Pymmes Book Deep Topography

The Pymmes Brook is the easternmost of the three great streams flowing through Barnet Borough on a north-south axis. It is formed from several streams rising to the east of Barnet off the Hadley Wood plateau and marks the east boundary of the borough as far as Southgate.

One of these sources fills the Beech Lake, on Monken Hadley Common, before running through a scrub/oak zone prior passing the houses on Baring Road.  Later the brook becomes difficult to access as it runs between the houses of Park and Crescent Roads though glimpses can be seen here and there along its route.

 The Pymmes is canalised through Brookside and then enters Oak Hill Park.  

For many years Pymmes Brook lay hidden to me, tucked away in its valley and off the well-trodden track of my life. Drawn as I was to the green mass of the belt-lands over in Mill Hill I was familiar with the Dollis and its tributaries. Later, a period I spent living in Burnt Oak resulted in my introduction to the Silkstream. The Pymmes however was not “discovered” until 1999 when relative sophistication in walking techniques and a growing interest in regional history compelled me one day to walk up to Barnet and down along the riverways to Edmonton. 

The result was one of those odd and inspiring dislocations where the unfamiliar manifests as an outgrowth of the well-known; a deep humility results from the awareness that one hardly knows their home, this coinciding with a sense of “throwness-into-being” and a revitalisation of drab habit and all-knowing laziness.

Cryptoforestry

1) Feral forests (Planted tree zones, for instance along motorways, that have been allowed to become wild to the point that their wildness is outgrowing their manmadeness.)

2) In limbo forests (Tree-covered plots that feel like forests but technically probably aren't; states of vegetation for which lay-language has no name.)

3) Incognito Forests (Forests that have gone cryptic and are almost invisible, forests in camouflage, forests with a talent for being ignored.)

4) Precognitive forests (Lands that are on the brink of becoming forested, a future forest fata morgana.)

5) Unappreciated forests (Forests regarded as zones of waste and weed, forests shaming planners, developers, and the neighbourhood. NIMBY forestry.)

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