London’s Pocket Parks - Archive Articles

London’s Pocket Parks: Worship Square, EC2

This is a brand new pocket park in Shoreditch that was once a road and motorbike parking space.

London’s Pocket Parks: St Alfege Park, SE10

Greenwich is famous for its Royal Park, but right in the town centre is another park, hidden behind the church and surrounded by high walls.

London’s Pocket Parks: All Hallows Church and Community Garden, SE1

This small garden on the site of a bombed-out church in the side streets of Southwark also has links to the origins of 1980s synthpop music.

London’s Pocket Parks: Southwood Garden, W1

This pocket park sitting next to St James Church in Piccadilly is unsurprising, a former graveyard, but was laid out as a garden after WW2.

London’s Pocket Parks: Camden Gardens, NW1

A decent-sized triangle of land next to Camden Road station, with the railway running through the middle of it, on arches.

London’s Pocket Parks: Mallon Gardens, E1

This is a newish garden that has emerged from behind fencing following the restoration of the historic Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel.

London’s Pocket Parks, Rennie Garden, SE1

This pocket park is named after John Rennie, the engineer who built the original Waterloo Bridge, and designed the original Southwark Bridge, and the previous London Bridge.

London’s Pocket Parks: Old Street Yard, EC1

This is a new pocket park that came into existence as part of the redevelopment of Trans World House, a dreary 1960s office block that used to be on this corner of the Old Street roundabout.

London’s Pocket Parks: Moor Lane Community Garden, EC2

A pocket park worthy of the name has appeared next to the Barbican and is a few pot plants in a few concrete pots.

London’s Pocket Parks: Cavell Street Garden, E1

A side street in Shadwell has a small pocket park with gates leading to a space once filled with housing.

London’s Pocket Parks: Basil Hume memorial garden, EC1

A short walk from the Barbican is a small perfectly formed little garden created in memory of Basil Hume, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster from 1979 until his death in 1999.

Grosvenor Square getting a hidden water garden

The classically grand but bland Grosvenor Square is about to get a major transformation into a more playful space.

London’s Pocket Parks: Bloomsbury Square

This is one of London's larger pocket parks, and also one of its oldest, at around 360 years old -- but it was only opened to the public in the 1950s.

London’s Pocket Parks: Fortune Street Park, EC1

This is a busy pocket park that sits just to the north of the Barbican, with wide-open space, a children's space, and a coffee shop.

London’s Pocket Parks: St Dunstan-in-the-West Burial Ground, EC4

This small but rather neat pocket park is exceptionally well hidden squeezed between buildings on a quiet back street in the City of London.

London’s Pocket Parks: Ewer Street rain garden, SE1

This is probably one of the smallest pocket parks I've written about, a narrow strip of raised bedding on a side street in Southwark.

London’s Pocket Parks: King George’s Fields, Rotherhithe

This is one of many of the King George Fields that can be found across London, and the UK.

London’s Pocket Parks: Barton Green, KT3

This rather municipal looking open space in the middle of a housing estate has a remarkable story -- it's named after a holder of the Victoria Cross.

Roof garden at 120 Fenchurch Street to remain open at weekends

When the City's largest roof garden opened a year ago, it was to be kept open in the evenings, and for a trial period, at weekends.

Grosvenor Square revamp to go ahead

The grand Grosvenor Square in central London is to get a 300th-anniversary makeover, and the lead design team has been announced.

London’s Pocket Parks: Royal Victoria Gardens, E16

This decent sized municipal park in east London was once owned by distant Westminster Abbey, if you go back far enough.

London’s Pocket Parks: Gallions Hill and Reach Park, SE28

This riverside park features a tall man-made mound surrounded by a cluster of barrows offering views across southeast London.

London’s Pocket Parks: Hatfields Green, SE1

This small side street park in Southwark is an interesting park that was recently refurbished into its current rather bubbly appearance.

London’s Pocket Parks: Cremorne Gardens, SW10

This otherwise fairly ordinary local park is a lingering relic of a grand Victorian pleasure garden that stretched all the way from the river to King's Road.