If you want to help our orchard thrive, please join us this Sunday. We have lots of tasks, weeding, mulching, digging out brambles and pruning. Please bring garden gloves and a garden fork or spade can be handy, but don’t let no tools stop you coming, we have some too. If you want to join us, it would be helpful to confirm details, please email us on Hillyfields4@googlemail.com.
We shall be in the orchard (between the stone circle and the little wood) at 10.30am.
Our annual Wassail is delayed this year, as our wonderful musicians are busy, ‘on tour’ and that sort of thing. We are hoping to organise for late February.
We’ve prepared a short questionnaire to give the community a chance to make their views known about the proposed handover of two tennis courts at Hilly Fields to the Lawn Tennis Association, for upgrading and managing as paid for and bookable courts. Further courts in Lewisham will also be handed over in this scheme, including Telegraph Hill, Mountsfield Park, Chinbrook Meadows and the two remaining Courts at Ladywell Fields (South). https://forms.gle/hywKtpGncnbj3gRu8
Hilly Fields Tennis courts – current contract requirements state to ‘maintain facilities to the highest possible standard’
Thanks to everyone who visited the Friends of Hilly Fields stall at the Midsummer Fayre on 25 June and attempted our quiz. One person got all ten questions right, three others got nine questions right. They win vouchers to be used at the HF cafe and will be contacted. If you didn’t do the quiz on the day but would like to have a go just for fun, the questions are below and the answers are at the end.
1. Hilly Fields is located within which conservation area? (a) Brockley; (b) Crofton Park; (c) Ladywell; (d) St Mary’s.
2. Which Brockley born poet played on Hilly Fields as a boy? (a) David Jones; (b) Ebenezer Jones; (c) James Jones; (d) Tom Jones.
3. Which of these hills is not visible from Hilly Fields? (a) Blythe Hill; (b) One Tree Hill; (c) Richmond Hill; (d) Shooter’s Hill.
4. The author Henry Williamson lived across the road from Hilly Fields as a boy. What is his best known novel? (a) The Maltese Falcon; (b) Reynard the Fox; (c) Tarka the Otter; (d) Watership Down.
5. Open air political meetings were once held on Hilly Fields under which tree? (a) The Anarchist Ash; (b) The Liberal Lime; (c) The Socialist Oak; (d) The Tory Thorn.
6. Which of these birds has not been seen on Hilly Fields (as far as we know). (a) Red Grouse; (b) Red Kite; (c) Redstart; (d) Redwing.
7. Which Premier League and England star once played football on Hilly Fields? (a) Ian Ormondroyd; (b) Ian Rush; (c) Ian St John; (d) Ian Wright.
8. What kind of tree was planted on Hilly Fields to mark the Queen’s 2012 jubilee? (a) Elm; (b) English Oak; (c) Golden Willow: (d) Silver Birch.
9. What unusual buildings appeared on Hilly Fields after World War 2? (a) Geodesic domes; (b) Hobbit houses; (c) prefabs; (d) shepherd’s huts.
10. Who wrote a 1978 number one hit from her flat in Wickham Road, Brockley? (a) Kate St John; (b) Mica Paris; (c) Kate Bush; (d) Gabrielle.
Answers: 1. (a) Brockley, of course! 2. (a) David Jones; 3. (c) Richmond Hill. 4. (d) Tarka the Otter. 5. (c) The Socialist Oak, of course! 6. (a) Red Grouse; 7. (d) Ian Wright. 8. (a) Elm – a ‘disease resistant’ elm, to be precise. 9. (c) prefabs; 10. (c) Kate Bush, of course!
The Friends will have their regular stalls, a chance to come say hello, see our plans for future years, come with your ideas, sign up to our volunteer list and try your hand at the annual quiz.
If you don’t have time to volunteer, you can support the work in the park by purchasing our bags, cards and postcards.
We will be holding our first dawn chorus walk since 2019 on Thursday 31 March. Meet outside the cafe at 6 am. If you have binoculars, please bring them. We’ll do a circuit of Hilly Fields and and identify common bird songs and calls such as those of the blackbird, robin and wren, as well as the song and mistle thrush and the migrant warblers blackcap and chiffchaff if they happen to be vocal. If we’re lucky, we might hear a great spotted woodpecker drumming or a nuthatch calling. We’ll point out as many birds as we can whether they’re singing or not!
In past years, we’ve been able to extend the walk to include the Brockley and Ladywell cemeteries. With council permission, a member of the Friends Group would admit us at 7am via a gate on Brockley Grove. That seems unlikely to happen this year as the gate was blocked with an earth bank during lockdown and that is still in place. The walk will finish therefore by 7am. If by any chance, we can gain access to the cemeteries, finishing time will be 7.45 approx. People can drop out at any time though if work calls.
We will have a few copies of our Birds of Hilly Fields booklet for sale if anyone has not yet bought a copy. These are £3.50 and all profits go to the Friends of Hilly Fields.