Partnering to care for the heart and lungs of Canonbury
We are a group of Canonbury residents who work to encourage and share long-term stewardship of one of Islington’s most precious and loved green-blue spaces.
Our community’s history
For over 400 years, the New River has nourished London, channeling health and wellbeing in the form of clean drinking water, fresh air, and green space to a rapidly growing metropolis.
The Canonbury section of the New River has changed dramatically over the centuries - from meandering aqueduct traversing open countryside, to iron-fenced and restricted Victorian waterway, then, after the Second World War, to “green finger,” or public nature corridor, coursing through the densely populated London Borough of Islington. After a year-long re-landscaping effort funded by taxpayers, the New River Walk Gardens - “a little bit of Devon in Islington” - officially opened to wide acclaim in 1954, providing “better amenities and more fresh air” for residents and visitors.
The Friends of the New River Walk community group formed 40 years later, in 1994, to address the deterioration of the New River Walk public gardens. We achieved successes in raising funds and overseeing a National Heritage Memorial Fund grant to dredge silt from the water course, repair the iron railings, and restore the gardens. Princess Alexandra marked the official opening of the restored gardens in June 1998.
Three decades later, our work is ongoing: a community asset as precious and widely used as the New River demands long-term care and attention. Regrettably, recent restoration work has negatively impacted the scenic beauty and community enjoyment of this public space.
Our mission
To encourage and share long-term stewardship of this local community asset - the heart and lungs of Canonbury
To foster community awareness and appreciation of the New River Walk through the coordination of cultural events and wellbeing activities
To ensure that the silt removal in the Canonbury Grove section, begun during the 2023 restoration work, is completed, and the section’s temporary aquatic planters are evacuated and removed, restoring wherever possible the 1954 boundaries to this section of the New River waterway
