Hidden cities

I was interested to read this piece on the UK's top hidden city spots, and pleased to see Moseley Bog come out of it so well. It's a wonderful place, like nearby Sarehole Mill, with which it shares the distinction of having inspired the young JRR Tolkien. In both places, it's hard to believe that you're so near to the centre of a major European city.

The definition of 'hidden' is fairly loose, and one slight disappointment is that they seem to have chosen from a fairly restricted list of cities. I would, I confess, be struggling to make a case for anywhere in my home city, Leicester, but I can think of very worthy candidates in any of three other cities I know pretty well - Nottingham, Newcastle and Cardiff. I'd be interested to hear of other worthy locations from readers.

A couple of weeks back, I was down in London to meet one of Bird Watching's long-standing contributors, David Lindo (AKA The Urban Birder). He took me for a morning stroll around his local patch, Wormwood Scrubs, and I was staggered not only by the variety of the bird life that we saw, within a stone's throw of the Westway and the hustle and bustle of West London, but how quiet it was, both in terms of sound (less than outside my house on an average morning) and seeing other people (we encountered a dozen at most).

Cities need these little oases of calm and green, or rather city-dwellers do, so it's depressing to see that not only is the Scrubs being mooted as the site for a major open-air concert later this year, but it's also under threat from HS2. You can find out more about it at the Save Our Scrubs site here, and sign a petition to preserve this hidden gem.