Highbury Fields parkrun

Highbury is an area in the London Borough of Islington, which is the second smallest of all the boroughs in London. The borough has a population of around 216,000 people with around 14,000 of them residing in the Highbury ward. In terms of size, the Islington North constituency (of which Highbury is part of) covers an area of 7.38 square kilometres (2.85 square miles) and holds the distinction of being the smallest parliamentary constituency in the UK. It has been represented by Jeremy Corbyn MP since 1983.

The land that now forms Highbury was once part of the Manor of Tolentone which was granted to Ranulf following the Norman conquest of England. Two hundred years later the manor house and around 300 acres of land was given to The Knights of St John of Jerusalem (The Hospitallers), based at a nearby Benedictine priory. In the early 14th century a new manor house was constructed to replace Ranulf's Tolentone House. The new house was at a higher elevation and became known as Highbury Manor, giving the area its name. Highbury Manor House was located in what is now known as Highbury Barn, and survived until 1381. It met a fiery end when it was burnt down during the Peasants' Revolt. There is a commemorative green plaque on the side of the pub noting the approximate site.

Highbury Barn was primarily a dairy farm which included a cake and ale house. In later years it became quite an attraction as it was expanded into a venue with many entertainment facilities, the Barn even hosted an appearance by the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. In 1913 the area gained its most-famous asset when Woolwich Arsenal Football Club relocated from south east London to north London, dropping the Woolwich part in the process. The area was largely agricultural until the end of the 18th century when the landowners began developing the land for housing. Initially a large part of the area had been earmarked as the site of a 250 acre park, to be named Albert Park. However this plan was abandoned and the entire area was developed. The only green spaces that were retained are the areas that are now Finsbury Park (to the north) and Highbury Fields.

Highbury Fields is a picturesque open expanse of grassland that sits between rows of the finest Georgian and Victorian townhouses. The construction of the houses that face onto it was started in the 1770's when the buildings along Highbury Place were constructed. This was followed in the 1790s by Highbury Terrace. Highbury Crescent, featuring pairs of Italianate Villas, was added in the 1840s. Notable occupants include the impressionist painter Walter Sickert, and Joseph Chamberlain, Liberal politician who had a major role in the Boer War. Incidentally Highbury Fields is home to a Boer War memorial, dedicated to the people of Islington who lost their lives in the conflict.

The central grass area feels like a large village green, and when combined with the houses creates a classic London scene. In fact Highbury Terrace was used during the final scene in the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. The grassland is bordered by rows of London Plane trees and in total contains around 200 of them. This beautiful oasis of green was close to being lost to housing and it eventually took an Act of Parliament in 1885 to keep it safe. It covers 29 acres and this makes it the largest open space in the London Borough of Islington. In addition to the open space, it is home to eleven tennis courts, 4 netball courts, football pitches, a leisure centre and a children's playground. Since November 2011 it has also been home to Highbury Fields parkrun which is a free, weekly, timed 5 kilometre event open to all abilities including those who wish to walk and to wheelchair users.

This write-up is from my 2024 visit to Highbury Fields. My first was very special as it was held on a Thursday lunchtime on 26 July 2012 to coincide with the day the Olympic torch was carried through Islington. The fields were filled with all sorts of sporting activities for local residents to try and the area was buzzing with excitement. As part of this, a non-Saturday running of the parkrun was held on the parkrun course. As it was a special event, the results were recorded under parkrun's no-longer-used Bespoke parkrun name. This was Bespoke parkrun event number 3 and you can read about it here: Bespoke parkrun 3. I revisited one year and one day later (27 July 2013) to officially take part in Highbury Fields parkrun at their 90th event, the resulting write-up can be found here: Highbury Fields parkrun 2013 write-up. I also visited Highbury Fields junior parkrun back in 2016 where my daughter took part in the 2k event.

As Highbury Fields is quite close to the centre of London, driving is not recommended. However if you do happen to travel in a vehicle, here is the parking low-down. Islington Council has a number of different controlled parking zones (CPZs) and all of them have restrictions on when and how long non-residents can park in the bays. The area in the immediate vicinity of Highbury Fields falls within zone E which is one of the most heavily restricted zones and you simply cannot park there on Saturday mornings. The closest zones where on-street parking is allowed on Saturday mornings are Zones G and Q. These are to the north and northeast of the parkrun venue. The additional thing to keep in mind is that on match days some of the zones (including G and Q) have additional parking restrictions usually starting at noon on Saturdays, so shouldn't affect parkrunners. However, you can check if it is a match day by using the Arsenal F.C. fixtures calendar. The match day regulations are active for any Arsenal F.C mens and womens home games where the ticket sales exceed or are expected to exceed 10,000. The same also applies to non-football events at the stadium that are expecting over 10,000 attendees.

