London’s Pocket Parks: Thessaly Road Oasis, SW8
This is a former bomb site near Nine Elms that was opened as a public park, then closed, and will soon be redeveloped back into a public park again.
This whole area was once rows of Victorian terraced housing, but WWII did extensive damage to it, and it was redeveloped with post-war blocks of flats. At the same time, several roads were realigned, including Thessaly Road, one that this pocket park now sits next to. The park appears to have been opened soon after the rebuilding of the area was completed, probably in early 1950s as there’s a reference to preliminary works being carried out on the site in 1951.
There is some reference to a skateboard park being added to the pocket park in the 1970s, and you can see a suitable space in the Google Earth archive, but it’s long been covered over since then.
The park closed more than a decade ago, and the area slowly became very overgrown, but now there are plans to restore it. The gates were unlocked recently, and a public open day was held in July to start the public consultation about restoring the park to make it more useable again.
At the moment, it’s a site with a lot of promise. Quite a few large trees around the edges were planted some 60-80 years ago, which gives the park plenty of shady spots. At the moment, the core of the pocket park is the large open spaces with some curious mounds dotted around the space. The outer mounds might deflect sound from the neighbouring houses, and from walking over a few, they seem to be made from piles of rubble — probably from the post-war rebuilding works.
The ground conditions will also be a bit of an issue, feeling very claggy in many places as if tons of impermeable clay have been dumped there in the past.
As much as I like pocket parks, I must admit to thinking this one could be better used for housing, as there’s the large Larkhall Park barely a minutes walk away on the other side of the main road. The council will consult on restoring the Oasis green space and, using property developer funding, will start restoration once the plans have been drawn up.
I live nearby and appreciate your comment re housing as opposed to a park although I believe the surrounding area/ Vauxhall has seen plenty of redevelopment/flats. I’m in favour of more green space. It could be made in to a community space. People living in the flats nearby might make some use of it, grow veg etc.
I also live in this area and find it curious that this is being promoted by Wandsworth when maps show Oasis green space being on the Lambeth side of the border. Perhaps as the adjacent Yvonne Carr centre is in Wandsworth the borough, recently taken over by Labour, has now adopted it.
IMO both councils have been guilty of neglecting facilities close to the boundary in recent years so it’s pleasing to see progress here.
It would be nice to see improvements to nearby Brooklands Passage, where an oppressive old wall forming the borough boundary separates the pathway from another disused green space, beside new covent garden market.