(if you're not especially interested in buses and trains, here's a brief diversionary interlude in Enfield)
You'll know Bush Hill Gardens if you use Ridge Lane Library, get your fish and chips from Rocky Reef or leave your jackets at Landfield Dry Cleaners. You'll have passed the busy street corner with the old school signpost so typical of erstwhile Edmonton, perhaps while riding merrily up Cycleway 20. You'll have seen the metal arch glinting enticingly above the gate, maybe even stopped to read the Public Spaces Protection Order on the railings. But if you've never stepped through the entrance you've missed out on discovering what lies within this sylvan acre, and that might be a pity.
The gardens are in two parts - a mostly flat grassy space suitable for a minor kickabout and a contoured landscaped hollow. It looks very much like a big old house might have occupied the top half while the pretty bit with the big trees is their old garden, but it turns out no, this just was the corner of a field that Enfield Urban District Council transformed into a public park in 1925. The faded noticeboard inside the gates isn't quite that old but must be 1980s at the very latest with its references to Park Keepers and a list of byelaws signed by Wilfred D Day, Chief Executive & Town Clerk. Among the activities still subject to a fine of TWENTY POUNDS are beating a carpet, leading cattle to pasture, erecting any pole and letting your greyhound off its lead.
A perimeter path allows for complete circumnavigation, interrupted only by a set of rustic steps and intermittently enhanced by the pleasant smell of pines. But it's really only the landscaped half where you'll want to linger, perhaps staring into the reedy pool or crossing the decorative bridge over the pointless stream. Here you may meet some of the local hoodied teenagers, alternately vaping and making out on the bench below the shrubbery. But if they're absent this is the ideal spot to sit and eat that Steak Bake you bought from the Greggs over the road on Bush Hill Parade. Just be advised that, although separate Ladies and Gentlemen's entrances remain on Village Road, the public conveniences were demolished many years ago so maybe don't buy the Large Americano.
(if you're not especially interested in buses, trains or Enfield, my apologies)
