The London Borough of Enfield is the northernmost of the Outer London boroughs. The borough lies within the Metropolitan Green Belt, and several of its 123 or more parks and open spaces are part of it. The ancient Enfield Chase, remnants of which still exist, occupied much of the area. In addition to many playgrounds and sports facilities (including a number of golf courses), the main areas of public open space are:
- Albany Park: Enfield Wash, 45 acres (0.18 km2) formally opened 1902, since extended; west of Enfield Lock railway station
- Arnos Park, Arnos Grove: 44 acres (0.18 km2) opened in 1928; north of Arnos Grove tube station; Pymmes Brook Trail passes through it
- Beech Hill Park, Hadley Wood: includes Hadley Wood Golf Course
- Broomfield Park, Palmers Green: 54 acres (0.22 km2), purchased 1903
- Bullsmoor Playing Fields, Freezywater
- Bury Lodge Gardens Edmonton
- Bush Hill Park Recreation Ground Bush Hill Park was officially opened on 18 April 1911
- Churchfields Recreation Ground Edmonton
- Craig Park, Edmonton
- Cunningham Park, Freezywater
- Ryans Park, Enfield Highway
- Durants Park, Enfield Highway created in 1903.
- Forty Hall Park: an estate of 273 acres (1.10 km2) managed by Enfield Borough, includes woodlands and grounds around Forty Hall
- Grovelands Park, Southgate
- Hilly Fields, near Gordon Hill railway station: 62 acres (0.25 km2) purchased 1911
- Hollywood Gardens, Edmonton
- Jubilee Park, Lower Edmonton
- King George's Field, Enfield Highway, opened in 1939, to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary in 1935.
- Montagu Road Recreation Ground, Edmonton
- Oakwood Park: 64 acres (0.26 km2) purchased 1927
- Ponders End Recreation Ground ( Ryans Park), Ponders End
- Plevna Road Open Space, Edmonton
- Pymmes Park, Edmonton: 53 acres (0.21 km2) purchased 1899
- Tatem Park, Edmonton
- Town Park, Enfield Town, which incorporates the last public remnant of Enfield Old Park.
- Trent Park: country park
- Whitewebbs Park
Apart from those open spaces, there are the two large reservoirs. The King George V and the William Girling collectively known as the Chingford Reservoirs situated alongside the River Lea in the east of the Borough.
Famous quotes containing the words parks, open and/or spaces:
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn’t order any credit cards! We don’t spend what we don’t have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”
—Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)
“In any case, raw aggression is thought to be the peculiar province of men, as nurturing is the peculiar province of women.... The psychologist Erik Erikson discovered that, while little girls playing with blocks generally create pleasant interior spaces and attractive entrances, little boys are inclined to pile up the blocks as high as they can and then watch them fall down: “the contemplation of ruins,” Erikson observes, “is a masculine specialty.””
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)