Golders Hill Park is a formal park in Golders Green, London. It is managed by the City of London Corporation as part of the parkland and commons in and near Hampstead Heath, and is part of the Hampstead Heath Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. Unlike the rest of the Heath, Golders Hill Park is closed at night.
It adjoins the West Heath part of Hampstead Heath and is on the site formerly occupied by a large house which was bombed during World War II. Its main characteristic is an expanse of grass, but it also has a formal, beautifully tended, flower garden next to a duck pond with a small humpback bridge, a separate water garden, which leads onto a larger pond with both black and white swans, a separate area for fallow deer, near to a recently-renovated small zoo. There are also tennis courts, a well subscribed playground and a putting green. A restaurant stands at the top of the park, on the site of the original house.
During the summer, children's activities are organised and through June and July there is live music on the bandstand on Sunday afternoons. Unlike most of Hampstead Heath, dogs must be kept on a lead in the park.
The zoo contains a variety of animals and birds, such as Alpacas, Maras, Red-legged Seriemas, Ring-tailed Lemurs and White-naped Cranes.
Famous quotes containing the words hill and/or park:
“headland beyond stormy headland plunging like dolphins through the
gray sea-smoke
Into pale sea, look west at the hill of water: it is half the
planet: this dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water,”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)