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To Battersea Park: The new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Northern Clemency – ‘Brilliantly conceived’ William Boyd

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No matter what time of year this park is a beautiful place to visit and there will always be something to do.

The novel consists of four sections, each named after a different narratological convention: The Iterative Mood, Free Indirect Style, The Hero Undertakes a Journey, and Entrelacement. Collectively, these techniques are used to present a fluid portrait of south London lives lived under varying degrees of pandemic-induced duress; a marriage straining at the seams, ailing parents, rapidly deteriorating mental health. There’s a confidence and playfulness to Hensher’s use of organising principles, with each convention interrogated via a number of periodic and knowing authorial intrusions. It’s a high-wire act, but ultimately a success, showcasing a philosophical humility. Hensher seems to face the task of telling an essentially untellable story by asking the reader: will this tool do the job? No? Well, what about this one? Still no use? … In that case, I’ll keep trying. Vauxhall (Zones 1 and 2, Victoria line). A 20 minute walk via Nine Elms Lane or a five minute bus ride on routes 156, 344 and 436, with entry to Battersea Power Station via Pump House Lane. Throughout the decades that followed, the park adapted to the changing needs and desires of Battersea’s residents. What was once a refuge for Victorian-era strollers, seeking refuge from the city’s hustle and bustle, gradually transformed into a dynamic community space. Next, in a section entitled The Hero Takes a Journey Away from His Environment, we are whisked to a near-future dystopia. Quentin, gym-buff and self-confident, finds himself on a new-build estate in Whitstable. The country has broken down under the weight of wave after wave of Covid. Violent, feral youths roam the land – the “life-to-come boys”. Quentin receives a letter from his father, a dentist in Ramsgate, some 20 miles away, and decides to walk and visit him. He’s joined by a young man called Simon, the child of a neighbour, who speaks like Mr Darcy after “repeated viewings of period television dramas”. It’s like The Road meets All the Devils Are Here: the journey is electrifying, Hensher’s vision of the Kentish coast brilliant and brutal. Pedestrian access at Albert Bridge Road, Prince of Wales Drive and Queenstown Road (SW11 4NJ). Other gate(s)

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The creation of Battersea Park was first mooted in 1843 when the property developer Thomas Cubitt, and the local vicar, the Honourable Reverend Robert Eden, reported to Queen Victoria's Commission for Improving the Metropolis. In 1846 an Act of Parliament was passed which authorised the formation of a park on a part of Battersea Common and Battersea Fields which included the pleasure grounds of the Red House inn.

Battersea Park is a large (200 acre) Victorian park, built between 1854 and 1870. It has a riverside promenade, a large lake, many notable trees and ecological areas, children's play areas, a children's zoo, the Pump House gallery, ceremony venue and sports facilities. In the park Novels are, as one of To Battersea Park’s many minor characters observes, about consequences: ‘One small thing happens out of nowhere; something else happens; another thing, and another, and at the end of the chain, the world ends.’ In the book’s second section, ‘Free Indirect Style’, Hensher catalogues one such chain of cause and effect. A builder’s wife is having a bad day and refuses to pass on a message, so an old man trips on a broken stair rod and is hospitalised, which forces his son – the novelist from the first section – to undertake a train journey in the middle of the pandemic. Actions have consequences that spread like a virus: we are all connected. In other hands, this might appear a truism, but Hensher’s game of Only Connect is anything but mechanistic, while his talent for social comedy, whether it involves a disastrous Zoom meeting or a gay orgy, is put to excellent use. Nowhere is this more evident than in the novel’s unsettling third section, set on the Kent coast, which offers the most convincing vision of suburban apocalypse since Shaun of the Dead.You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. While narrative may temporarily fail him, Hensher’s narrator can’t stop naming and noticing things, exercising his curiosity like a bodybuilder putting in the hours at the gym. When he’s not examining the rug by his bed (‘Qashqai’), he’s breathing in the perfume of the garden after rain (‘petrichor’) or chancing upon a pair of exotic trees (‘pomeloes’) exotically trespassing on a Battersea housing estate. Meanwhile, the claustrophobic landscape of his daily walk yields geographical riches, among them a hidden river and a palimpsest of ancient wetlands and woods. Looking to travel from Heathrow Airport to Battersea Park by train? You've come to the right place!

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Originally designed by Sir James Pennethorne, Battersea Park was created as a place for relaxation and leisure for the growing population of London. This is more than just stylistic showmanship, though. To Battersea Park is a different kind of state-of-the-nation novel; an exercise in imagination and empathy born out of a moment of collective crisis during which we all needed those things more than ever before. School buses with more than 16 passenger seats must display a School Coach Permit available from the Park Office and must use the Rosery Car Park or the coach bays on Carriage Drive North. Other coaches may not park within Battersea Park.

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The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

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