsey High Street.
Frustratingly, the female kingfisher, which has been wintering here, chose this weekend not to put on a show – you can’t win them all! Both the 33 participants and the total of 42 species were the highest counts on a bird walk for a number of years.
Conservation Work in the Grove: 20th February
February found us working in the Grove, on a pleasantly warm morning. There were 16 of us, enabling us to tackle three different areas of work: firstly, a small group continued to prune the remaining fruit trees in the Springfield Orchard, guided by Rubén of O’Conners; a second group worked on a bramble-infested euonymus hedge around the main grassy area, improving it no end; a third group reduced hollies and laurel on the bank overlooking the Railway Orchard, allowing more light to reach the trees.
All that physical work was very satisfying, especially as we could see the difference we’d made.
Excitingly, we can see the results of November’s bulb planting session in the Spinney: several winter aconites and snowdrops are flowering, with scilla and wild daffodils well on the way.
Members' Nature Walk: 16th February
A large group of 17 members turned up on a cold winter's day for a just a walk in the park. In the rose garden, we identified some of plants especially those flowering (winter flowering honeysuckle, mahonia and witch hazel) before walking down the slope towards the Blandford Hall area noting the dead trees and explained that the park management had left them for invertebrates and those that feed on them, but only if quite safe.
We looked at some trees (holm oak and birch among others) before passing the bunker and looking up to the monkey puzzle tree and spotting the cedar. The birders, Markus and Tony, explained about the sparrowhawks that have been breeding and the rare firecrests that have been increasingly visiting the area. Caroline pointed out the jelly ear fungi that was particularly common in this part of the park.
Those that were keen and had the time walked back up off the main path - quite an exploration seeing what goes on in the park outside the normal area that the public access.
Litter Pick: 15th February
A dozen volunteers amassed a total of more than two dozen bags of rubbish found in the park. The group dug deep into the brambles and hedges to remove litter that had been hanging around for quite a while. Thanks to Ruben from John O'Conner (the park contractors) for staying late to pick it up all the trash with his lorry.
Family Art in the Park: 9th February
The Park Visitor Centre was humming with creativity as 10 families packed into it on a damp February Sunday. Children and grown-ups alike got stuck in making cardboard collages of winter tree forms, misty charcoal wintry scenes and mucky mud owls.
We were also able to spill outside for some messy mud painting and charcoal sketching. It seems lots of fun was had all round.
This was the feedback from one family: “The session was great. Really welcoming.... the emphasis on the natural world marks these out. I like the freedom that Family Art in the Park gives the children to make a mess and experiment, and look around us.”
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