OVERVIEW
The park provides a large green space in central north London. It has a mix of open ground, formal gardens, avenues of mature trees and an arboretum area with a mix of more unusual trees. There is also a lake, a children's play areas, a cafe and an art exhibition space.
The Parkland Walk, a linear park, starts here, and provides a pleasant, traffic free, pedestrian and cycle route with much of the feel of a country walk, that links the park with Crouch Hill Park, Crouch End, and Highgate tube station.
Sports facilities in the park include football pitches, a bowling green, an athletics stadium, and tennis and basketball courts. Unusually for London, the park hosts two facilities for "American" sports: an American football field, home to the 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 national champions London Blitz, and diamonds for softball and baseball, home to the 2007 and 2008 national champions the London Mets.
In recent years the park has been used for large public events such as Madstock!, the Fleadh, Big Gay Out, Party in the Park and Rise: London United.
A £5 million Heritage Lottery Fund Award, made in 2003, enabled significant renovations including cleaning the lake, building a new cafe and children's playground and resurfacing and repairing the tennis courts.
THE PARK AND MUSIC
The park became an established music venue.
Notable events have included:
In 1967, Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar on stage for the first time ever.
In 1992 at the Madstock concert, Morrissey was heckled off stage by the crowd after performing his song "National Front Disco". Many fans took exception to the song as they believed that it had a pro-racism message, and Morrissey himself was seen on stage flailing a Union Jack, which is often used by far-right groups.
On June 12, 1993, Bob Dylan kicked off his 1993 European Tour, with a performance at the Park. Mackenzie Garden, Finsbury Park
The park hosted the Fleadh Festival on June 6 and 8, 1996, featuring performances by The Corrs and Sting.
It was the site of a comeback concert by the Sex Pistols during their 1996 Filthy Lucre Tour.
In 1997, KISS performed there for the last show of their hugely successful Alive/Worldwide Tour.
In 2002, Oasis used the park for a gig during their 2002 world tour.
Also in 2002, New Order played at the park, which features on a live DVD 511.
In September 2003, rap-metal band Limp Bizkit played a huge free show in the park to make up for a cancelled UK date.
In spring 2007, Groove Armada filmed their music video for the song Song 4 Mutya featuring Mutya Buena at the park.
Following their Christmas Number One, Rage Against the Machine played a free gig on 6 June 2010 at the park.
In June 2011 Bob Dylan again played in the park at the Feis festival.
