Chapmans Green Summer Fair in pictures (July 2025): this year’s summer fair was a scorcher, so we were especially grateful to all our volunteers and visitors who braved the heat to join us. We had a lovely afternoon in the park, with stalls, games and craft activities. We were treated to folk music from Dorten Yonder and Basket of Turf plus traditional Turkish and Kurdish music from the Rengen Women’s Choir, with DJ Tim filling in between the live performances (until his vinyl started melting). A big thank you as always to our volunteers who set things up, took things down and ran stalls in between, and to generous local businesses who donated raffle prizes: Kervan Sofrasi, Bean & Brew, Goodness Brewery, Bolland & Crust, Yard Sale Pizza and India Town. Finally, a big thank you to Haringey Council for their financial support.

If you would like to help with next year’s fair, let us know.

Sunday 8th December 2024 – Join us for the Chapman’s Green Christmas Social: The Friends will be opening the doors to the pavilion for an informal lunch, mince pies and mulled cider before we all head out into the meadow to wassail our fruit trees in the traditional way. Bring a plate of something to share or just drop in – we should have plenty. This is a chance for local people to come along and find out more about what we’ve been up to in 2024 and what’s on the horizon in 2025. We’re a small group with big ambitions, so the more involvement we can get from residents the more we can achieve!

Our Summer Fair in pictures (July 2024): Thank you everyone who joined us today for our fair – we had a great day. The park was filled with people of all ages, reminding us all what sort of place Chapmans Green can be when we all come together. A big thank you especially to those who baked cakes, played music, ran stalls and activities, and helped us set up and pack away.

Coming soon! Chapmans Green Summer Fair (July 2024): It’s almost time for a annual summer fair, which this year features music from four fantastic groups – Dorten Yonder Folk Band, Basket of Turf, Corsican Brass and The Holloway Jug Band. We’ll have Indian and Caribbean street food, homemade cakes and savouries, strawberries and cream and even candy floss. Other stalls will be selling art and craft items made by local artist-makers, and children can look forward to face painting, craft activities and remote control car racing in the meadow. This also the day of the Noel Park summer festival not far away in Russell Park, so you can enjoy a whole day out on your doorstep!

It’s a sign… for the Friends’ flower bed (July 2024): Community gardening can occasionally be dispiriting – litter left in the park when ten of you have just cleaned it up, a giant allium pulled out and discarded on the other side of the park, or plants that you’ve planted for everyone to enjoy being plucked from the ground and taken home. At least a plant stolen is not a plant mindlessly destroyed – but we put the hours in for the whole community, not for individuals who fancy the look of something for their own window box. So, having lost several geranium and lavender plants since volunteers planted them last month, we thought we’d see if a sign makes any difference. Perhaps people assume that paid council staff plant this flower bed and tell themselves it won’t hurt to take one or two. Will it make them think twice to know that volunteers maintain this part of the park? Let’s see. A big thank you to Adrian who made the sign and artist Bobby who painted it. We think it makes for a nice welcome into the park.

Good Gym blows in and cleans up (June 2024): We’re very grateful to our friends from Good Gym Haringey who – exactly five years since their first visit – stopped by one Wednesday evening to help us clear the path around the meadow, which had become rather overgrown. They must have collected about 20 wheelbarrows-full of hedge-clippings and weeds (yes, I know, weeds are just plants in the wrong place – and these were definitely in the wrong place). Thank you!

Meadow update (June 2024): The meadow is looking fantastic at the moment, and thanks to some kind strangers on the British Wildflowers facebook group we’re able to identify an increasing number of the varieties we’re finding.

The Friends’ flower bed springs back to life (May 2024): A year ago we decided to dig out the triangle of grass at the front of the park by the main gate. It had presumably once been a bed, but all that remained was a sad looking palm. We initially planted it up with geraniums and lavender late last summer, then replaced these with wall flowers for the winter months. Well the wall flowers are still doing well, and have just been joined by some fantastic giant alliums which we planted back in November.

Join our big Spring Clear-Up (March 2024): Sunday 3rd March we’ll be starting this year’s monthly activity days with a clear-up of the park and meadow. Join us to help or just to wander around the meadow and see what we’re up to and enjoy the space.

The return of the Chapmans Green Summer Fair (July 2023): What a fantastic day! A huge thank you to all the Friends who helped, our Inspirit partners whose racing cars were a big hit (and who opened up the front doors of the pavilion for the first time in decades), our amazing musicians, our stallholders and everyone who came to enjoy the event. So many people told us how happy it made them to see the park brought to life like this.

May in the meadow (May 2023): As May turns to June the meadow is looking fantastic, and is teeming with insects and bird life.

Spring has sprung and sowing seeds for summer (April 2023): This weekend we saw more of our spring bulbs sprouting into life as we set about sowing wildflower seeds for summer.

A wassailing weekend (December 2022): Now that we’ve got an orchard we thought we should ‘wassail’ it. The ancient tradition of wassailing in apple orchards aims to awaken the trees, scare away evil spirits and ensure a good harvest in the year ahead. Wassailing also refers to the practice of singing door-to-door at Christmas time (usually twelfth night) – a tradition which developed into carolling. Bringing those two traditions together, we came together to sing carols in the pavilion then went out into the orchard banging our pots and pans. Elizabeth also delivered her own wassail poem before we returned indoors for lunch and mulled cider.

We’re branching out (October 2022): After a year of planning our fruit trees are in the ground and we have an orchard! A big thank you to Cynthia who enabled us to purchase these first 12 trees in memory of Carrie, a much-missed member of the Friends. The brilliant Good Gym ran over to the park last week to get the holes dug and around 20 of us turned out today to do the planting. Once the work was done we sat outside and enjoyed an apple-themed lunch.

