Highbury Fields
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Highbury Fields is an open space in Highbury, Islington. At 29 acres, it is the largest open space in the borough.
It extends north from Highbury Corner almost as far as Highbury Barn. Besides parkland, Highbury Fields contains recreational facilities including tennis courts and a pool, disused for many years, but reopened recently to popular acclaim.
The elegant Georgian houses surrounding the Fields are good examples of this type of town house and are highly desirable residences. Walter Sickert, the Impressionist painter, lived at the south end of the fields for many years.
The south end of the fields also features a rather unusual war memorial for an Inner London district (right). Dating from 1906, its triumphant imperialism—complete with victory wreath, cannons and the captured standards of defeated enemies—commemorates Islington residents who fell in the Boer War. (This sort of extravaganza went quite out of fashion after World War I, when sombre, dignified memorials to the dead, such as that at Hackney Wick, were erected all over Britain.) But to be fair, the memorial is centred on a figure that many consider a fine example of art nouveau.
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