Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.

Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.

London’s Pocket Parks - Archive Articles

A long-running series of articles about the many small parks that can be found all over London.

London’s Pocket Parks: St Johns’ Cloister Garden, EC1
London’s Pocket Parks: St Johns’ Cloister Garden, EC1

London’s Pocket Parks: St Johns’ Cloister Garden, EC1

This is an easy to miss garden in Clerkenwell hidden away behind a high wall and although it looks like its part of the neighbouring church, it's actually fairly modern -- the result of post WWII clearance.

Mar
06
London’s Pocket Parks: Wick Green, E9
London’s Pocket Parks: Wick Green, E9

London’s Pocket Parks: Wick Green, E9

This is a small park that sits right opposite an old church and exists as a result of post-WWII clearance of bomb-damaged sites.

Feb
29
London’s Pocket Parks: St Thomas’s Square, E9
London’s Pocket Parks: St Thomas’s Square, E9

London’s Pocket Parks: St Thomas’s Square, E9

This Hackney park on a busy road is surrounded by a range of post-war blocks of flats, and you might, not unreasonably, think it was created as part of the post-war clearances of the area -- but in fact, the park is one of the oldest parts of Hackney to be built.

Feb
21
London’s Pocket Parks: The Hartley Garden, SE1
London’s Pocket Parks: The Hartley Garden, SE1

London’s Pocket Parks: The Hartley Garden, SE1

This is an apparently private pocket park in Bermondsey that's open to the public, if you want to push on the gate and go inside.

Jan
17
London’s Pocket Parks: Claremont Park, NW2
London’s Pocket Parks: Claremont Park, NW2

London’s Pocket Parks: Claremont Park, NW2

This long linear park in Brent Cross West looks like it's been created as a brand new park for the new housing developments going up at the moment.

Dec
27
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Streatham Green, SW16
London’s Pocket Parks: Streatham Green, SW16

London’s Pocket Parks: Streatham Green, SW16

Sitting next to Streatham High Street is a pocket park that likely owes its origins to attempts to save it from development when this part of London was still largely fields.

Dec
20
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Cricklewood Millennium Green, NW2
London’s Pocket Parks: Cricklewood Millennium Green, NW2

London’s Pocket Parks: Cricklewood Millennium Green, NW2

This is a pocket park built on former railway sidings that is showing signs of its teenage years in appearance but does offer a unique view of a railway depot in compensation.

Dec
12
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Pearson Square, W1
London’s Pocket Parks: Pearson Square, W1

London’s Pocket Parks: Pearson Square, W1

This is a newish garden square surrounded by housing in central London that was built on the site of the old Middlesex Hospital.

Dec
06
2023
London Pocket Parks: Mirabelle Gardens, E20
London Pocket Parks: Mirabelle Gardens, E20

London Pocket Parks: Mirabelle Gardens, E20

A decade ago, a new Stratford park was being enjoyed by athletes relaxing from the Olympics and a year later it opened to the less athletic public. A decade on, it's bedded in, but also showing signs of a decade of use in places.

Nov
28
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Pearl and Mizanur’s Memorial Garden, E1
London’s Pocket Parks: Pearl and Mizanur’s Memorial Garden, E1

London’s Pocket Parks: Pearl and Mizanur’s Memorial Garden, E1

A local community garden recently took over a plot of land next to Shadwell station that appears to have never been built on in its entire life.

Nov
22
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Charles Square, N1
London’s Pocket Parks: Charles Square, N1

London’s Pocket Parks: Charles Square, N1

This is a pocket park in Shoreditch a short distance from its more famous cousin in Hoxton, that looks like it might be a post-war clearance site, but is actually about 300 years old.

Nov
14
2023
Finsbury Circus Gardens are to close for a year
Finsbury Circus Gardens are to close for a year

Finsbury Circus Gardens are to close for a year

The City of London's oldest and largest public park, Finsbury Circus Gardens, will close to the public later this month and won't open again until late next year.

Nov
10
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Abbey Gardens, E15
London’s Pocket Parks: Abbey Gardens, E15

London’s Pocket Parks: Abbey Gardens, E15

Next to the DLR in east London is a large community garden that sits on a partially excavated ancient monument.

Nov
08
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Fleet Valley Pocket Park, WC1
London’s Pocket Parks: Fleet Valley Pocket Park, WC1

London’s Pocket Parks: Fleet Valley Pocket Park, WC1

A new pocket park has appeared in Farringdon, replacing a former bland paved plaza with plants, seats and some interesting pocket hills to climb up.

Oct
31
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: The Stage Viaduct Garden, EC2
London’s Pocket Parks: The Stage Viaduct Garden, EC2

London’s Pocket Parks: The Stage Viaduct Garden, EC2

This is a new pocket park built on top of a disused railway viaduct in the heart of Shoreditch.

Oct
25
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: The Tannery, SE1
London’s Pocket Parks: The Tannery, SE1

London’s Pocket Parks: The Tannery, SE1

A new pocket park has appeared in Bermondsey recently, hidden within a housing estate that's also open to the public, most of the time.

Oct
17
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Bernie Spain Gardens, SE1
London’s Pocket Parks: Bernie Spain Gardens, SE1

London’s Pocket Parks: Bernie Spain Gardens, SE1

These two pocket parks next to the OXO Tower on the Southbank, created in the 1980s, are named after a local campaigner and present two very different aspects depending on which you visit.

Oct
04
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Neo Bankside, SE1
London’s Pocket Parks: Neo Bankside, SE1

London’s Pocket Parks: Neo Bankside, SE1

This is a linear park that runs alongside a permissive right of way created as part of the Neo Bankside housing development, and is open to the public for 12 hours a day.

Sep
26
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Exchange Square, EC2
London’s Pocket Parks: Exchange Square, EC2

London’s Pocket Parks: Exchange Square, EC2

Sitting directly over the railway tracks at the back of Liverpool Street station, a large plaza has recently been transformed into a delightful pocket park.

Sep
06
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Rosemary Triangle, N1
London’s Pocket Parks: Rosemary Triangle, N1

London’s Pocket Parks: Rosemary Triangle, N1

This is about as pocket a pocket park as you are likely to find, being a tiny patch of land on the corner of an Islington road junction that's been taken over by a local community.

Aug
29
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Cossall Park, SE15
London’s Pocket Parks: Cossall Park, SE15

London’s Pocket Parks: Cossall Park, SE15

This is a relatively new park in Peckham being about 50 years old created in the 1970s as part of housing clearance and council building.

Aug
22
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Old Paradise Gardens, SE11
London’s Pocket Parks: Old Paradise Gardens, SE11

London’s Pocket Parks: Old Paradise Gardens, SE11

This pocket park in Lambeth is a former gravyeard that closed to the dead 170 years ago, and opened to the living 40 years later.

Aug
15
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Holly Grove Shrubbery, SE15
London’s Pocket Parks: Holly Grove Shrubbery, SE15

London’s Pocket Parks: Holly Grove Shrubbery, SE15

This is a long strip of parkland that runs along a road close to Peckham Rye Station which was created by the local council nearly 130 years ago.

Aug
10
2023
London’s Pocket Parks: Vauxhall Park, SW8
London’s Pocket Parks: Vauxhall Park, SW8

London’s Pocket Parks: Vauxhall Park, SW8

This is a park to the south of Vauxhall station created in the 1880s following campaigns that people living in the increasingly dirty city should have access to public parks.

Aug
01
2023