The most sensible travel options are to avoid using a car and use either public transport or bicycle. There are a number of stations in the local vicinity but the closest and best-served is Highbury and Islington Station. This is served by Great Northern National Rail services running between London Moorgate and Welwyn Garden City or Hertford North. Additionally it is on the London Underground Victoria Line and is served by London Overground services on their Windrush (direct from south London) and Mildmay (runs from south-west London, through north London and into East London) lines. Alternatively a large number of London buses stop nearby, most of them on Highbury Corner North, opposite the train station. For cyclists there are a number of cycle racks dotted all around the outside of Highbury Fields with the greatest concentration of these being outside the leisure centre.

Should toilet facilities be required there is one located at the southern tip of the park which requires a 20p coin to gain access. There is also an identical toilet at the northern end of the park located in-between the main cluster of tennis courts. Finally there is a toilet which does not require payment located in the children's playground, but it is noted that it is only for the use of children or adults accompanying children to the playground. The Islington Council website notes that the playground toilets do not officially open until noon, but that operational times may vary. It also states that many of their public toilets may be out of order due to high levels of misuse. The safest bet may be to pop into a cafe, the McDonalds or the Wetherspoons pub on the main road at Highbury Corner on the way to the parkrun.

Upon arrival at Highbury Fields, parkrun attendees need to head to the meeting point which is located at the southern end of the park on the grass field which sits just to the north of the leisure centre and the playground. The first timers' briefing is held here just before 9am, and the full briefing is held once the participants have assembled at the start line. Highbury Fields parkrun is quite famous for its course, as it is one of only a handful that takes place over five laps, and they are negotiated in an anti-clockwise direction. The full course features a short start and finish tail on either side of the five laps. Please note that the start and finish areas have changed since my last visit - for anyone that is interested in the old course, a link to the 2013 GPS data can be found at the bottom of the page.

With the exception of the start area, the entire course is on tarmac paths, so road shoes are fine all year round. The course has a slight rise and fall each lap and my 2024 GPS data reported that the total elevation change was 46 metres. The start line itself is lovely and wide, but depending on the time of year, the grass underfoot may feature sections that are left to grow a little longer. This section is very short and the course joins the main loop after around 100 metres. The laps take place on the main tarmac path that goes around the perimeter of the southern section of the fields, and when looking at a map it is shaped like a 'D' but flipped so the curve appears on the left hand side.

The main bulk of the lap consists of using the beautifully wide, tree lined walkways. However there are sections at the northern and southern ends where the path is significantly narrower, with the narrowest path being found at the southeast tip of the route. Being a five lap course, a big feature of this parkrun is the large amount of lapping that takes place. To give you an idea, the lead runners are likely to begin lapping those at the very back when the tail walker reaches the 400 metre point. I was run-walking with my six-year-old and the lapping started at around 500 metres into our first lap. As the laps progress, the varying paces mean that at one point in the event (about 15 minutes in) there are people simultaneously on their second, third, fourth and fifth laps.

When I visited in 2013 there were 96 attendees, but in the eleven years that passed between my visits, attendances have swelled and the event now regularly attracts over 500 people. Interestingly there has been a noticeable surge in attendees over the course of 2024 and at the time of writing the top 8 most attended events have all been in 2024. This does of course mean that the course remains heavily congested throughout the entire event, but the wide paths mean that filtering through is mostly trouble-free. Overtaking or being overtaken (most people will experience both) can be quite tricky at the narrower spots mentioned above. We found it best to keep to the outside edge of the pathways and let those lapping us take the inside line, especially so on the approach to the finish area.

I wanted to cover the elevation because I was quite surprised to see the 46 metres of elevation change on my GPS data. It didn't feel like that much. The long, shallow incline begins at the southeast tip and continues all the way along the eastern and northern paths, where you gain about 8 metres in height over 500 metres of distance. The downward part on the northwest section is only 200 metres in length so is a little more noticeable. Once five full laps have been completed, the participants bear slightly left and follow the path which leads diagonally across the start tail before joining the park's central path, called Queen's Walk, and the finish can be found about halfway along here. Barcode scanning takes place in the same place as the meeting point, on the grass.

