Overlooked Britain
Lucinda Lambton
Never a day goes by without my heart soaring with satisfaction at the triumph of Northala Fields on the A40, just west of London in the Borough of Ealing.
Driving along this traffic-choked and most aesthetically unpromising stretch of dual carriageway, you suddenly see – to your bewildered disbelief – four crispy, conical hills, smoothly green with meadow and grassland, scrubland and wild flowers, all enhanced by a variety of spiralling and picturesque paths, flanked by stone walls.
With their varied heights, from 65 feet to 115 feet, there they stand, bold, proud
and true, by the roadside. What a huge surprise! What are they? How can it be that they are here, of all places?
Their story is remarkable, in that they were built out of the rubble – known as the ‘muck away’ – of the demolished old Wembley Stadium, including (an upsetting detail) the famed twin towers. Not only that, they were also built of the detritus incurred during the building of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, as well as all the ‘spoils’ from the building of the giant Westfield shopping centre at White City.
These were all local construction projects amassing 1.5 million cubic meters of rubble – some 160,000 lorry loads, or 240 Olympic-sized swimming pools – that were eventually gathered together to create the underbelly of this new park. After reusing all the detritus in this way, rather than having to haul it many hundreds of miles to new landfill sites, the savings were immense. Not only that, by charging for this tipping, the park, as a bumper bonus, was completely self-funded from the start. What a triumph for our environmentally conscious age, with its ever-growing problems of waste reduction, reuse and recycling.
With 49 acres, this is the largest new London park to have been created for a century and, I am willing to wager, the most innovative and exciting, as well as the most exhilarating, surprising and in
every way delightful parkland development in the country; that, furthermore, has done more good for more people for a very long time. Never once, in the 11 years that I have driven past it, has it not had appreciative admirers revelling in the exciting oddness of such hills rearing forth in their somewhat grim surroundings. Men, women and children are climbing them, running up and running down, walking round and round, while all the while delighting in the unexpected out-of-theblue views.
To the east, you can see over London to Canary Wharf, with a skyline of such forms as Wembley Stadium’s and the Shard’s; this is stirring stuff. Incidentally, ‘Northala’ is not a fancifully invented ‘historic’-sounding name, but rather what the old manor of Northolt was called when recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086.
One of the most marvellous aspects of it all is the way the hills shield the housing estates behind them from the roar of the A40. Whereas in the past this was a lacklustre site of disused wasteland next to a noisy dual carriageway, now they are the Elysian Fields.
Not only that, they are to be enjoyed amid the surreally settling atmosphere of profound silence. There are six fishing lakes – loved and lauded by anglers from the very young to very old – and there’s a
model boating lake, as well as three wildlife ponds and a marshland reserve, with a multitude of flora and fauna species. Two children’s playgrounds complete the picture, as well as a terrific great wooden confection of a building for children to climb over, around and to slide down.
All the hills have been planted: one with scrubland, another with wildflower meadows of cornflowers and poppies, clover, daisies and dandelions in brightest array. Wetlands and reed beds are in abundance and there is a grass amphitheatre for outdoor entertainment.
Dozens of gabion baskets filled with stones, make up walls, flank the paths up hill and down dale – as well as one that spirals around a conical hill – on which you can rest to relish your surroundings. After most pleasurably stepping around this spiral to the top, a historic tour awaits you, with photographs on boards to tickle your architectural fancy.
Here there are details of what buildings can be enjoyed amid the great sweep that surrounds you. There is the 200ft-high Italianate tower of the London Museum of Steam – founded in 1838 as a pumping station – that stands tall in Brentford High Street. Then there is the luxuriant greenery of Harrow-onthe-hill as well as Horsenden Hill. The little, 13th-century church of St Mary’s Church in Northolt can be spotted from on high. You can also see the Trellick Tower in Ladbroke Grove, as well as the BT Tower in Fitzrovia, and then there is the Gherkin in the City of London.
Closer to home, in Greenford, stands the ‘Aladdin Tower’ of 1932 with its distinctive ‘hat’ of a roof, designed by architects Charles Nicholas and Lt Col John Edward Dixon Spain. As well as being an architect of renown, Dixon Spain – here’s a surprise – was one of the Monument Men, the army unit that was created to rescue great works of art from destruction at the hands of the Nazis.
One sad black mark at Northala is the loss of a giant circular mosaic that celebrated Northolt. It was designed by students from West London Academy and Belvue School and constructed by young locals, with the support of artists from Art4space, as well as the Northolt Extended Schools Project and Ealing Council. HURRAY! In beautiful, mellow tones, of houses, books and birds, different and detailed plants, along with an aeroplane representing nearby Northolt Airport, it was a delight. I fear, though, that it is now no more, having been smashed to pieces by vandals.
There were heroes aplenty behind the creation of Northala Fields; but leading the way was the artist Peter Fink along with the architect Igor Marko and ecologist Peter Neal.
Together they have produced this triumph of what has often been called ‘Land Art’, and land art is what it jolly well is, to the most marvellous extent. With its aim to be ‘a park for the 21st century’, with its sense of adventurous beauty, it has succeeded in a most joyful way.