London’s Pocket Parks: Christ Church Gardens, SW3

These are two pocket parks that sit on either side of an 186-year-old church deep in the Chelsea suburbs and are open to the public to sit in and relax.

Christ Church was built in the 1830s to serve the growing population around Chelsea at a time when it was still a small town separate from the rest of London.

Built as a chapel of ease to St Luke’s parish church and catering mainly to the local working population, it was designed to accommodate the maximum number of people at minimum cost. Costing £4,000 at the time, it was just a tenth of the cost of its parent church at St Lukes.

As a chapel of ease, it wasn’t expected to need a graveyard, so the church was built with only a modest strip of land around the sides, and today forms the end of a block of houses that form an elongated roundabout.

As local population numbers surged, in 1860 it split off from St Lukes into an independent parish. However, as parish worshipers have declined in recent decades, it rejoined in 1986 to form a new combined parish known as ‘The Parish of Chelsea: Saint Luke and Christ Church’.

The gardens were created by the “formidable” Ildica Post, sometime in the 1960s, and there’s a plaque commemorating her work in the garden.

The south garden entrance gate has a symbol on the ironwork — of the Silver Jubilee in 1977 — which is when the gate was added. In 1980, the church also won an award for the restoration of the railings around the church gardens.

As you can probably gather from the photos, my visit was at a time when the garden was more verdant than you might expect to see if you visited today. The roses were in their last bloom, and the foliage was filling the narrow spaces around the church.

A stone plaque in the pavement on the northern garden marks the church’s 150th anniversary. Might need updating in 2039 when the church turns 200 years old.

There are also quite a few benches here to sit on on a warm, dry day and relax while the bees buzz around, getting a final top-up before winter sets in.

Down at the far end is a rather decorative tree and what looks like the well-worn finial from a church spire.

The south side garden is slightly different, with a pergola effect by the entrance and the roses being a bit more clingly if you walk around the narrow paths that they like to spread over.

The two pocket parks are nicely shielded from the road, and in its suburban landscape, it is a rather nice break when wandering around and exploring the streets.