Dollis Hill sits in the east of the borough and itself is home to around 15,000 people. The area's name is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be linked to a local waterway called Dollis Brook, however this is not the case. The name is actually thought to come from the 16th century and is linked to the family name Dalley, Dolley or Dawley.
The area is home to a large building, opened in 1933, which was previously the Post Office Research Station where a number of significant early technological machines were developed. Firstly, the world's first programmable computer was developed here. It was called the Colossus Computer and was transferred to Bletchley Park where it was used to intercept high-level German military intelligence messages during the Second World War. The much-loved speaking clock was also developed here in the 1930's. A little later on, in the 1950's, ERNIE, the machine used to randomly draw numbers for the Premium Bonds scheme was developed here - the machine is now in its fourth incarnation and is still performing the same role.
In 1825 when the area was still dominated by open countryside and farmland, Dollis Hill House was constructed as the farmhouse for the adjacent Dollis Hill Farm. It was positioned at the very top of the hill which made it an ideal spot to take in the view for miles around. It had a number of famous visitors over the years, one of these was the American writer Mark Twain who wrote the he had "never seen any place so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of countryside, and everything that went to make life delightful". Another famous regular guest was William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the UK for 12 years in total, spread over four non-consecutive terms.
In 1875 the Dudding Hill freight railway line was opened where it cut a path through the land to the south of the main grounds of the house. The grounds of the house were acquired by Willesden Urban District Council in 1899 where the they were converted into a public park. In fact, the land included in the purchase stretched slightly further southeast than the main landscaped garden, and the park extended to the opposite side of the railway line. With William Gladstone having passed away a year earlier and the fact he was extremely fond of the location, the decision was made to name the park in his honour. It opened as Gladstone Park in May 1901. The house itself was purchased by the council a few years later, in 1908.
Much of the park to the north of the railway retained the existing estate landscaping, but the section to the south of the line was levelled and dedicated to sports. A level crossing was originally used to pass between the two sections, but for safety reasons this was upgraded to a bridge in 1912. An open-air public swimming pool was constructed within the north-west section of the park in 1903, making this one of the country's earliest public open-air swimming pools. Sadly the pool fell out of favour and was derelict by the late 1980's. It has now been completely filled in with no sign that it ever existed. Other features have come and gone such as a bandstand, paddling pools and a rustic bandstand.
The park, which covers 35 hectares, still sits in the same footprint and the overall design is largely unchanged. It currently contains tree-lined avenues, a walled garden, prisoner of war memorial sculpture, a transatlantic slave trade memorial, children's playgrounds, outdoor gym, basketball court, tennis courts and football pitches. The house suffered from major fires in 1995 and 1996 which left it in a derelict state. There was hope for restoration when the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone had offered funds to assist with its restoration. This offer was withdrawn when Boris Johnson succeeded him. Another major fire in 2011 proved to be the final straw and in January 2012 the building was demolished. The historic footprint of the house has been retained.
Five months later, on 30 June 2012, the park became home to a free, weekly, timed 5 kilometre event called Gladstone parkrun. At its heart the parkrun is a community event and as such it is open to all abilities including those who wish to walk the course. It also offers volunteering opportunities to anyone that wishes to become involved. My first visit to the park fell on Gladstone parkrun's first anniversary on 29 June 2013, which was event number 54. My second visit was on 2 November 2024 where I took the kids over to take part in event number 579.
If travelling by vehicle the park is fairly close to the north circular and junction 1 of the M1 near the famous Staples Corner. The park has its own free-of-charge car park, however with spaces for about 30 or so vehicles it is rather small, plus it is on the opposite side of the park from where you need to be for parkrun. So for attendees of the parkrun it is best to use on-street parking and thankfully there are a few options. The parkrun's course page advises parking on either Kendall Road or Anson Avenue where you will find parking bays which allow non-residential parking at the weekends. The section of Kendall Road adjacent to the park seems to be the best spot. Another decent parking location is on Parkside (and roads that lead off of it) which runs along the eastern boundary of the northern part of the park and has restriction-free parking at all times.
By public transport the closest station is Dollis Hill tube station which is served by London Underground's Jubilee Line with the onward walk to the parkrun meeting point being around 850 metres (half-a-mile). If travelling via National Rail, the station to head for is Cricklewood which is served by Thameslink trains running between London St. Pancras and St. Albans City, or between Sutton (South London) and St. Albans City. The onward walk from Cricklewood station is 1.6km (1 mile). There are a number of London bus services that stop within a reasonable distance, the closest to the meeting area is the 226 which stops on Anson Road, just a few metres away. The northern end of the park is served by the 232 where you can alight at Dollis Hill Road and simply walk across to the other side of the park. The 302 bus stops on Dudding Hill Lane which is to the west of the park.
Those travelling from further away that require an overnight stay will find there is a Travelodge next to Cricklewood station while the closest Premier Inn is located in Wembley where it is connected to Dollis Hill via the Jubilee Line. There are of course plenty of other options. Cyclists will find a few bicycle racks dotted around the park, but the best ones for the parkrun can be found right next to the meeting area, which is in the far south-east corner of the park next to the Pavilion Cafe / The London Play Den. There is also a playground and outdoor gym located here. The two briefings are delivered in this location before participants are dispatched to the start line in seeded order.
