Events

Our 20th annual event took place on SUNDAY 4 AUGUST 2024, with lots of fun activities including our wonderful kids-only fun fair, inflatables and stalls, face painting, glitter art and bubble hair braiding, henna tattoos, free kids’ art activity, ecology discover desk, RSPB stall and other community stalls.  There was music from the Grimsdyke Brass Band, 60s hits from solo guitarist Adam Garmin, and gorgeous sounds from the Sunny Steel Band. 

This year we are raising funds to purchase a static train for the adventure playground.  There were 70 entries for the contest, which was won by a 4-year-old local  visitor whose suggestion was ‘Canons Chu Chu’.  Thanks to all who entered this and the fun dog contest, as well as everyone who supported the Friends by attending the event – an estimated 1000 people during the day.  Our next fun day will be in August 2025. 

Free Walking Tours of Canons Park for the annual London-wide Open House Festival

Sunday 15 September 2024, 10am to 4pm (last tour)

Find out more about the fascinating history of Canons Park and the Duke of Chandos, who developed it in the 18th century into his ‘country seat’.  The Duke was one of the richest men of his day but is now largely forgotten.  How did he make his money?  How did he spend it on his vastly expensive mansion?  And why was it torn down less than 30 years later?

Tours last around 30 – 40 minutes and are led by a member of the Friends’ Steering Committee.  Tours run every hour on the hour.  Meet five minutes before each tour at the Friends’ desk, opposite Liam’s in the Park at the Good Friends Cafe.  Fact sheets are available and there will be a display at the desk with information about the mansion and its contents.

Complete your tour with a visit to two nearby attractions, both linked to the Duke of Chandos; a few minutes’ walk from the park along Canons Drive will take you to Rose Garden Close.  Walk to the back of the close and you can enter the private Seven Acre Lake, which is only open to the public for one day a year. A slightly longer walk towards Whitchurch Lane will take you to St Lawrence Church, where the Duke and his family prayed and where he and two of his wives were buried in a stunning mausoleum beside the church.  He also paid for the almost complete re-building of the church and its decoration, with fantastic frescoes and carvings by some of the greatest artists of his day.

Sessions every other Sunday morning from 31 March – end of September 2024.

We would love to hear from any keen gardeners who would like to work in or around the George V Memorial Garden at the centre of the park, to help restore it to its former glory.  In 2018 we formed a small but very effective gardening club that now meets every other Sunday morning, from early spring until the end of September, working from around 10am to 12.30pm –  although everyone is welcome for whatever amount of time they can spare.  The Gardening Club sessions are very rewarding.  So far the group have cleared many of the overgrown flower beds and planted bulbs, bedding and perennial plants. Why not join them and make a real difference to the garden?  All tools and equipment, including gardening gloves, are provided – or you can bring your own if you prefer. 

If you are interested in joining the group, please contact our gardening volunteer coordinator, Tony Bennett, via our Contact Us page.

Cancelled until further notice – but we hope to re-introduce them again one day.

In the meantime here is a list of birds that can be seen in Canons Park at various times of the year.

​7 Black-headed Gull
2 Lesser Black-backed Gull
Wood Pigeon – several
Stock Dove – singing & at nest hole
Ring-necked Parakeet – common
Great Spotted Woodpecker – drumming
Green Woodpecker – calling
3 Magpie
Carrion Crows
2 Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit – singing
Great Tit – singing
2 Coal Tit – singing
Eurasian Nuthatch 3 singing / calling
1 Dunnock – briefly singing
REDWING Only 1 (48 on 2 February 2020)
2 Mistle Thrush feeding in the open grass
Robin – 3 singing
Wren – 2 singing
2 Starling – calling near Donnefield gate
Chaffinch – singing. Male feeding under trees
2 Goldfinch
Greenfinch trilling near Donnefield gate