Post-event refreshments are noted on the parkrun's course page as taking place at 'one of the many local cafes in the local area'. The closest options are near Highbury Corner, notably Black Sheep Coffee, Amici Coffee Deli and Temptations. There are also some larger name establishments on the corner such as McDonalds, Starbucks, Pret, and a Wetherspoons called The White Swan. If you head north to Highbury Barn there is a Greggs and a whole host of other independent cafes and a tea shop. If you feel in the mood for exploring, it is definitely worth heading to the north of the fields to see the Highbury Clock Tower which commemorates Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Of course the home of Arsenal Football Club, the Emirates Stadium, which can hold 60,704 people seated, is also close by so it's worth taking a peak at that too.

I've already mentioned my GPS data, but I also uploaded it to the Relive app where it created a lovely fly-by video showing the course. I've uploaded it to YouTube so feel free to take a look if you would like to see a visual of the route. The parkrun results for event 597 were processed and online a short while later, and 584 people participated in the 5k. Twenty-three people were credited as volunteers and I'd like to add a huge thank you to all of them for doing so, and for making us feel welcome.

Related Links:

• My GPS data from event 597 (27 July 2024)
• The Relive course fly-by video from event 597 (27 July 2024)

• My GPS data from event 90 (27 July 2013) (note different start and finish points)

• Bespoke parkrun 3 write-up (blog7t)
• Highbury Fields parkrun 2013 write-up (blog7t)
• Highbury Fields junior parkrun 2016 write-up (blog7t)

• Thames Path parkrun, Woolwich write-up (blog7t - Arsenal F.C. link)

• The London parkrun venues (blog7t page)

Harlow parkrun

Harlow is a town in the county of Essex with a population of around 82,000 people. The original village of Harlow pre-dates the Domesday Book of 1086, but by how long is not known. In the book, it appears as Herlaua. There was once a medieval manor, established as an abbey, called Harlowbury (Herlaue Abbitas) located in what is now the east of Harlow. The manor changed to private ownership following the dissolution of the abbeys in 1539. Harlowbury Chapel, dating back to 1180, is the oldest remaining building in the town. Nearby lies the site of an Iron Age settlement and a Roman building, possibly a temple or a villa.

Harlow remained a village for many hundreds of years, until 1947 when it became one of the first places to be designated as a New Town following the passing of the New Towns Act 1946. In fact, it was the first place in Essex to receive this designation. The act was put in place following the Abercrombie Plan for London which recommended eight new towns on the outskirts of the capital, with the majority of the new residents relocating from the worst-hit areas following bombing during the Second World War.

The village was initially earmarked to become the centre of the new town, but the plans were altered as doing so would have meant the loss of some of its historic elements. The original Harlow is now called Old Harlow and is one of eleven wards of the modern-day Harlow New Town, whose town centre is situated a couple of kilometres to the west. The master plan for Harlow New Town was drawn up by Sir Frederick Gibberd with many of the original buildings designed by the leading architects of the time. He also wanted to have the finest works of art on display and this has led to Harlow currently having over 90 sculptures. In 2009 the local council voted to make Harlow the world's first 'Sculpture Town'.

In 1902 a company based in Old Harlow invented the world's first cricket scoreboard to feature revolving figures. The centre of the new town features Britain's first-ever pedestrianised precinct, and in 1951 Harlow became home to Britain's first residential tower block, called The Lawn. The building has nine residential floors, so is small compared to modern residential buildings, but it would have been quite impressive in its day. The town was once home to a company called Standard Telecommunications Laboratories which is recognised as the birthplace of fibre optic communications.

Gibberd's masterplan factored in many green spaces and as a result, one third of the town is parkland or fields. Many of these open spaces are referred to as 'Green Wedges' which were designed to separate the different areas of the town and of course to give residents access to natural spaces. The wedges are protected against further 'inappropriate' development through Harlow Council's 'Local Plan'. It is also well-known for its extensive cycle network (segregated and shared use) which connects all areas of the town, and of course provides residents with a viable alternative to driving.

