Fryent Country Park, together with Barn Hill Open Space, is a large park situated in the north of the

London Borough of Brent The London Borough of Brent () is a London borough in north-west London. It borders the boroughs of Harrow to the north-west, Barnet to the north-east, Camden to the east, the City of Westminster to the south-east, as well as the Royal Borou ...

. It covers 103 hectares (254 acres) of rolling fields and small woods. Fryent was also a ward of the London Borough of Brent. Its population at the 2011 Census was 13,445.

Significant features

Barn Hill in the south-west of the park is a wooded hill that rises to . A fish pond is found at the top of the Hill. Numerous other ponds can be seen in the rest of the park. Gotfords Hill () and Beane Hill () are other high points in the park. Parallel to Fryent Way is an ancient track known as Hell Lane or Eldestrete which may date back to Saxon times or earlier. There is also a

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...

near the Slough Lane entrance, one of the closest farms from the centre of London.

Wildlife

The woodland comprises

English oak ''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native plant, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus ...

hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornbeam ...

, elm, ash and some fruit trees which also occur in the hedges along with blackthorn. The park is considered the best surviving example of

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

countryside in the Brent basin and has a population of the nationally rare plant the narrow-leaved bitter-cress (

Cardamine impatiens ''Cardamine impatiens'', the narrowleaf bittercress or narrow-leaved bitter-cress, is a plant species in the genus ''Cardamine'' of the family Brassicaceae. It is a slender, biennial herb, that produces sterile leaves in the first year, one to s ...

History

Barn Hill, called Bardonhill in 1547, was landscaped by

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

in 1792 as part of a local landowner's country park. The Fryent Park hay meadows are small remnants of two manors, one originally in the ownership of

King Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æthe ...

Access

The park is bisected by the A4140 Fryent Way that links Kingsbury with

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

, and which leads south-east towards the

North Circular Road The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting ...

. A car park is available halfway down this road. The nearest underground is at Kingsbury Station on the

Jubilee line The Jubilee line is a London Underground line that runs between in east London and in the suburban north-west, via the Docklands, South Bank and West End. Opened in 1979, it is the newest line on the Underground network, although some secti ...

, while the Barn Hill Open Area, or at least the summit of it, is nearer to

Wembley Park Wembley Park is a district of the London Borough of Brent, England. It is roughly centred on Bridge Road, a mile northeast of Wembley town centre and northwest from Charing Cross. The name Wembley Park refers to the area that, at its broades ...

and

Preston Road State Highway 289, known for most of its length as Preston Road, is a north–south Texas state highway. It begins at the intersection of Preston Road and Loop 12/Northwest Highway in Dallas. The Preston Road designation comes from the fact ...

stations. The 206 bus terminates on the south side of the park and other bus routes run to the east (Church Lane), north (Kingsbury Road) and west (Preston Hill). The

Capital Ring The Capital Ring is a strategic walking route promoted by London's 33 local councils, led by the City of London Corporation in partnership with the Greater London Authority and its functional body for regional transport, Transport for London, ...

footpath crosses the site. However, the road Fryent Way, linking Kingsbury Circle and Salmon Street, has no bus service.

Awards

Fryent Country Park was awarded a

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy, ...

in 2010/2011 for being a well-managed park or open space. The Green Flag Award scheme is the benchmark national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales. It is also a Local Nature Reserve. In 2014

London in Bloom London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

awarded the park a silver gilt award in its Country Park of the Year category.

Sport

The Liddiard Cup cross country race is annually staged here in late October.

Gallery

File:Fryent Country Park wood.JPG, Path in woods File:Fryent Country Park Barn Hill Pond.JPG, Barn Hill Pond File:Fryent Country Park clearing.JPG, Clearing File:Fryent farm.jpg, Fryent farm on the east side File:Fryent Country Park view north.JPG, View north from Gotfords Hill File:Fryent Country Park view of Wembley Stadium.JPG, View of Wembley Stadium from Barn Hill File:Harrow Hill and NWPH from Barn Hill.jpg, View of

Northwick Park Hospital Northwick Park Hospital (NWPH) is a major National Health Service hospital situated near the town of Harrow, North West London, managed by the London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. It is located off Watford Road in the London Borou ...

and

Harrow on the Hill Harrow on the Hill is a locality and historic village in the borough of Harrow in Greater London, England. The name refers to Harrow Hill, ,Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) and is located some half a mile south of the mod ...

from Barn Hill

Bibliography

Ordnance Survey. (2006). ''No. 173 Explorer Map: London North''.

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

. Snow, Len. (1990). ''Brent, Wembley, Willesden and Kingsbury: A pictorial history''.

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ...

: Phillimore & Co Ltd.

References

External links

*
Brent Council's local management planBarn Hill Conservation Group's websiteBarn Hill Conservation Group's 2007 management programme
{{coord, 51, 34, 39, N, 00, 16, 21, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Brent Country parks in London Local nature reserves in Greater London Nature reserves in the London Borough of Brent