This week my Dad fancied some tourism, and although I have said I am happy to repeat (e.g. he’s not been to Northala Fields and I’d happily go back there) he was keen to find a new one for us all, so after looking at my list of Nendys he chose Stockley Country parkrun, which is very near to Heathrow. (Branka and I had originally planned visiting here a while back but the weather was awful and we didn’t fancy driving around the M25 that day so went somewhere else instead). My brother was able to come too which was great as he often works or plays football on Saturdays so doesn’t come to as many.
The course page is very helpful, listing the car park to use as there is a dedicated one that is only unlocked for Saturday morning for parkrunners to use (at the end of Chestnut Avenue- google maps shows it as closed as it is only unlocked by the parkrun team), as well as mentioning the nearest Tesco for the toilets (as there are no toilets in the park either). We drove and stopped at Tesco on the way, and it was about a 3 minute drive from the Tesco to the car park so easily done if you were driving there.
The name “country park” made me picture something else in my head, but this really is a patch of maintained greenery in the middle of a very built up area of London. As mentioned there are zero facilities- no toilets, no cafe, no information signs- however it was such an enjoyable one to visit.
The walk from the car park was well signposted (they had the parkrun signs up by the entrance to the car park and then an arrow showing which way to walk)- just after exiting the car park and walking through a tiny wooded area we could see the field with the pop up and collection of parkrunners. We probably parked at about 8:45 but this was fine as the start was so close.

Pop up photo and of course Poddington came too
The pop up was framed with two flags, so we got a few photos before leaving our jumpers on the tarpaulin of trust. The volunteer who did the first timers welcome was great, and then the RD came and joined in, saying he’d finish the talk and then walk us to the start line. The RD was quite humorous with his briefing, reminding us to turn right twice and left once (and then making us all chant “right twice, left once” before continuing), reminding us to get the cars out of the car park by 10:15am (unless we wanted them to be there for the week- he did mention free Heathrow airport parking!) and then quickly walked us over to where the parkrun begins.
It started a little way back from the finish area, and this is very narrow so although there were low numbers, you’d want to try to seed yourself a bit. After doing an anti-clockwise lap of the first field (which did have a wooded section in it too), you then turned right at the top and did two clockwise larger loops, and then at the final time of reaching the top you turned left to run back past the start area and into the finish. The course was very well marked with cones on all the junctions of the paths showing you where to go, and a few arrows up as well. There were a couple of marshals out there too, and the RD walked around so we got to thank him as we passed him at one point too (I think he maybe walked the first small loop but in the opposite direction of the runners as he would have to go from the start to the finish).

Map of the course– the white box to the left of the finish area was the event car park so you can see how close they are
Despite it being close to Heathrow, it felt really peaceful there. We could hear so many birds (and running with my dad meant that he could tell me which birds I was hearing) and loads of the trees were covered in blossom so it felt very much like an oasis of nature in such a built up area. There was a faint background hum of a busy road nearby, but that was easy to tune out.
I’d worn trail shoes and I think that’s what I would always choose, as although the ground was dry and the paths were stony, I prefer the thicker sole of the trail shoes on uneven ground. It wasn’t too hilly, but it wasn’t flat either and as you were running through wooded areas as well as track-type paths you did have to watch your footing. It wasn’t busy though and we didn’t get lapped (we were not sure if we would as it’s more than two laps)- there were only 90 finishers that day and that seems fairly standard looking at the recent results.

Token 57, a pop up photo after running and some blossom trees– much respect to the person who ran with a buggy as that cannot have been easy!
After finishing we chatted with the RD and a few other parkrunners (one who had travelled from Crystal Palace parkrun and was trying to go to one parkrun in each London borough) but then it started drizzling so we headed back to the car, and thankfully the journey home wasn’t slower than our journey there- about 45 minutes.
Voronoi before and after:

I’ve had this collection of 9 in the u-shape close to Heathrow for ages and ages, so it was good to finally visit one of these. Also, note the change of nendy as the new one in Harpenden started. The 8 left in that section are Bedfont Lakes, Hazelwood, Hanworth, Crane Park, Kingston, Richmond Park, Old Deer Park and Gunnersbury so still two months of touring left just for this one section!
So that was parkrun 445, location 153 and another one towards Lon-done- currently 60/85 visited
What next? Similarly to last post, no concrete plans yet but of course the new Harpenden one in due course as well as local events and touring.





