The town's main green space is Harlow Town Park which was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd and landscape architect Dame Sylvia Crowe. It is centred on Netteswell Cross which is a crossroads where the historic country lanes created a junction. While it is no longer a major thoroughfare, the roads themselves still exist as access for residents of the houses that line the road and for visitors to the park and The Greyhound pub which sits on the junction itself. This means the park is divided into compartments with the pre-war village houses and the pub effectively sitting within the boundaries of the park. Creating the park around the existing houses and pub was a purposeful design decision made by Sir Frederick.

The park was opened in 1957 and features a blend of formal gardens and natural spaces which have been landscaped into the beautifully undulating parkland. In total it now covers an area of 164 acres of former farmland and gravel pits, with much of it being land that was previously part of Spurriers House and Farm. Spurriers House still stands within the park and the ground floor is home to Spurriers House Cafe. Next to the house is a petting zoo called Pets Corner. Opened in 1966 it is home to traditional farm animals as well as alpacas, llamas, reindeer and some rare breed pigs. It is open to the public daily and is free-of-charge to enter. The park also contains a bandstand, adventure playground, outdoor gym, paddling pool, skate park and a footgolf course.

Elsewhere in the park there is a water garden, also known as Watercress Beds. This is made up of 3 cascading ponds, is home to much wildlife and features a Pisces sculpture. There are further garden areas dotted around the park, such as the walled garden, sensory garden, and the Miyawaki Forest (inspired by Japanese botanist Dr Akira Miyawaki and features a special planting method which is said to increase density and carbon dioxide absorption). There is also the Newfoundland garden - this was created to mark Harlow New Town's 50th anniversary and also Newfoundland's 500th anniversary. The two are twinned. The park is a multiple recipient of the green flag award which I hear it won 7 years in a row. It is also Grade II Listed which makes it one of only a handful of post-war parks to be granted this status.

In November 2014 the park became home to a free, weekly, timed 5km event called Harlow parkrun. It is open to all abilities and despite the name, there is no requirement to run - walking is a perfectly acceptable way to be part of the fun, as is taking part in a wheelchair, pushing a buggy or volunteering. I first visited this venue on Christmas Day 2015 with my daughter where we took part in event 61 with her in the running buggy. The write-up from that day can be found here: Harlow parkrun write-up 2015. We revisited on 20 July 2024 and took part in event 441. As the old write-up is a bit lacking in detail, I also took the opportunity to write this brand new one.

On both visits we travelled by car. The venue has a number of car parks, but the one that is closest to the parkrun meeting area is School Lane car park. However, please note that I have seen it referred to as The Greyhound Car Park and as Netteswell Cross Car Park. The sign at the entrance calls it the Town Park - School Lane Car Park. Parking at weekends is free for up-to two hours, but you must obtain a ticket from the onsite machine upon arrival. If staying for over two hours the fee as of July 2024 is a flat rate of £1.30. This can be paid at the machine, by text message or by using the MiPermit app. Should the car park(s) be full you may be able to find some on-street parking on some of the residential roads to the south of the park.

If travelling by train, the closest station is Harlow Town and this is conveniently located to the north of the park, just across the road. It is served by Greater Anglia services running out of London from Liverpool Street and Stratford, or in the other direction from Cambridge North, Bishop's Stortford and Stanstead Airport. The town also has plenty of bus services that stop alongside the park or at the train station. For anybody taking advantage of the town's cycling infrastructure, the only proper bicycle racks I spotted are located outside the cafe building. It looks like most people secure their bikes to a tree near the start.

The toilets can be found adjacent to the Pets Corner Playground, which is located in the north-west section of the park, but still quite central. When we visited they were open well in advance of the parkrun start time, but the exact opening times weren't on display or on the park's website. The only information given was a sign that read 'seasonal opening periods only to be advised'. The meeting point for the parkrun is located immediately to the southeast of the School Lane car park, which is in the southeastern section of the park, but again is quite central. If walking between the toilets and the start, there is a brief section walking along Park Lane and School Lane where you can walk through the car park to reach the meeting point.

The parkrun takes place over a 3 lap anti-clockwise course which takes place entirely in the northeast section of the park. The first two are full laps with each being 2.1 kilometres in length, while the third lap is much smaller at just 600 metres. The remaining 2 x 100 metres can be found during the start and finish leg. Underfoot is almost entirely tarmac paths with the exception of an extremely short sandy path that cuts across the grass about halfway through each of the two full laps. The course that was in use during my first visit was a little different and featured a lot more grass, but that one has now been retired in favour of the current course, which I understand was first introduced as the winter course. I'd say that choice of footwear is pretty easy with regular road shoes being the first choice all year round. While the course is largely flat, it does undulate a little and my GPS data reported an elevation gain of 42 metres.

