Lammas Park
Open 7.30am - Dusk
Public Transport - Tube: South Ealing, Northfields (Piccadilly). Bus: E2, E3, 65.
Not far from the path you'll find the cache, a small screwtop camo plastic pot with a magnet.
Some history of the park which we learnt when writing this up :-)
The park is named after the original use of the land as lammas land where tenants of the manor could graze their cattle following harvest. In 1881 c.23 acres were purchased by Ealing Local Board when it was feared that it might be lost as open space; compensation was paid to those who lost their rights. Lammas Park opened in 1883 and was subsequently extended west to Northfield Lane by arrangement with the Elers Estate, and a lodge was built at the new entrance. By 1907 there were 2 bowling greens, shelters for the bowling club and cricketers, and a 'tea chalet' for those playing tennis and croquet, with 19 lawn tennis courts and 4 croquet lawns by 1911. The park once had a bandstand and over 50 flower beds, mostly removed by 1958. In January 1949 a small War Memorial was erected by the Boy Scouts near the South Lodge entrance dedicated by the Rector of Hanwell.
The Ealing Parks Department Depot was situated on an area to the north of Lammas Park before World War II, with its own glasshouses, but by 1958 most of the park's flower beds had been removed. When Ealing, Southall and Acton merged as the London Borough of Ealing in the 1960s, the new Council built its main nursery in Southall and the Depot in Lammas Park was no longer needed. The glasshouses were destroyed in c.1972, when the park's bandstand was also demolished, although the Depot yard continued to be used as a store until 1994 when it finally closed, largely as a result of reduced staffing following Compulsory Competitive Tendering legislation. However, plans for a nature conservation area here were prepared by the Borough Landscape Architects, and this opened on 26 June 1998, a peaceful area accessible from the Playcentre, containing a wildlife garden, with a pond and bridge.
Overall the park's design is much more modest than that of Walpole Park (q.v.). Culmington Road is lined with mature London plane trees and there are also groups of plane and one or two oaks dotted with Corsican pine, as well as shrubs. A horse chestnut walk leads from East Lodge into the park, cast iron gates and wire mesh fencing. In the east of the park are tennis courts.