London’s Pocket Parks: Barnsbury Wood, N1

Described as London’s smallest nature reserve, this patch of woodland is hidden behind a triangle of Georgian houses in Islington, and only open to the public for 2 hours a week.
This part of London was developed as housing by Joseph Kay in 1810-49 on dairy farmland owned by the Thornhill family, whose name lives on in the street and area names.
The blocks of houses that surround the pocket park were laid out later in the development, around 1849, as two quarter-circle crescents. If you lo