With the first timers' and the main briefings complete, the participants line up on the main central path facing northwards. The start area is on a medium-width path which has no over-spill area, so once the parkrun is underway it can take 20-30 seconds or so for everyone to get moving. The opening 200 metres are also on a slightly uphill path, which meanders around into the northeast section. There is a section of the opening path that clearly feels like a country lane and this is the original Netteswell Road which has now been incorporated into the park. This heads eastwards where the immediate vicinity has an open grass area to the left.

The next part of the course is the beginning of what is effectively an out-and-back section which starts with a swooping down-then-up section which goes through an underpass and into the adjacent area known as Glebelands Wood. On the way out there is a sharp right hand turn onto what could be described as an uphill zig-zag and at the top the course continues to head further into the wood. The far end of this section is marked by not a U-turn, but a V-turn. The route then heads back via a slightly different path before swooping back through the underpass and returning into the main part of the park. The very short non-tarmac path is found here as the course transfers onto the opposite side of the open grass field and the returns to tarmac.

This path naturally leads around past the outdoor gym and then past the park's adventure playground (not the same one that I mentioned earlier). The remaining section of the lap has a slight incline as it passes alongside the Harlow Town Footgolf course which opened in April 2024. Once past the Footgolf, there is a bridge to cross called 'Brooks Bridge'. This has a very strong link to the parkrun as it has been named after a man called Spencer Brooks who sadly passed away in early 2020. He was a popular and well respected parkrunner and member of the wider local running community. In fact, at time of writing, the event that was held in his honour on 8 February 2020 still holds the record as Harlow parkrun's largest turnout with 416 finishers.

Once across the bridge there is a short, but narrow, uphill path which completes the lap. The second lap is identical to the first and the third lap starts the same but swings to the left at the very beginning of the open grass field where it joins the last section of the course at the outdoor gym, past the adventure playground, footgolf course and across the bridge. Once all three laps have been completed, the route turns right after the bridge and all that's left is the final 100 slightly downhill metres back around to the original meeting area where the finish can be found. Barcode scanning takes place on the path immediately after the finish line. I recorded the course using my Garmin and the GPS data can be viewed via my Strava account. This data was also used to create a Relive course fly-by video and that can be viewed on my YouTube channel.

The course is very well marked out with cones and arrows in all the right places. There are also plenty of marshals stationed at various points around the course. Some of the paths are on the narrow side, so if you are lapping or being lapped just remember to keep an eye out for each other. It can be quite a squeeze at times. As far as attendance figures are concerned, Harlow parkrun generally attracts an average of around 280 participants in good conditions, with occasional weeks surpassing the 300 mark. When we visited on 20 July 2024 the attendance figure was 258 with 25 people credited in various volunteer roles. The results were published later that morning.

The post-parkrun refreshments are held over at Spurriers House in the park's cafe where you will find all the usual cafe-style options and plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. It is worth bearing in mind that the parkrun course only covers one section of the park, and I would recommend taking a bit of time to explore the other areas as there are some really lovely spots to find. Sadly we didn't have enough spare time to go into the petting zoo, but I'm putting it at the top of my list for next time. A huge thank you goes to all the volunteers who made the event possible and made us feel very welcome.

Related Links:

• My Harlow parkrun GPS data (20 July 2024)
• The Relive course fly-by video (20 July 2024)

• My Harlow parkrun GPS data (25 December 2015) (old course)

• My original 2015 Harlow parkrun write-up (blog7t)

• The Essex parkrun venues (blog7t)

Billericay parkrun

Billericay is a town which sits within the Borough of Basildon in the county of Essex with a population of around 31,000 people. It was first recorded as Byllyrica in 1291, but the exact origin of the name is unknown. It has a historical link to the 1381 Peasant's Revolt due to The Battle of Billericay in which the King's soldiers defeated and killed 500 Essex men. The town was said to have been the meeting place of the Pilgrim Fathers shortly before their voyage to the new world in 1620 and many of the names around the town reflect this historic occasion, such as Mayflower School. In 1655 another group of colonists named the town of Billerica, Massachusetts after their English hometown. The two towns are now twinned.

