In this series, correspondents write about their experiences
in the countries where they live. Here, Suse van Kleef talks
about her love for the many parks in London, UK.LONDON’S
GREEN JEWELS
My weekends in London often proceed according to a
regular pattern: They start with a coffee at an Italian
place around the corner, and then I head for the park.
If I’m feeling lazy, I head for Mile End Park in Tower
Hamlets, East London, because it’s only a three-minute
walk from where I live. But usually I go to Victoria Park,
which is ten minutes down the road. If I’m feeling really
motivated, I’ll even walk the half hour to London Fields in
Hackney. When I moved here three years ago, I expected
the opposite of the city I now know. I associated London
with huge shopping streets and skyscrapers, with the
Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. I didn’t think about a
city with trees, fields and meadows. And yet, it’s one of
the greenest metropoles in the world: London has more
green spaces than Germany’s Berlin or France’s Paris,
for example. The overstrained housing market has made
houses with outdoor space fairly rare in London. The
outdoor lives of residents are mostly played out in the
city’s 3,000 parks. I am amazed each time at how quiet
and spacious they are, and by the nature. It was
unusually hot in London this summer, and during the
peak of the heat wave, I ventured to Richmond Park in
the southwest of London for the first time. It was like I
had ended up in a different country: the sounds of the
crickets in the huge grasslands made me feel like I was
in the Mediterranean. This National Nature Reserve
boasts centuries-old trees and wild flowers, and rare
animals roam here. The only thing to remind you that you
are in a big city are the planes flying low overhead.
I was barely there for ten minutes when I encountered
a group of deer. (Deer! In London!) There were around
twenty of them quietly grazing as I tried to get closer and
closer to take a photo. They paid me no mind. The deer
were introduced here by King Charles I, who created
Richmond Park in 1625. Fleeing an outbreak of the
plague in London, he was looking for a hunting ground
close to the capital. He released 2,000 deer here, and
had a wall built so they couldn’t escape. It was tough
luck for the local population that worked and kept
livestock here on farms; Charles staked a claim to the
area for himself and his loved ones.
Richmond Park is also one of London’s eight Royal
Parks. In earlier times, they were mostly reserved for
the members of the British Royal Family, who used >The
correspondent