Incidentally, the meeting area is just a few metres away from a house on Melrose Avenue (195) where mass-murderer Dennis Nilsen committed most of his hideous crimes.
The park has a single public toilet which is located at the far north end of the park right next to Stables Cafe and the site of the house. I have heard that it is often closed due to vandalism. It was open when we arrived at 8.15am, but it was very basic and had no soap.
Gladstone parkrun takes place over a two-lap anti-clockwise course with the addition of a start and finish tail. The two identical laps are hour-glass-shaped (note: not a figure-of-eight as the lap does not cross itself). The surface underfoot is almost exclusively tarmac, however there is a short stretch on a gravel path and the finish is on grass. Shoe choice is simple as this is very much a regular road shoe course at all times of year. Those pushing buggies are more than welcome as are wheelchair users, but please note that the course undulates throughout so will be tough on the arms. My 2024 GPS data reported a total of 75 metres of elevation change over the full 5 kilometres.
From the start which is on the path next to the Kendall Road entrance, the course heads north and after around 200 metres crosses the bridge into the park's northern side. The two laps take place within this side of the park and the lap starts immediately after crossing the bridge. The first part of the lap is a gradual climb along the park's eastern path adjacent to Parkside. At around 500 metres the course turns inwards and heads downwards towards the playground which is where the park's main avenues meet. These glorious avenues are lined with very well established large London Place trees. For the record, this course is very much akin to a roller-coaster ride.
At the playground the course takes a right hand turn where the course's steepest incline of 8% starts. The top of this incline is where there is a brief opportunity to see the view across to Wembley Stadium. As the course heads back downhill it passes the prisoner of war memorial and shortly after this it reaches the park's northwest corner. This is where there is a short stretch of gravel path, probably around 50-70 metres in length. On our second lap we saw another participant fall on this section and he picked up a few cuts which were bleeding - After some attention from the nearby marshal he was ok to carry on, but we stayed with him for the remainder of the event.
Heading south along the park's western border is where the longest stretch of downhill is found and this continues until reaching the south-western corner where the elevation again begins to rise. It is barely noticeable at first, but when the course turns inwards to head back towards the playground the uphill increases to around a 4% incline. The hourglass nature of this course is created when reaching the playground for the second time, but from the opposite direction. Again there is a right-hand-turn and this one leads into the incredibly picturesque central pathway, with its avenue of London Plane trees gently meandering and heading slightly downhill.
The end of this avenue marks the end of the hourglass shaped loop, so at the end of lap one there's a left hand turn which begins the second lap. I should mention that the course was well marshalled with marshals placed at all the significant places around the course. At the end of lap two the course heads back across the bridge and returns to the southern section of the park where the route heads back down the opening path before turning onto and across the grass into the finish funnel. Barcode scanning takes place right after the finish at the pre-marked scanning points and finish tokens are then placed in the special buckets provided. If you have kids with you, they can of course head straight into the adjacent playground.
There are three obvious post-parkrun options for refreshments. The first is by simply walking to the serving hatch at the adjacent Pavilion Cafe building - I forgot to look at their options but it is take-away only and seemed fairly basic. The second option would be to stick with the core team and pop into the Cricklewood Library Cafe which is opposite the park's entrance on Olive Road. The options here seem to be limited to drinks and a small selection of snacks and cakes. We went here and ordered a peppermint tea and a hot chocolate which cost £5.25. The staff seemed to be a little overwhelmed despite the number of people not being particularly high, and in the end it took about 30 minutes for our drinks to be ready. The final option would be to head to the north side of the park to Stables Cafe, which seems to offer the best selection of food and drink options.
The results were published online a few hours later and there were 268 finishers at event 579. This is broadly in line with the current (2024) average number of attendees which tends to hover in the high 200's with occasional weeks that reach into the low 300's. In fact at the time of writing five of the eight occasions where the event has exceeded 300 have been in 2024, so attendances seem to be rising. I recorded the course using my Garmin and the GPS data can be viewed on Strava. There is also a Relive course fly-by video which can be viewed on YouTube. For the record the course was almost identical to the one used back in 2013 with the only difference being the positioning of the start/finish area. The laps on the northern side were identical to the 2013 course.
After our refreshments we spent some more time exploring the park which I must say looked glorious with the autumn colours on full display. The view across to Wembley Stadium is a bit hit and miss and very dependent on clear skies. We couldn't see it during our first lap, but luckily the cloud cleared on lap two. However post-parkrun the cloud returned and was no longer visible. We found pretty much all of the features such as the house, the walled garden and the pond. From the top of the park it is possible to see the old Post Office Research Station, in fact it dominates the skyline to the north. It really is a very nice park and I think we picked a really good time of year to visit. A final thank you must go to all of the volunteers that made us feel extremely welcome and looked after us during our visit.
Related Links:
- My Gladstone parkrun GPS data (2 November 2024)
- The Relive course fly-by video (2 November 2024)
- My 2013 Gladstone parkrun GPS data (29 June 2013)