Gardens and canals.....a day of new discoveries

Duncan Terrace Garden

One of my birthday presents was a book called London Out of Sight - exploring the city's secret green spaces and on Tuesday hubby and I set off to Islington to visit a couple. I've never been to Islington before so it was an adventure I was relishing. Islington is quite a mixed bag. There are lanes with exclusive shops, then the main street with its usual high street chains. Yet away from there we found the first of the gardens - Duncan Terrace Garden. This is a community garden frequented by workers in their lunch hour and other local people with their children. Next door to this was Colebrooke Row Gardens (which wasn't mentioned in the book), but worth a walk through.

Colebrooke Terrace Garden

Duncan Terrace Garden

From there we headed to the Culpepper Community Garden which was lovely. They even run courses in mosaics from the building on site. There is a great mix of flowers, trees and vegetables. I loved the personal touches - hand painted plaques on trees. All these gardens are run and worked by volunteers who do a great job keeping them tidy and open to the public to enjoy and relax in.

Culpepper Community Garden

I hope to visit many more of the gardens mentioned in the book. The gardens are split into areas - central London, north, south, east and west. There's enough there to keep me going for many years.

The Angel, Islington

After visiting the gardens we decided to follow the Regent's Canal a little way. You can pick it up not far from the end of Chapel Market in Islington. We walked the stretch to Camden Market. There is masses of rebuilding going on in this area. Part of it is Cross Rail (near St Pancras). The rest looks like homes or offices. Where the work was encroaching on the pathways they had built pontoons for walking on. There were some lovely stretches along the canal and it was great to see parts of London I don't know. As we headed to Camden tube station we passed the Open University building. That brought back memories of the days when I would go there for my tutorials. It seems ages ago now.....well I guess it was. I think it was around 2005/6.

Regents Canal, Islington

Camden Lock

The Open University building, Camden