It’s a sign! (September 2022): Local sign-writer Pat Pearson has very generously created a beautiful new sign for our community meadow on the old bowling green, unveiled at our Friends’ Picnic in the summer. We’ll be giving the meadow its annual mow soon. This summer was so dry that our wildflowers didn’t do as well as we’ve seen in recent years – and the grass was, of course, very brown – but the rain so far this month has been enough to bring out the Yellow Hawksbeard, as well as many other flowers, which continue to feed the bees and butterflies (including Speckled Wood and Common Blue). At the front of the park, meanwhile, the play area is complete and being well-used by local children!

Play area finally on its way (June 2022): Two years after the council first committed to create a small play area at the park it’s finally on its way, the site having been cleared this week ready for the contractors. It won’t be big but it’s a key part in the process of making the Green more inviting to more people.

New herb planter and clearing the border (June 2022): Whilst we’re allowing the meadow to do its own thing, elsewhere around the old bowling green we’re tidying things up and making space for new planting. Between us, the Friends and Good Gym Haringey have cleared the border to the right of the pavilion and thanks to Adrian we have a new wooden planter which we’ve planted up with herbs and a fig tree donated by Bobby. More planting to come!

The meadow comes to life! (May 2022): we love this time of year at the Green when the wildflowers start to appear – some down by us, some a pleasant surprise as the meadow re-wilds itself.

Swifts welcome (April 2022): Alex got his ladders out – don’t worry, he’s insured – and put up some new swift boxes to welcome our flying African visitors, who can often be seen swooping over the meadow catching insects in Spring.

Spring on the Green (April 2022): It’s nice to see the Green coming to life – including the fruits of our bulb-planting labours at the start of the year.

Inspirit have fun in the meadow (November 2021): Are you being at-tent-ive as you pass by the Green? Have you been alert to the yurt? It’s great to see our friends Inspirit starting to make use of the outside as well as the indoor space. This weekend they put up a tipi for their young people to enjoy storytelling and games inside.

Painting and pollinators (July 2021): Whilst Covid and a few other things have slowed our progress over the last 12 months, at least the wildlife has been enjoying the old bowling green lately. The wildflower border that we sowed in May has given the bees and butterflies plenty to tuck into, and we’ve also allowed the bowling green itself to be left free from mowing – and as a result it has erupted into a sea of yellow (Smooth Hawksbeard, apparently). This has created an improved habitat for much more insect life, and as a result birds can be seen swooping in and out to get their lunch. Not that we’ve been leaving everything to nature – a few of us, led by group secretary Alex, have been painting the back of the pavilion in green and cream to match the front. We hope this shows local people that the building is far from abandoned – and soon you’ll be seeing Inspirit moving in to make it the base for their charity, so there will be more human life to go with the wildlife.

This year’s mini-meadow has been sown (May 2021): A big thank you to all who turned out for our working party dates over the last month – our most recent on Sunday 2nd May saw us finally able to sow the wildflower seeds for this year’s mini-meadow – something we first did last year and hope to establish and expand over time. We’ve had help from some new Friends as well as old, and on Sunday enjoyed a visit from Green Gym Haringey who tackled some of the tougher grass and conifer roots at the far end of the border. Thank you!

Volunteer activities resume (April 2021): After a hiatus over the last year for obvious reasons, we’re resuming our work to spruce up the old bowling green and the pavilion. Weather permitting, we will be meeting for litter-picking, gardening and painting 11am-3pm on the following dates: Sunday 11th, Sunday 25th April and 2nd Sunday May. Please join us if you’d like to help – come in appropriate clothes, bring gardening gloves if you have them and a trowel or small garden fork if you plan to work on weeding the borders (we have some but can’t guarantee one for everyone!).

Working in partnership with Inspirit to bring the old pavilion back to life (March 2021): Since the bowls club would up a couple of years ago we’ve been keen to see the pavilion back in use, and ideally as a facility that the whole community can use. As a small band of volunteers we were also conscious that the Friends wouldn’t have the time or resources to run that facility alone. So we’re pleased to reveal that we’re now working in partnership with local charity Inspirit Training led by Linda Bush – the idea being that Inspirit will lease the building from Haringey Council so they can use it as a base day to day, with the Friends helping to open up the building for wider use. That could mean using the pavilion to host small community events and classes, and potentially setting up an occasional community cafe with help from InSpirit’s members. The two organisations will work together to bring the old bowling green to life as well, turning this into a flexible space for community events during the Spring and Summer months, whilst also enhancing the biodiversity of the site with an expanding wildflower meadow, fruit trees and more.

New children’s play area planned! (September 2020): Local parents often tell us they would like to see a children’s play area at the park, and this has been one of our priorities for a while. Haringey Council heard us and recently announced that they have allocated £20,000  for the purchase and installation of play equipment here at Chapman’s Green – which is great news! This will be aimed at young children specifically and will, we hope, make the Green a more welcoming place for families. Whilst £20,000 sounds like a lot, we’re told it will only allow us to purchase a limited range of equipment, so we may seek to increase this with a crowdfunder project during the Autumn. 

Pavilion Painting & Bench Buffing (June 2019): The Friends wanted to get the pavilion spruced up so that local people could see that something new was happening at The Green. A group of us worked across several days to prepare the walls and timbers and repaint them in a heritage colour scheme of cream and green. A special mention for our secretary Alex for putting the hours in to get it finished! And thanks to our friends at Good Gym Haringey, we’ve also been able to make a start on refurbishing the benches around the old bowling green – some of which are dedicated to former members and form an important part of the club’s legacy. Thank you Good Gym!