Joseph Grimaldi Park

The lowdown

This small green square behind Pentonville Road is named after Joseph Grimaldi, the man who more or less invented the modern clown in Regency London, and who is buried here. To this day clowns visit to pay their respects, and once a year a service is held in his memory nearby with performers in full costume.

The clever surprise is the grave itself. The artist Henry Krokatsis laid two coffin-shaped bronze tiles into the ground, and if you dance across them they chime out the tune of Grimaldi's famous song. It is a free, faintly daft, genuinely lovely thing to stumble on in a city park.