Events and Entertainments

28th June 2020

Lordship Hub Cafe

Now open from 11-4pm as a takeaway only (closed thursdays till further notice). Pay us a visit when you are in the Rec. Sadly, we are not able to open the toilets to the public yet, but it is a start!

Please complete our Lordship Hub Survey

Lordship Hub depends and thrives on the voluntary support and expertise of local people and park users. If you would like to volunteer in some capacity please fill in this short survey. www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/98R3H33

BLOG GOING MONTHLY:  We have been running this blog weekly while the Hub has been closed but after this one we will be doing it less often, perhaps every 4 weeks. We hope you have enjoyed it and thanks for reading it!

EVENTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

There have always been events in Lordship Rec from the late 1930’s onwards. Due to the Covid pandemic most of this year’s events have been cancelled but we can all hopefully look forward to them coming back bigger and better next year. In this week’s blog we will look at just a few of the many fantastic events that have taken place in our area organised by local people, whether it be sports, celebrations of nature or arts.

Above, top row, the Shell Theatre was used in the 1940s for outdoor tea dances and concerts as well as children’s fancy dress competitions. (Photographs courtesy of Bruce Castle Museum). Bottom row, the Harringay Fair in the late 1960s. (Photographs courtesy of Chris Hall).

MORE RECENT EVENTS

Over the past 20 years the Friends of Lordship Rec and Downhills Park and other community groups have been busy organising events for the local community. These events have helped to shape a feeling of vibrance and togetherness in our area, bringing local people together to enjoy sport, art, music, food growing and celebrations of nature and wellbeing.

Downhills Centenary Festival
Before I got involved in the Friends movement I had never organised a community event before. The first time I got involved was in helping to organise the 2003 Centenary of Downhills Park. The Friends of Downhills together with TCV (then BTCV) put together a huge event including music and entertainments spanning the park’s 100 year life.

There was palm court classical quartet in the tea tent, a swing band on the main stage, fire eating and monocycling and of course Punch and Judy (without the domestic violence!). We created a train for the children to paint, to reflect the railway that used to run along the side of the park until the 1960s. We also put together a pictorial history of the park. It turned out to be a great success.

Art in the Park
Another first in Downhills Park was the now famous, Art in the Park event which is still going strong today and warmly anticipated every year in July. This is the first time it has had to be cancelled, but I am sure it will be back. When we started Art in the Park, we did not expect many people would turn up and only catered for a few participants. As the event started, more and more people turned up and we had to run back and forth to the shops for more materials and it was really popular. The idea was to create a tranquil event for all ages, where we handed out free materials for people to paint inspired by the beautiful surroundings of the park. We also had other workshops with plasticine and other materials and the book and toy bus for toddlers. At the time of the first Art in the Park events, there was no café but there was a bowling club pavilion and we used that to provide refreshments and to show the finished paintings at the end of the day.

Lordship Rec Launch Festival
2012 was the year that the long worked for restoration of Lordship Rec was achieved. To celebrate, the Friends of Lordship Rec and other local organisations from Broadwater Farm, Back2Earth and Haringey Council organised a large community Festival all across the Rec with stalls and activities.

Around 8000 people turned up to celebrate the restoration of Lordship Rec carried out with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Music in the Rec
Having the outdoor Shell Theatre in the Rec is a great advantage. Over the years, the Shell Performing Arts Collective, the Friends, the Hub and the Lordship Sports and Activities Consortium have organised many music events in the Shell, in the main field and in and around the Hub. There was the One World Folk Festival in 2015 and 2016 and there have been 2 jazz festivals in 2016 and 2018 with big bands and swing bands on the Shell stage and jam sessions in the Hub. We are hoping that other groups will find a way of using this unique space in the future. If you have an idea for a music event in the Rec and wish to use the Shell Theatre, please contact: friends@lordshiprec.org.uk.

A mix of musicians playing and dancing at the One World Folk Festival outside in the Shell Theatre Hub representing some of the many cultures of the area. Bottom left a swing band playing at the Lordship Rec Jazz Fest and bottom right Blockorama, steel pan extravaganza, held in the main field.

A Festival of Walking
Walking is something we actively encourage. In October 2016 the Haringey Friends of Parks Forum organised a Walking Weekend during which, around 20 different walks took place all across the borough from Tottenham High Road to Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park. To follow this up there was a Walking Fair held at the Hub to encourage walking and to talk about the pleasures of walking and how we can make it safer for pedestrians in our busy towns.

Four of the Walks on the Haringey Walking Weekend from top left clockwise: St Ann’s hospital site, Tower Gardens Estate, Alexandra Palace and the New River.

Morag from Manchester talked about Psychogeography, which is an exploration of the urban environment that emphasises playfulness and “drifting” rather than just going from a to b, experiencing the environment and how it makes you feel and how you interact with it. There was also a presentation of Julia Bradury’s Outdoor Guide website and a stall with the outdoor guide books and a talk about the 20 mph campaign, 20’s Plenty for Us, to make walking safer and of course a talk about the Moselle Walk (see: haringeyfriendsofparks.org.uk/moselle_walk.php).

