The Bishop of London's Hunting Park

Before continuing with the story of Muswell Hill Road we must say something about the Bishop of London's Hinting Park as this had a profound effect on the later history of the whole district.

The Hunting Park included all of Highgate Wood but not Queen's Wood. Muswell Hill Road ran just outside the park, so that the narrow strip on the west side of the road, which became part of the Woodlands estate and now holds houses and shops, was the verge of the road, with the park behind it. The hunting park boundary continued between what are now the houses on Muswell Rise and Woodside Hospital and turned along the back fences of Grand Avenue, behind Fortismer School, along the northern edge of the Water Board land to the corner of Cherry Tree Wood, across Edmund's Walk,along the back garden fences between Brim Hill and Abbot's Gardens, curved south west across Lyttleton Road and the Playing Fields, down the boundary of Hampstead Golf Club to Turner's Wood, along to the Spaniards and from there to Highgate Gatehouse. All the Woodside Avenue, Lanchester Road and Fordington Road block of houses were inside the park, while the Fortis Green and Muswell Hill Road developments were just outside it.

The hunting park would have been surrounded by a hedge and ditch strong enough to keep the deer and other game in so that they could be hunted, no easy task before the invention of barbed wire.

The Bishop of London's Hunting Park imposed on a modern map

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1 HB No25, Highgate Hunting Ground, by Malcolm St okes