There were a number of local country estates and farms around the town, and in the 19th century a significant number of these were owned by Major Thomas Jenner Spitty. His land provided a source of work for local agricultural workers but following a series of bad harvests, the workers were suffering the effects of mass unemployment. Major Spitty's solution to this was to employ many of the workers to dig a lake on his Hill House Estate. His hope was that the lake would attract wildfowl so that he could host 'elegant shooting parties'. A regular attendee of these parties was Lord Kitchener, most recognisable from the 'Lord Kitchener Wants You' British Army first world war recruitment posters.

The Hill House Estate changed hands multiple times following Major Spitty's death, and some of the land was sold off for house building. In 1935 Billericay Urban District Council purchased the majority of the estate's remaining land and a year later it opened the 40-acre Lake Meadows Park. It wasn't until after the Second World War that additional features were added such as a bowling green, paddling pool, sports pitches, and pavilion. A boathouse and boats had been added by 1949, but these are no longer in operation. The park now also has tennis courts, a cricket pitch, a petanque court, a children's playground, skate park, indoor swimming pool and formal gardens.

On 24 June 2017 the park became home to Billericay parkrun, where it became the 18th 5k parkrun in the county of Essex. It takes place on Saturday mornings at 9am and is open to all abilities including those who wish to walk the course. I first visited the park on 1 July 2017 and took part in event number 2, my second visit was on 6 July 2024 at event number 299 and on both occasions I drove to the venue. There are two car parks at the south-east corner of the park and both are free-of-charge on weekends. The parkrun course page suggests that parkrunners use the Radford Crescent car park, but the other option is to use the Lake Meadows car park which is a tiny bit closer to the park's entrance.

For travel by public transport, the park's main entrance is only around 500 metres from Billericay railway station. The station is served by Greater Anglia trains running between London's Liverpool Street and Southend-on-Sea. There are also a selection of buses that stop at various places in the vicinity of the park, mostly at the main bus stops at the train station (some examples are the bus numbers I can see are; 9, 12, 50, 251, 256, 300, 552, and 561). I would expect anyone considering taking the bus would already be fairly local and know more than I can come up with anyway. For cyclists there are some bicycle racks located at the park's main gate which is accessed via the car park.

The park's toilets are also located in this area of the park, and can be found inside the small brick building on the right hand side immediately after passing through the entrance, just next to 'The Wizard and The Dragon' sculpture. The sculpture itself has an interesting story - in 2013 one of the park's old oak trees died and was due to be removed for safety reasons. However the Friends of Lake Meadows Park suggested and arranged for it to be recycled into a sculpture, the wizard carved from the trunk of the tree and the dragon from the upper part which had been detached - you can read all about it here and see some before and after photos here.

The meeting point, start and finish of the parkrun are all on the northern section of grass, on the opposite side of the park from the car park and toilets, so remember to leave a time buffer in order to walk across. For anybody that visited this venue in its early days, all these key places are in different locations to the original course from 2017. For the record, the course is also slightly different from that original version and I have provided a link to my GPS data of that course for historical reasons at the bottom of this write-up. The first timers and the main briefings both take place on this open grass area, although on my 2024 visit there was some pretty heavy rain from around 8.45am until about 9.10am and I missed them both as I was feebly sheltering under a nearby tree.

The main course takes place over four anti-clockwise laps of the park and features a combination of grass and tarmac. Each lap is 1.25km in length and has an approximate split of 0.95 kilometre on tarmac and 300 metres on grass, giving a grand total of 3.8 kilometres on tarmac and 1.2 kilometres on grass over the course of the 5k. Generally, road shoes should be sufficient for this course. It's not 100% flat as the eastern and northern sections of the park are at a slightly higher elevation than the southern and western parts. It's only a slight rise, so definitely not hilly, just gently undulating at most.

If the conditions are bad enough there is the option for the route to be switched to a five lap course (also anti-clockwise) which removes the main section of potentially muddy and slippery grass and, with the exception of the start, takes place entirely on the tarmac paths. If this course is used, it looks like the start is moved to the area just to the north of the tennis courts and finish to the north-east corner of the lake. I acquired some GPS data from February 2024 and have uploaded it onto my Strava account for reference, and there's also a Relive course fly-by video to accompany it (see the bottom of this page for links).