Wassail and Wild in the Rec
The Friends do a lot of conservation work in the Rec, but also like to organise events that celebrate the nature that surrounds us. Over a year there are 3 regular events, Go Wild in the Rec, a celebration of all things green and natural in August, Wassail, a celebration of the fruit trees in the Lordship Rec Orchard in March, and Apple Day, a celebration of this versatile and delicious fruit in October.

Wassail celebration in the Lordship Rec Orchard and bottom right, a natural printing workshop using natural material from the Rec at Go Wild in the Rec.

RiverFest
Tottenham Ploughman and the Hub got together to organise River Fest to celebrate our rivers and campaign to keep our waterways healthy and clean. They chose Lordship Rec because this is where the Moselle River was brought back to the surface during the restoration of the Rec in 2012. The festivals also included a number of stalls showcasing locally produced food and drink like Wildes Cheese and Redemption Brewing Company. RiverFest has 7 pledges we can make to keep our rivers healthy. For more information contact: info@tottenhamploughman.com

Riverfest main music stage with people dancing and enjoying the day and bottom left Wildes Cheese stall.

Youth Fest
Youth Fest is held every summer for all young people from 0-25yrs. It is organised by the Lordship Sports and Activities Consortium (LSAC), an informal group of sports, dance and arts practitioners in partnership with Haringey Council’s Active Communities. They also organise women and girls activities in Broadwater Farm Community Centre and the Rec.

If you would like more information contact: get.active@haringey.gov.uk

A great day is always had by all at Youth Fest. From top clockwise: 2 touch football, crafts workshop, Zorbing and street dance workshop. There are also local youth performances on the shell theatre stage plus youth advice sessions.

Theatre and performance in the Rec
We have been very fortunate to be the venue for some great theatre. A fantastic Community Play, Up on the High Road, by Tottenham theatre, was performed to a large audience in the Hub. It told the stories, in their own words, of residents of Tottenham all placed in the context of developments that are taking place in Tottenham. We were also treated to a performance by local young people of a play about Walter Tull, a black footballer who played for Tottenham Hotspur and who was also one of the few black officers in the army and who was sadly killed at the end of the first world war in 1918. As a fundraiser for the Hub, local residents devised and performed  Murder Mystery Christmas plays at the Hub. We have also had a poetry performance event run by Friendly Local Poets, a group of local residents.

Tottenham Theatre performing Up on the High Road at the Hub.

Windrush Commemoration Cabaret
In 2018 a special Windrush Commemoration Cabaret was held at the Hub. There was tasty Caribbean food on offer and four talented black artists entertained the diners. The artists included Abe Gibson spoken word poet, Sheba Montserrat, stand-up comedian, David Williams, blues guitarist and singer, and Nefertiti Marriott, poet and writer. The compere for the evening was the fantastic DJ Sapphire.

Halloween and Fireworks celebration
Every year we hold a Halloween event for children where they make masks and lanterns at the Hub and then venture out for a ‘spooky’ walk in the dark around the rec where they stop for a while for a scary story, told by Mr Squash. Lots of fun had by all.
We always open the café at the Hub on one night of the Ally Pally Fireworks Show as there is a great ‘free’ viewing place at the top of the hill at Higham Road in the Rec where lots of local people traditionally meet. The Café serves hot chocolate and other hot drinks and hot dogs and chilli. Yum!

Story telling in the dark with Mr Squash!

Tottenham Flower and Produce Show
For many years now we enjoy our annual Tottenham Flower and Produce Show. This is a fun and informative event that brings local people together to showcase their skills. We have several categories for entries to the show including: Home grown vegetables and fruit, home made drinks, cakes and bread, jams and pickles, crafts and needlework, flower arrangement and several categories for children. It is always great fun and people love receiving their medals and cups at the end and seeing if they have won a first place certificate for their entries. There are also lots of plant, food and craft stalls and workshops on gardening and wellbeing related subjects. Children can join in workshops making miniature gardens or gardens in a bottle and planters and also enter the special scarecrow competition.

Images of the Flower and Produce Show and bottom left we were thrilled one year to have Bob Flowerdew from Gardeners’ Question Time coming to talk to us in the Hub.

International Women’s Day and Women’s events
There is an active women’s group in Lordship Rec called the Women’s Association of Lordship Rec (WALR). Every year WALR organise a variety of events from celebration of International Women’s Day to health and wellbeing days to discos, dances and film nights. Obviously there have not been any events in the last few months but If you want to get involved contact walordshiprec@gmail.com.

Family Walk Against Racism – Black Lives Matter event
On June 13th this year around 2000 local people took part in a children and parents’ Walk Against Racism in support of Black Lives Matter organised by local parents. They started in the Rec at Lordship Hub and walked to Downhills Park. There were lots of hand drawn placards and chants along the way and some powerful speeches. See the following BBC1 news clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOd272uzosY

HERE’S TO MANY MORE FANTASTIC EVENTS!
When we are all able to come back together we can start to organise more great events in Lordship Rec and the Hub and you are all welcome!

If you want to go on the Hub mailing list for information and news go to: lordshiphub.org.uk/subscribe/

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