Abney Park

Abney Park is situated in Stoke Newington, London, England. It is a 13ha (32 acre) park dating from just before 1700, named after Lady Mary Abney and associated with Dr Isaac Watts, who laid out an arboretum. In the early 18th century, the park was accessed via the frontages and gardens of two large mansions — her own manor house (Abney House), and the neighbouring Fleetwood House. Both mansions fronted onto Church Street in what was then a quiet Nonconformist village. In 1840 the grounds were turned into Abney Park Cemetery, where 200 000 people were buried. Abney Park now serves mainly as a nature reserve.

In the early 18th century, Lady Mary Abney laid out Abney Park after inheriting the Manor of Stoke Newington in 1701 from her brother Thomas Gunston. Initially she and her husband Sir Thomas Abney lived there part-time, also living at his residence in Hertfordshire. She began work on the park in those years.

After her husband's death in 1722, Lady Mary moved to Abney House full-time, becoming the first Lady of the Manor of Stoke Newington in her own right. She was said to be helped in designing the landscaping of the grounds as an English garden by the learned Dr Isaac Watts, who had been a long-term house guest of her and her late husband, and continued to live in her household. The neighbouring Hartopp family of Fleetwood House, who leased the eastern part of the park to Lady Mary, also helped with the park.

Her improvements included planting of the Great Elm Walk and Little Elm Walk, which established shady walkways down to the island heronry of the Hackney Brook at the bottom of the park. Both Wych Elm and English Elm were planted. The Hartopp family had already completed one of the early plantings of a Cedar of Lebanon tree in Great Britain, adjacent to an ornamental pond. This tree survived into the 1920s and is illustrated in many engravings of the period.

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