“A Park for Finsbury” Book

The Friends of Finsbury Park are planning to revise the very successful book “A Park for Finsbury” to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Finsbury Park. Chair of the Friends Simon Hunt invites contributions from all who use and love the Park to fund this exciting book. Writer Hugh Hayes is keen to add to the research he did for the first edition and has found out much more about Finsbury Park’s history. The new revised edition of A Park for Finsbury will include 16 more pages of images and text about the history of the park, bringing it up to 2019.

From Hugh Hayes, the author:

The Friends of Finsbury Park have asked me to update the history of the park that I wrote nearly 20 years ago. This new version will come right up to the present day and be 16 pages longer. It will include more about Hornsey Wood House that was pulled down to make way for the park, more about the reservoir under the park, details about the £6 million spent on the park in the 00s, and all the famous people who have visited the park from Sylvia Pankhust to Bob Dylan. Parks are such important places, and Finsbury Park with its amazing history is a very special place visited by over a million people every year. So please help the Friends celebrate the anniversary, and pre-book your copy of my revised book A Park for Finsbury. As before, there will be a limited print, and the first edition is no longer available, so grab your copy now. Any profits from the sale of the book will go to the Friends of Finsbury Park which is a registered charity. Thanking you in advance.

What We Need & What You Get

We need to raise over £8,000 to cover the writing, design, print and editing costs of the book. We've already been able to raise about half of that money through grants and offers from generous individuals. However, we're still several thousand short and so I'm seeking your help to cover our editing and printing costs so that we can get the book to print in time for the 150th anniversary of the park in August. We're therefore giving you the chance to pre-order copies of the book, so that you'll be the first to get it once it's off the press! 

• Pre-order a copy of the book for just £10, including free UK delivery;
• Pre-order a signed copy of the book, and get a ticket to the book launch in August for £15;
• If you're kind enough to support us generously by giving £50, we'll include your name in the acknowledgements section of the book, and you'll get three signed copies and two tickets to the book launch.

You can pre-order and/or donate on the crowdfunding page here.

We really hope we can make our £2,000 initial target towards funding this book. However, if we don't make that target, meaning we can't fund the book, all donors will be refunded, so your money will not be going to waste. If we do make our target, the money raised will be passed on to the Friends of Finsbury Park, which will be used to help cover print and editing costs.

What's going in the book?

Amongst many other new additions, there will be further images of Horsey Wood House as it changed through the 18th and 19th Century, until it was pulled down to make way for the Park and new theories about who it was who dug out the lake in the late 18th century.  There will be new memories about the Park, including the Black Shirt’s demonstration in the park in the 1930’s, and the “Speakers Corner”. There will be images of the reservoir and of the old café, details of where the bombs landed in the second World War, the £600000 spent on the park in the noughties and the fight by the Friends to have the income derived from leasing the Park by Haringey Council to be spent on the Park. All profits will go to the Friends of Finsbury Park which is a registered charity.

Other Ways You Can Help

We're grateful for every pre-order of the book you make, but we also need to get the word out to as many people as possible, so please tell your friends and neighbours, and sharing the campaign on social media.

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