Set in a very residential area of Haringey, with Sunshine Garden Centre and two schools backing on to the perimeter of the Park, Green Flag award winning Albert Road Recreation Ground is incredibly popular with both adults and children of all ages.

The brightly coloured playground is a favourite for the younger children and the tennis courts, basketball courts and bowling green keep people of all ages entertained. The popular and much loved Pavilion Cafe provides the perfect viewing point to watch the regular football, cricket and Aussie Rules football that take place on the playing fields throughout the year. It provides a community focal point often used for meetings and parties and is also home to Haringey Tennis, an organisation that manages the Park's very popular tennis courts.

Managed by Haringey
Area: 6.4 hectare
Facilities: Basketball, Bowling Club, Cafe, Playground, Tennis, Cricket, Football, Toilets, Changing Facilities, Conservation Area, Sports Pitches

Set within 196 acres of glorious parkland, the Palace features an extraordinary blend of Victorian splendour, fascinating history and modern technology. Leisure facilities which include the Ice Rink, Phoenix Bar, Boating Lake, Children's Playground, Animal Enclosure and Conservation Area provide year round entertainment for everyone.

Managed by Alexandra Palace Trust
Facilities: Ice Rink, Boating Lake, Kiosk / cafe, play area

Bluebell Wood is a small area of ancient woodland covering just over one hectare located towards the eastern edge of Muswell Hill bounded on one side by the Golf Course Allotments and the Muswell Hill Golf Course on the other. It is open to the public at all times and is regularly used by local people.

Found in the Wood is the rare Wild Service-tree (Sorbus torminalis) as well as being home to a variety of wildlife. Birds including song thrush, chaffinch and magpie are commonly seen as well as butterflies and mammals such as squirrel, hedgehog and the wood mouse.

Managed by Haringey
Area: 1 hectare

A popular local park, consisting of open grassland and woodland with extensive quiet areas, plus a popular play area. The site acts as a focal point for the community, with events held on the central field

Managed by Barnet
Facilities: Kiosk / cafe, play area, tennis courts, multi-sports pitch, toilets

Coldfall Wood is a fascinating area of ancient woodland covering 14 hectares on the western edge of the borough.

The wood has historically been managed through coppicing where trees and shrubs are cut to just above their base. This benefits wildlife by allowing in light for wildflowers and other plants, attracting butterflies and animals.

Traditionally the cut wood was used for making charcol but is now left in piles to decay. The dead wood is a very important part of what makes woodland healthy. It makes great homes for beetles and other insects and fungi. These provide food for woodland creatures like birds and hedgehogs.

The tradition of coppicing has recently been revived with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and even though the project is still in the early stages, the benefits to wildlife can already be seen.

In addition to coppicing, the HLF funded project includes new bridges, benches and the creation of a reed bed to help filter stream water to treat pollution. The Coldfall Wood nature trail for school children has been created so that they can discover the wildlife in this wonderful woodland.

Managed by Haringey
Area: 14 hectares

Predominantly an oak and hornbeam wood, it is also home to numerous other tree and shrub species which have self-seeded there. Small areas are fenced off to encourage natural regeneration. The bird population has increased dramatically in recent years, both in types and numbers - some 70 different species have been recorded, alongside the foxes, grey squirrels, five species of bat, 180 species of moth, 12 species of butterfly and 80 species of spider.

As well as a football and cricket field, Highgate Wood offers visitors a supervised children's playground, a pleasant cafe and an information centre with booklets.

Managed by Corporation of London
Area: 28 hectares
Facilities: Cafe, Cricket, Football, play area.

Muswell Hill Playing Fields are situated in Haringey and lie on the borough’s north eastern boundary, close to the A406 North Circular Road.

The site is nearly 10 hectares in size and is listed as a ‘site of local importance for nature conservation'.

