London’s Pocket Parks: Bonnington Square Pleasure Garden, SW8

This pocket park near the Oval has a most unusual history involving railways, squats, protests and genteel accommodation.

The park sits on the corner of a block of houses laid out in the 1870s on land that was part of the Hawbey Estate, almost as a roundabout filled with houses, and was originally intended to be housing for railway workers.

However, many railway workers preferred a pension and to pay for their own homes, so the railway cottages were soon being sold off as conventional housing. However, the area was badly damaged during WWII, with a direct hit on the houses where the pocket park now sits. The damage to the surrounding housing was also considerable, and with post-war austerity delaying repairs, much of the area became run down and semi-derelict.

Eventually, the GLC decided to make a compulsory purchase order on the entire block to clear it to build an extension for the Lilian Bayliss School. As people started moving out, one resident held out and kept delaying and delaying the eviction process.

Meanwhile, spying many empty houses, squatters moved into the area. Rather than trashing it further, they set up a local cooperative, creating a local shop and a cafe. Eventually, in 1983, they were able to persuade the GLC to sell them the houses.

In 1990, a local builder applied to use the former bomb site, by now a rather shabby playground, as storage space. That mobilised the local residents to save the space, and 30 years ago, in August 1994 were able to secure funding to create the Bonnington Square Pleasure Garden.

It’s now been a public park for 30 years, and apart from the pocket park itself, the greenery has since expanded into the side streets around the square, turning the whole area into a verdant enclave in this part of London.

There’s a plant covered entrance into the park, and inside, surrounded by high planting around the sides, the pocket park is roughtly broken up into garden rooms – with an old swing in one end and seating area at the other end.

At the far end of the garden is a piece of industry — a metal wheel that was once used for cutting marble. One of the particularly nice things about the park is the wide variety of plants, many of which are very ornamental in style and add height to the paths through the park.

The cafe next to the park has been there for the past 40 years — baring a gap in 2021-23 — a direct legacy of the 1980s squatters who set up the original, and on my visit was very busy with tables spilling all over the place for people to sit and eat.

Along with the way the planting has taken over the surrounding roads as well, it’s a lovely community-spirited space.