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 normal 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, where you can find leaflets, chat to volunteers and find activities for children.
Members' Nature Walk
Sunday 6th October from 11:00am to Noon
Galls, Trees, Flowers and Birds..... a seasonal look at many aspects of nature in the park. Members will be emailed details of meeting place. Not yet a member? Join here for only £5/household/year.
Conservation Work in the Park
Wednesday 9th October and Thursday 24th October from 10:00am to 12:30pm
We’ll be cutting the grass on the western side of the meadow. Bring gardening gloves if you have them, although we have spares to lend. No special skills needed and refreshments provided. Meet in the Anthill Meadow. Email AllyParkN10@gmail.com for further information.
Autumn Tree Walk
Saturday 12th October from 11:00am to 12:15pm
Adrian will focus on the area north-east of the palace, which contains a very fine old hedgerow line with some veteran oaks, as well as several interesting avenues and a collection of unusual trees.
Meet at the BBC tower.
Art in the Park
Thursday 17th October from 10:00am to Noon
A monthly 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. Watch out for an email to book in advance, or email allyparkn10@gmail.com to find out more.
Conservation Work in the Anthill Meadow
Thursday 24th October from 10:00am to Noon
We’ll be cutting the grass on the western side of the meadow. Bring gardening gloves if you have them, although we have spares to lend. No special skills needed and refreshments provided. Meet in the Anthill Meadow. Email AllyParkN10@gmail.com for further information.
RECENT EVENTS IN THE PARK
Conservation Work in the Park: 24th September
Despite an overcast morning the rain held off for our September, conservation work session in the anthill meadow. Seven of us set to, with vigour, to cut back the now dead, flowering plants and grasses at the west side of the meadow. It’s an important part of the maintenance regime for a meadow, cutting and removing the current year’s growth, to give the flowering plants a head start next year. We placed the cut material on a dead hedge, on the edge of the meadow. As you will have heard, butterfly numbers have been low, countrywide, this year, and Alexandra Park is no different, but this project is all about providing an improved habitat for butterflies and insects in general. Having said that, we were very heartened to see a large amount of increased yellow field ant activity, new and active mounds that have appeared this year. Nature is a wonderful thing!
Art in the Park: 19th September
We met in Redston Field, where one of the striking features is the shadows cast by the trees around its edges, the long grasses golden in the September sun and the abundance of blackberries at the far end. However, on the morning we were there the sky was overcast, the grass had been cut just days before, and the blackberries were very much on the turn! But the group always find something of intrigue to focus on, which this time included some very vivid reds seeping into the bramble and Virginia creeper leaves and shining bright hawthorn berries – letting us know that the season is indeed turning. Find more pictures on Instagram.
Bat Walk: 9th September
It was an evening perfect for seeing as well as detecting bats: clear sky and still. We experienced the delights of seeing pipistrelles performing their acrobatics above and around us, very visible against the light sky. Then as dusk fell we could still hear the clicks and zips from the bat detectors as the bats continued to feed over the Boating Lake.
Family Art in the Park: 8th September
We had 22 children along with their parents/ grandparents join us for this late summer/ early autumn Family Art in the Park session. On arrival families were invited to go on a nature hunt using Katy's 'Grasses and wild flowers of Ally Pally' spotter poster. Caroline helped families in identifying plants in the vicinity. Katy then showed them how they could make paintings using grasses as brushes, the leaves of 'weeds' to make attractive prints and the colour of berries to paint with. Undertaking their own experimentation with these was a lovely way for children to discover how varied and interesting all the late scrubby looking late summer stuff in the park actually is! The highlight was probably the pot of blackberry paint (read: some boiled up blackberries!) which makes a fabulous paint, great with stencils and turning from purple to an attractive deep blue as it dries.
London Metropolitan Brass: 7th September
On hot days bands playing in the Grove often set up in the shade of the trees. This time the band needed to shelter from the rain, which did feature briefly. “But the band played on”, and under the lively direction of Deirdre Waller-Box the band entertained us with popular tunes ranging from ‘Moonlight Serenade’ and ‘Singing in the Rain’ to ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Shotgun’.
LMB has done great work teaching people who want to take up or return to playing brass instruments, and the latest batch of beginners demonstrated their skills in the Beginners Band with an accomplished performance in the interval. The Community Band returned with more favourites, none more so than their final number: ‘Baggy Trousers’.
Wildflower Walk: 7th September
Caroline started off by asking us all to think about the shape of a leaf. It turns out that most people think of something like a cherry leaf: a pointed tip that widens in the middle and then narrows down to meet the leaf stalk. After that we looked at a range of variations from that shape: compound leaves split into leaflets (goat’s rue), variably zig-zaggy edges (dandelion), threadlike (scentless mayweed), featherlike (yarrow). A useful way of identifying plants when they’re not in flower.
