Inventory Site Record

Warrender Park was created on a fragment of the landscape park of High Grove. The Highgrove Estate was inherited by the Warrender family in 1894. In 1935 Miss Eleanor Warrender sold the 4.35-hectare site to Ruislip-Northwood UDP for a recreation area, which was initially named Eastcote Recreation Ground. By the late 1970s it was called Warrender Park after the family. High Grove Nature Reserve has woodland with parkland trees and a pond, possibly a relic from the former garden.

Site location:

Myrtle Avenue/Lime Grove, Eastcote

Postcode:

HA4 8RL

What 3 Words:

economies.useful.target

Type of site:

Public Park

Borough:

Hillingdon

Open to public?

Yes

Opening times:

unrestricted

Special conditions:

Facilities:

Children's play area, multi-games ball-wall, tennis courts

Events:

Public transport:

Tube: Eastcote, Ruislip Manor (Piccadilly, Metropolitan). Bus: H13

Citymapper    
Google Map    
streetmap.co.uk

Research updated:

01/10/2016

Last minor changes:

19/07/2023

Please check with the site owner or manager for latest news. www.hillingdon.gov.uk

High Grove is shown on Greenwood's Map of Middlesex of 1819. Highgrove House was built in 1881, designed by Edward Prior, replacing an earlier late C18th house. From 1834 the estate was owned by Lt Gen Sir Joseph Fuller, whose daughter Juliana inherited the estate in the 1860s. She was the second wife of Sir Hugh Hume-Campbell whose daughter by his first wife had 6 children, the Warrenders, who later inherited the estate in 1894. The Warrender family were well-connected and among their relatives was Lady Randolph Churchill, who spent part of her honeymoon with Sir Winston Churchill at Highgrove House. Alice Warrender founded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature at Oxford. Eleanor Warrender won the Croix de Guerre in 1915 for work with the French Red Cross, and after WWI she lived at High Grove with her brother Col Hugh Warrender. She was active in the local community, founded Eastcote and Pinner Girl Guides and funded the church.

When Ruislip-Northwood UDC purchased the site from Miss Warrender for the recreation ground in 1935, the Eastcote Association acquired a pair of ornamental wrought iron gates, originally made in the 1870s for London art dealers Thomas Agnew & Sons, which were re-erected at the Lime Grove entrance to the new park. Initially named Eastcote Recreation Ground, it was laid out with children's playground, sand pit and tennis courts. It became known as Warrender Park by the late 1970s. The park has new planting of Lombardy poplar, flowering cherry among other trees, but also a group of four mature horse chestnuts and many large oaks, several of which are aligned north-south across the park and into oak and hornbeam woodland to the north. High Grove and its grounds were purchased in 1949 and the house is used by LB Hillingdon Social Services Department, a swimming pool built in the grounds. A school and recent office development is now in the north-west corner of the site. Also built on the former grounds is Highgrove Housing, a modernist social housing scheme designed by Edward Cullinan and built in 1972-77.

Sources consulted:

Joanne Verden 'Ten Walks Around Pinner' (The Pinner Association) 1999 ed.; LB Hillingdon, 'Warrender Park Management Plan, 2009-2013'

Grid ref:

TQ105877 (510510,187920)

Size in hectares:

4.35

Site ownership:

LB Hillingdon

Site management:

Green Spaces Team; Friends of Warrender Park and Highgrove Woods

Date(s):

C18th; 1935

Designer(s):

Listed structures:

LBII: Highgrove House. Local list: Warrender Park Gates

On National Heritage List for England (NHLE), Parks & Gardens:

No

Registered common or village green on Commons Registration Act 1965:

No

Protected under London Squares Preservation Act 1931:

No

Local Authority Data

The information below is taken from the relevant Local Authority's planning legislation, which was correct at the time of research but may have been amended in the interim. Please check with the Local Authority for latest planning information.

On Local List:

No

In Conservation Area:

No

Tree Preservation Order:

No

Nature Conservation Area:

Yes - (part Highgrove Nature Reserve)

Green Belt:

No

Metropolitan Open Land:

No

Special Policy Area:

No

Other LA designation:

None