One Tree Hill
A wooded hilltop in Honor Oak with a free, wide view back across the whole city, where local people once fought off the developers to keep it open.
FREE
The lowdown
One Tree Hill is a small wooded slope in the south-east, and it is one of those places that locals know and almost nobody else does. Climb the path to the top and the trees open out to a free panorama back across central London, the City towers, St Paul's and beyond, all the way to the West End on a clear day.
There is real history under your feet. The oak at the summit is said to mark the spot where Queen Elizabeth I rested on May Day 1602, and in 1897 thousands of people stormed the fences here to stop a golf club enclosing the land, one of the great Victorian fights for public open space.
Today it is a nature reserve, quiet and a bit wild, with a tumbledown Victorian church ruin and benches placed exactly where the view is best. Bring a coffee, find a seat near the top and you have one of the cheapest grandstands in the city.
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