Currently there are 6 usable grass soccer pitches, plus a further pitch, which is subject to flooding and one separate space that is historically a cricket pitch. Temporary changing room accommodation is available on site

An agreement with a new housing development, building in the neighbouring vicinity, has resulted in a sum of money for improving the playing fields. Like most parks and open spaces it is designated as Metropolitan Open Land. Metropolitan Open Land gives protection to open spaces and can only be built on where the building adds to, or supports, recreational activity ie paths, tennis courts, play facilities, café, toilets, changing accommodation, parks compound, limited access parking etc. This redevelopment is ongoing and based on the discussions and survey results a Master Plan will be drawn up and the project costed. Proposals along with the supporting business plan will be put to the Council’s decision-making Cabinet in late January 2009.

Managed by Haringey
Facilities: Kickabout Area, Cricket, Football, Changing Facilities

Entrances within N4: Finsbury Park, Oxford Rd, Florence Rd, Lancaster Rd, Stapleton Hall Rd, Blythwood Rd
Entrances within N6 and N8: Crouch End Hill, Crescent Rd, Holmesdale Rd
Entrances within N10: Cranley Gds, Muswell Hill Rd underpass, St James' Lane, Muswell Hill Rd

The Parkland Walk follows the course of the old railway that ran between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace. The four and a half miles provides tranquillity and a chance for those living in London, to enjoy the green environment in the very heart of the city.

It is London’s longest Local Nature Reserve and supports a remarkable range of habitats and wildlife. Over two hundred species of wild flower have been recorded and it is probably the only place in Haringey where orchids rub shoulders with dandelions and ivy clambers up fig trees.

Hedgehogs, foxes, butterflies and a vast array of birds are spotted on a daily basis and a rare species of deer, the muntjac, is spotted from time to time.

A man sized green spriggan sculpture by Marilyn Collins was placed in one of the alcoves of the wall on the right at the footbridge before the former Crouch End station. The sculpture, and Parkland Walk generally, provided the inspiration for Stephen King's short story "Crouch End".

Managed by Haringey

Priory Park has been a Green Flag award winner for six years in a row. The Park is in Hornsey and covers an irregular shaped 6.5 hectares. In addition to the ample green space the park contains a café, paddling pool, tennis courts, playgrounds and a variety of other sporting and recreational facilities.

More than 25,000 people visit the park each year, many to enjoy functions in the Pavilion or picnics in the Philosopher’s Garden, which is a dog-free area. The outstanding fountain is used as a large planter. Unveiled in the Pleasure Grounds in 1909, it is made from 50 tonnes of Lamorna granite. The original eastern section of the park preserves much of its 19th and 20th century landscaping with well maintained bedding displays, serpentine walks, perimeter shrub beds, mature silver birches, plane trees and an attractive area of mixed tree planting

Managed by Haringey
Area: 6.4 hectare
Facilities: Basketball, Café, Kickabout Area, Paddling Pool, Playground, Tennis, Conservation Area, Picnic Area, Pavilion, Dog Free Area, Toilets

Queens Wood is one of four ancient woodlands in Haringey. These woods are thought to be the direct descendants of the original ‘wildwood’, which covered most of Britain about five thousand years ago.

In the nineteenth century the wood was known as Churchyard Bottom Wood, possibly because of the discovery of human bones in the west of the wood which were thought to derive from two burial pits for victims of the Great Plague of l665, until it was purchased by Hornsey Urban District Council in 1898 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and renamed Queens Wood in honour of Queen Victoria.

The wood is an ancient oak-hornbeam woodland. Today English oak and occasional beech stand above hornbeam, midland hawthorn, hazel, mountain ash, field maple, cherry, holly and both species of lowland birch. The rare Wild Service-tree (Sorbus torminalis) is scattered throughout the wood.

The ground flora is particularly rich for somewhere so close to central London. It includes a large population of wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), native bluebells, wood goldilocks (Ranunculus auricomus) and a thriving population of wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella).

Despite fairly high levels of disturbance, the bird life is diverse and includes all three species of woodpecker. Over one hundred species of spiders have been spotted and a nationally rare jewel beetle is widespread.

Managed by Haringey
Facilities: Cafe and Organic Community Garden