The London Borough of Redbridge, one of the northern peripheral London boroughs, has within its boundaries parts of two large open spaces: Epping Forest and Wanstead Flats. Apart from many smaller parks, gardens and sports grounds, the following are the main open spaces in Redbridge:
- Claybury Woods and Park
- Epping Forest - portions near Woodford (also Wanstead Park, see below)
- Hainault Forest Country Park: 336 acres (136ha)
- Hainault Lodge Nature Reserve: 14 acres (5.7 acres)
- Fairlop Waters: an open space with two lakes and a golf course, at Fairlop
- Goodmayes Park
- Seven Kings Park
- Roding Valley Park
- South Park, Ilford
- Valentines Park, Ilford: 125 acres (50.6ha)
- Wanstead Flats
- Wanstead Park (with lakes) and the Wanstead Golf Course
Fairlop Waters Country Park is one of 11 parks throughout Greater London chosen to receive money for redevelopment by a public vote, in 2009. The park received £400,000 towards better footpaths, more lighting, refurbished public toilets and new play areas for children.
The parks are patrolled by the 15-strong Redbridge Parks Police.
Famous quotes containing the words parks, open and/or spaces:
“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)
“O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there. For there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)