Autumn harvests – potatoes and dandelions!
Perivale park provided supper yesterday. Potatoes planted in the raised beds were ready for harvesting.†
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Perivale and Pear Tree Parks Bistro – an update
Good news to report. The refurbishment of the old cafe has started and will take about a month. Apart from the restaurant, kitchen and toilets, a new community room for perhaps 20 people will be opened.
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Autumn oranges. Acorns and Crab apples
If you get up close, this year Crab Apples (Variety Red sentinel) and the acorns are revealing splendid, almost translucent autumn colours.
Brent River Park 50th Anniversary Celebration: Morris dancing, English bluebells and lots more.
Perivale park is part of the greater Brent River park, a concept that was created 50 years ago by Luke FitzHerbert. Here are some photos of the celebration, which happened on Sunday 29th June.
Update on the Imperial-CURB Run-off project
This is a one year project to measure water run-off along the entire river Brent corridor. There are four sampling points in Perivale park itself and a total of 99 samples along the entire length have been collected so far and sent to Imperial College for analysis.
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Perivale wood 2025: bluebells, celandine, stitchwort and cuckoo flowers.
This year there is no public open day viewing of the bluebells in Perivale Wood, so I thought I would show some of the highlights here instead.
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News on Park food – Pear Tree Park Bistro.
Following the closure of the old golf club cafe last December, news now comes that a new food outlet is planning to open this summer in the same premises – the Pear Tree Park Bistro offering modern European cuisine. It is hoped it will have longer opening hours than the original cafe (which closed by 3-4 pm), and also retaining breakfasts on the menu. There are plans to expand the seating area for diners and to open a community room at the back of the building. Indeed, the ethos of this bistro will be the community and engagement with it.
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Wild vegetables!
We have recently returned from Rhodes, where we discovered that many restaurants have something called “Wild Greens” on their menus.
Requited love – a romantic story of the night.
It started about 2-3 weeks ago when throughout the night I heard the call of a bird, just outside the bedroom window so it seemed, or at very least in our garden. To confirm my supposition, I whipped out my bird identification app (Merlin) and identified it as a Little owl.
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Bright sun and frost on Horsenden Hill.
The first proper freeze of the year is always worth a photo or two. In this instance, not of Perivale Park itself but of the nearby Horsenden hill.
Tree Watering Champions.
Signs of a new project for Perivale park (or more accurately the surrounding streets) have appeared. Called “Trees for Streets“, it encourages local residents to go out and water trees planted in Ealing streets (there is one for parks as well).
The 2024 edition of the morning sky over Perivale Park
At a time of year when most of the colour has gone from the park, one has to look to the sky. Here is how it appeared this morning at around 07.30.
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Fast-charge battery trains next to Perivale Park
Following on from the previous post of interesting things happening in the proximity of Perivale Park, here is another.
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New sandpits and benches.
In these posts in the past I have often referred to the two general areas of the Perivale park sports fields and the Longfield meadows and ponds on the other side of the railway embankment as the “Greater Perivale park“. Now sandwiched nicely between these two is Pear Tree park, which along its northern and western edge is entirely contiguous with Perivale park itself, the eastern edge being bounded by the railway line and the southern edge by the river Brent. So when something new or interesting is found in these general areas, I might find myself describing it as the greater park and its distinct three sections, each with their own character. So today the photos were taken in the greater park, and particularly in the Pear Tree section and the Perivale park pond area.
Pear Tree Park – the opening.
Today, the new park created from the golf course adjacent to Perivale Park, was inaugurated as Pear Tree park at around 11.00 this morning.
Perivale Park Academy.
These notices have appeared around the park recently!
Notice the age group, 2-7. So if you have children/grandchildren that age, consider enrolling them! More details will no doubt follow.
An Ealing Greenspace at the start of its new life as a Park.
Last Friday was the last day of the Perivale Park golf course being open – and now it awaits its new life as an Ealing park. We strolled around the park and here are a few photos to give a flavour of what it looks like now. The next thing to happen will be the installation of four benches and four litter bins – the locations of which are already being discussed. As things happen, I hope to record them here.
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Perivale Park Golf club Cafe – use it or loose it!
>The Ealing Parks Foundation had its second meeting this year this last Thursday, with twelve people present. Here I list some bullet points emerging from the discussions, mostly relating to Perivale Park. They are from my own notes, and are not formal minutes! Continue reading “Perivale Park Golf club Cafe – use it or loose it!”
The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) in Perivale Park.
The TCV group organises events around the country and today they came to Perivale Park on a corporate volunteering day with a group of about twenty very enthusiastic people from PwC – and one volunteer dog accompanying Ben!. An area of ground‡ on the banks of Costons Brook near to its exit from the culvert in the park had recently been cleared by GEL using an impressive robotic cutting system and it was now ready for replanting.
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Animal proof litter bins anyone?
Around 9 old litter bins in the park, often raided by animals in the past if they could smell food inside them, have been replaced by ones with animal-proof flaps!
Listening to birds.
I am certainly no expert on birdsong, and so have come to rely on technology (and any accompanying expert) to identify birds. Occasionally I will “listen” using the wonderful Merlin Bird ID app. Switched on today sitting on a bench near the largest lake in the Longfield meadows, eight different birds were identified after listening for around four minutes. A little further along the river Brent headed to Greenford another one was identified, making nine in all.
Perivale Park: One of London’s best outdoor spaces!
Back in 2018, we noted here the impending formation of a new National park based in London! This was the brainchild of Dan Raven-Ellison and now six years later, he has produced a guide to London’s best outdoor spaces where seven picks are listed. Amongst these is the “Best hidden gem: Section 8 of the Capital Ring”.
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Litter picking with a Difference: CURB and Coston’s Brook
Coston’s brook is a tributary of the river Brent, emerging above ground in Perivale Park from a twin-tunnel culvert. The culvert is protected by a metal grill, and over time rubbish in the brook gets trapped on the grill.
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Updates – the park Fritillaries and the Colne Valley Viaduct.
Firstly the fritillaries, which are now looking splendid. Again, I think the bountiful rain this spring has helped!
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A different view of the Park Pear Trees
Last autumn, the avenue of pear trees produced a wonderful orange-hued vista. Now a few months later, it is the turn of the blossom.
Wood sculptures found in a nearby nature reserve.
Whilst out exploring a nearby nature reserve, we came across these wonderful sculptures.
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The Ealing Beaver sanctuary revisited.
Time we thought to revisit the Beaver sanctuary, in Paradise fields. It has been raining a lot and so Coston’s Brook, which feeds the pond where the beavers are established should be and indeed was flowing well. The beavers themselves, which are largely nocturnal, are not expected to be out and about. So that they can be observed, there are a number of remote cameras, which capture their activities. There is a dam across the brook, but whether a “helping hand” from humans has contributed, or whether it is fully the work of the beavers themselves I am not certain.
Perivale Park Kestrel
You can often spot kestrels in the park, but less often taking a rest in a tree.
Costons Brook – as you may never have seen it before.
The water course that flows through the park, Costons Brook, is a tributary of the river Brent. Its source is difficult to identify since the development of Greenford these last 100 years or so have resulted in most of it running in underground culverts. The map I talked about here can help identify its original course, which appears to show one arm of the brook running close to Paradise fields, just west of Horsenden Hill.
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