On this occasion (event 299 / 6 July 2024) the standard four lap course was used and this starts on a beautifully wide start line on the northern grass section with the participants initially heading to the west towards the lake. I will note that part of the grass section involves passing through the centre of the painstakingly perfectly placed arrows, so be sure not to cut the corner when transferring to the tarmac path a few hundred metres later. It's probably a good time to mention that a course with this many laps is always going to feature a large amount of lapping, and to assist with this the standard arrangement is that participants keep to the left and overtaking takes place on the right. For the record, anyone taking more than about 27 minutes is likely to be lapped and those between 27 minutes and about 43 minutes will probably be lapped and also lap some people themselves.

The first part of the tarmac path meanders gently as it works its way around to the north side of the lake. Initially there is a small height difference between the path and the lakeside embankment so watch out for the small drop. The western side of the lake has distinctive blue railings on either side and the views looking across the lake are picturesque, even in the rain. It is home to lots of wildlife including plenty of species of water birds, it is also home to a giant catfish called The Beast of Billericay. As the course reaches the end of the lakeside section, it passes the playground and a marshal point, and heads towards and past the cafe. This is where there is a slight rise in elevation.

The southeast part of the course passes the Flower Garden and the Ornamental Garden before swooping around and past the tennis courts and into another lovely long curve which drops down to the next marshal point. The final part of the lap simply follows the path around to the north east corner of the park where there's a turning back onto the grass and this completes the lap. At the end of the fourth lap the participants enter the wide finishing lane instead of following the main route, and this head straight into the finish funnel. Barcode scanning takes place on the grass, although on this visit the scanners were huddled under the gazebo in an attempt to avoid the rain.

Checking my Garmin at the end of the parkrun, I saw that my son had achieved a new 5 kilometre personal best, so he took the opportunity to pick up ring Billericay parkrun's PB bell, which was great fun! On the subject of Garmins, I had recorded the route, and the GPS data for the current (2024) four-lap anti-clockwise course can be found on my Strava account. I uploaded that data to Relive and the resulting course fly-by video can be viewed on YouTube. The results for event 299 were published a short while later and 182 people completed the course with 31 being recorded as having volunteered. The attendance figure was a little lower than usual, most likely due to the heavy rain. The usual expected number of attendees tends to be around the mid to high 200's with the occasional event exceeding the 300 mark.

Post-parkrun, it is worth finding the Child in the Park bronze statue, which was originally installed in 2001. It features a child crouching down surrounded by plants and many small creatures. During my first visit to the park in July 2017 the statue was not there as it has recently been stolen. However it was found in a wheelbarrow, restored and then re-installed in November 2017. We also found a machine that dispenses food for the ducks and birds, so I purchased some. However I hadn't read the guidelines properly, so didn't realise that I would need my own container. We ended up with a load of loose bird-feed which we had to continue scooping out the machine before scattering to the crowd of expectant waterfowl!

The post-parkrun social gathering takes place in the park's café, called the 'Café in the Park'. We didn't have enough time to pop in ourselves, but I remember on our last visit it was cash-only. I have had it confirmed that this is still the case as of July 2024, so if you are looking to visit the café make sure you bring some good old-fashioned money with you!

It is also worth noting that Lake Meadows Park is home to the largest fireworks display in the whole of Essex, and the set-up for this event means that the parkrun has to cancel. So remember, remember to check for a cancellation at the beginning of November. I hear that the locals like to go on tour when this happens and they've even made it as far as Barry Island in Wales, which is linked to Billericay through the Gavin and Stacey TV show.

It can also hold up to 5,000 people for other outdoor events such as music concerts. I imagine any events of this size could also lead to the parkrun being cancelled so again be sure to check beforehand. After the parkrun, the rain started coming down heavier again, so once we had finished feeding the birds, we quickly headed over to the car and made our way home. The park is small but very nicely laid out, some may even say it is lush. We had a great morning and a huge thanks to the team of volunteers that made the whole thing possible.

Related Links:

• Billericay parkrun four-lap course GPS data (6 July 2024)
• Billericay parkrun four-lap course Relive fly-by video (6 July 2024)

• Billericay parkrun five-lap course GPS data (Feb 2024)
• Billericay parkrun five-lap course Relive fly-by video (Feb 2024)

• Billericay parkrun original course GPS data (July 2017) No longer in use
• Billericay parkrun original course Relive fly-by (July 2017) No longer in use

• The Essex parkrun venues (blog7t page)

• Billericay parkrun event 299 event report

The Borough of Basildon parkrun write-ups:

• Basildon parkrun
• Billericay parkrun
• Wickford Memorial parkrun