The gates of Waterlow Park. Photo: Peter O’Connor aka anemoneprojectors-Flickr CC 2.0
Exit gates from the park looking across the road to Highgate Cemetery
I am surrounded by tombs, winged creatures, vaults, crosses & your memorial
I walk down the steep hieroglyphic paths, then saw an extraordinary sight
Two angels waved a cheerful ‘hello’ as they hovered above the cemetery wall
I hesitated in the afternoon light; to reassure, waved back, by the old yew tree
Eagles guard steps overlooking meadow at Waterlow Park. Christopher 2024
Stone eagles guard steps by the meadow; grownups sat, & children play-fight
Midsummer in Waterlow Park, a fresh wind, cloudless sky, that tiny waterfall
I watch coots, moorhens, and mallards, slide across the pond; my small reverie
The meadow at Waterlow Park looking down to the lake. Christopher 2024
I hear the babbling voices, friends, boys & girls, forgetting the coming night
Beginning their new lives, a new promise for us, entertaining with their call
Barbeque smoke drifts above. A message from that friend I’d no longer, see?
Lauderdale House from ornamental garden. Memorial on bench. Christopher 2024
The green trees turned yellow-topped in the evening sun and seemed so bright
Starlings swirled above the trees; robins, thrush & sparrow sang me goodnight
© Christopher 2024
Lauderdale House was used by St. Bartholomew’s hospital as a convalescenthome from 1872 to 1883, staffed by nurses supplied by Florence Nightingale. Sir Sydney Waterlow gave his 29 acre estate and houses to London County Council in 1889, as a ‘Garden for the Gardenless’, during the Long Depression of 1873 to 1896.
Waterlow and Sons Limited, started by James Waterlow was a major worldwide engraver of currency, postage stamps, stocks, and bond certificates based in London, Watford and Dunstable in England.
The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company (IIDC) was a Victorian model dwellings company, founded in 1863 by Sir Sydney Waterlow, printer, philanthropist, and later Lord Mayor of London in 1872 and 1873. The company operated predominantly in Central London as a provider of block dwellings for the working classes, employing a strict selection and discipline regime amongst its tenants to ensure a healthy return on investment. Starting with a capital of £50,000, the IIDC became one of the largest and most successful of the model dwellings companies, housing at its height around 30,000 individuals.
Precis from Wiki
In 1889 Sir Sydney Waterlow wrote: “One of the best methods for improving and elevating the social and physical condition of working classes is to provide them with decent, well-ventilated houses on self-supporting principles, and to secure for them an increased number of public parks, recreation grounds, and open spaces… Therefore, to assist in providing large gardens in the great city in which I have worked for fifty three years, I desire to present to the council, as a free gift, my entire interest in the estate at Highgate.”
from Camden New Journal 15 July 2021 Dan Carrier
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As a frequent visitor to this park I particularly appreciated this poem (including the additional historical info.) and can identify with the meditative effect it can have on it’s visitors. Such a beautifully reflective, poignant poem, rich in imagery – natural / supernatural – drawing on, as I understand it, the transient nature of life.
Comment by emma lumsden on 18 July, 2024 at 9:05 pmI particularly love the integration of the pictures with the poem. Somehow gives a very musical feeling to the piece… and meditative, as someone else pointed out.
Comment by Marc Hurwitz on 19 July, 2024 at 8:08 pmLovely.