Parks and Recreation
The borough maintains over 200 green spaces, totalling around 1,800 acres (730 ha). Since much of the area is within the Metropolitan Green Belt, and as it is one of the least densely populated of all the London boroughs, there are large areas of land properly called open space. They range in size from the Colne Valley corridor to the smallest gardens and playing fields.
Harmondsworth Moor, a park owned by the borough, is administered by British Airways on behalf of the borough. After British Airways planned to create a new headquarters in 1992, the airline agreed to restore a former landfill site to what is now the moor.
The Grand Union Canal passes through parts of the borough, including Uxbridge, Yiewsley and West Drayton. Ruislip Lido was built as a feeder reservoir for the canal, but was eventually disconnected and changed to become a recreational lido. Two Sites of Special Scientific Interest next to the canal, Frays Farm Meadows and Denham Lock Wood, are managed by the London Wildlife Trust.
The borough also operates children's centres, recreational areas for children of under five years of age and their families. The centres include Barra Hall, Belmore, Cherry Lane, Colham Manor, Cornerstone, Cowley St. Laurence, Harefield, Hillside, McMillan Early Childhood Centre, Nestles Avenue, Oak Farm, Uxbridge College (Hayes Campus).
There are three theatres owned by the borough: the Compass Theatre, Ickenham, the Winston Churchill Hall (part of the Manor Farm site) and the Beck Theatre, Hayes, which is operated on behalf of the borough by HQ Theatres Limited.
Read more about this topic: London Borough Of Hillingdon
Famous quotes containing the words parks and, parks and/or recreation:
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)