Autumn Bird Walk: 1st September
We were blessed with a warm and sunny morning. Starting in the Grove, after seeing two swallows fly over the car park, we enjoyed views of a young willow warbler in the oaks, plenty of stock doves and a vocal and showy nuthatch. Walking down the slopes below the palace, we paused to watch the male and female peregrine on the mast, with the latter enjoying a large meal (photo by Greg Smith).
Moving down to the cricket pitches, Gareth spotted a whinchat fly in from the west and perch briefly in a tall oak. Unfortunately, only Hesha was also able to lay eyes on this scarce visitor to the park before it continued its migration. After a quick look at the reservoir, we were delighted to hear a Cetti’s warbler singing loudly – if invisibly – at the conservation pond. This brought our list of species to 35 and was a fine end to one of the most sociable and bird-filled bird walks for many years.
Conservation Work in the Park: 22nd August
It looked as if the August work party was going to be a wash-out, but the rain didn’t live up to predictions. We had a pleasantly cool morning’s work, under overcast skies, getting on with bramble control and re-coppicing goat willow and poplar in a central patch of the Anthill Meadow. The flowering season is drawing to a close now, with only the yellow of ragwort giving a golden glow to parts of the meadow. Hopefully, the yellow rattle seeds will have dropped, ready to germinate for next year, so now is the time to start cutting the grass to give them a head start next spring.
Music in the Grove: Swingbusters: 18th August
On a hot and sunny day, both performers and audience sought the shade of the trees to play and enjoy the music of the 20s and 30s. The audience – more than 70 people – was the largest we have had for music in the Grove. They were delighted by Tony Engles’ sax playing, the steady rhythm from Steve Benaim’s guitar and Martin Appleby’s string bass. But it was the vocals of Tony and Steve that brought out the humour and emotions of the old songs and the applause and whoops from the crowd at the end.
Beginners Tree Walk: 11th August
About 10 of us gathered to look at trees that had grown where the Old Racecourse used to be. In the 50 years since the end of the horse racing, trees have developed with amazing speed: we identified ash, sycamore, field maple, hawthorn, and even a flourishing elm, all distinct, with their own characters. The ash, for example, can grow wonderfully tall, with foliage that lets through light to enable the smaller trees such as hawthorn to establish themselves. The hawthorn itself is developing its haws, those red berries that many birds eat with enthusiasm. An hour was not enough to absorb all we saw!
After several requests, a link to Ghislaine's Sloe Vodka recipe mentioned on the walk after seeing the sloes.
Family Bug Hunt: 10th August
An enthusiastic group of adults and this time very young children were impressed by the number of ladybirds on the Lime Tree where we were based. They were mostly Harlequin ladybirds (adults, larva and chrysalis) and 7-spot ladybirds.
Also found were an orange ladybird and several 16 spot ladybirds.
We found a few odd looking beasts including a young dock bug and a young eared leafhopper.
Pictured left is a flower crab spider.
Members' Nature Walk: 3rd August
A morning walk to look at all things nature. We saw several galls including knopper, spangle and silk button galls (left).
Taking in quite a few different trees as we walked away from Redston Field. We discussed birds as we approached the cricket scrub and had a look in that area which was new to most on the walk. It was interesting to see which plants were growing up after the dogwood had been largely removed.
Conservation Work in the Park: 23rd July
July’s work party, on a rather dull day, saw us cutting back the bramble leaders on the south and east margins of the Anthill Meadow. We also opened up a path leading to the Butterfly Meadow. With 12 of us working, much clearing was done, and it was so satisfying to see that this area in the park, with a variety and quantity of wild flowers, can be maintained as a meadow by us.
Despite the very damp spring and summer, butterflies have been rewarding us with their presence. Gatekeepers and meadow browns were the most common butterflies, with a peacock, marbled white and green-veined white also visiting, along with some colourful six-spot burnet moths.
Butterfly Walk: 20th July
On a cloudy, warm and, crucially, dry day, most of the butterflies we saw were in the Anthill Meadow. Dee pointed out a good number of six-spotted burnet moths (photographed on ragwort by Robert Abbey), including mating pairs. We also saw meadow browns, gatekeepers, small skippers and a green-veined white. When the sun suddenly came out, a couple of marbled whites, at the end of their season, appeared and posed on the knapweed. Meanwhile, Markus had been scanning the oak canopies for purple hairstreaks, and he did indeed spot a fluttery, silvery fragment (the underwing), so the group got a chance to see one.
Art in the Park: 18th July
With summery vibes, our July session didn’t disappoint! Nine of us, a mix of old timers and recent joiners, enjoyed a good mix of what the park has to offer at this time of year. One group took up their spot in the formality of the Rose Garden to focus on the picturesque fountain and its resplendent waterlilies. Others spread around the areas just outside the Rose Garden, where there are some wilder spots with lots of striking rust-red dock seedheads, long grasses, and butterflies, plus fabulous views across London. The glorious weather even allowed us to top off the session with a summer picnic together!
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