Isabella Plantation © Royal Parks
London gardens
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By Martin Coomer
Updated: Fri Jun 25 2010 -
Although the capital is justly famous for its magnificent parks, its public gardens can be just as rewarding. Time Out uncovers some of these glorious green spaces
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Kew Gardens
Kew Rd, Richmond, TW9 3AB
Kew Gardens is a magnificent World Heritage Site covering 300 acres with over 30,000 species of plants. The Xstrata Treetop Walkway – 18m up in the air and 200m long – provides a fresh perspective on the sweet chestnuts, limes, deciduous oaks and other trees of Capability Brown's woodland. Indoors, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art is a permanent gallery featuring wonderful examples of the genre. The new Treehouse Towers outdoor play area for three to 11 year olds offers rope bridges, giant swings and zip wires, and teaches children about trees. Read more
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Chelsea Physic Garden
66 Royal Hospital Rd, London, SW3 4HS
Founded in 1673, Chelsea Physic Garden contains England's oldest rock garden. The garden's proximity to the Thames ensured that it enjoyed a microclimate that made it possible to grow non-native plants, including the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in England. Today Chelsea Physic Garden is home to Britain's first garden of ethnobotany (the study of the botany of different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples). The garden is open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday and bank holiday afternoons from April to October, with late openings on Wednesdays. There's a shop where visitors can buy unusual plants and a café that serves very good homemade cakes. Read more
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Isabella Plantation
Kings Rd, Surrey, TW10 5HS
Watching south-west Londoners mistake chugging around Richmond Park in their 4x4s for a day in the country isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, but the traffic-free Isabella Plantation is a real oasis. Established during the 1950s, the ornamental woodland garden consists of clearings, ponds and streams and is planted with ferns, exotic trees and shrubs. It’s particularly striking during April and May when the azaleas and rhododendrons put on their annual show. The nearest park gates to the plantation are Ham or Ladderstile. (Click 'Read more' for information on Richmond Park) Read more
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Chiswick House and Gardens
Burlington Lane, London, W4 2RP
Walled gardens have been on this site since the late 1600s but the once grand kitchen garden lay neglected from the 1920s until it was rediscovered a few years ago, and extensive restoration work is ongoing. The Palladian villa's gardens were designed by Lord Burlington and William Kent in the Italian Renaissance style, and contain England's oldest collection of camellias. The surrounding parkland offers acres more green space to explore. Read more
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Fenton House
Hampstead Grove, Windmill Hill, London, NW3 6RT
Terrace walks, a formal lawn and a sunken rose garden grace the northern part of this garden, which adjoins a seventeenth-century merchant’s house. More unusual, though, is the 300-year-old orchard where some 30 varieties of English apple are grown. You can sample the old varieties on Apple Day, in September. Read more
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Syon House and Park
Brentford , Middx, TW8 8JF
Syon House's landscaped park is by Capability Brown and among the additional attractions in the 200-acre grounds are an excellent garden centre, a trout fishery, the London Aquatic Experience, an indoor adventure playground and a miniature steam train. For the Enchanted Woodland festival every winter, the arboretum is decked with coloured lights that create an atmospheric winter path past many species of trees and a frosty lake. Read more
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Eltham Palace
Off Court Rd, London, SE9 5QE
This stunning art deco house was built in 1936 for the Courtauld family and restored by English Heritage. The adjoining medieval Great Hall is well worth a visit at any time of year but the 19-acre garden really comes into its own during summer, when the long border transforms what was once the South Moat into a riot of herbaceous perennials. There’s also a formal rose garden, extensive rockery and, clambering up one of the walls, a magnificent magnolia grandiflora whose huge, highly scented flowers can be enjoyed from the terrace. Read more
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Geffrye Museum Gardens
Kingsland Rd, London, E2 8EA
Just as the Geffrye’s period rooms trace the development of the British domestic interior from the sixteenth century to the present, its ‘garden rooms’ illustrate changing planting styles across half a millennium, from modest designs for Elizabethan townhouses to hothouse exotics loved by the Victorians, and the Edwardian template on which many modern gardens are based. There’s also a traditional herb garden that examines the various uses of over 170 specimens and includes arbours with secluded seating in its traditional, geometric scheme. (Click 'Read more' for information on the Geffrye Museum) Read more
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Phoenix Gardens
21 Stacey St, Access via garden entrance on St Giles Passage, WC2H 8DG
If you can manage to locate one of the grubby alleyways leading to the West End's Phoenix Garden, it's a lovely little green spot for high-rolling city types based in the Charing Cross Road area to have a quiet breather away from the pencil-pushing mayhem of office life. The plants, flowers and wildlife in the garden are all maintained by volunteers, and you can even check on a regularly updated blog (http://phoenixgarden.blogspot.com/) to see what plant species are currently blooming. Read more
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Hill Garden and Pergola
Inverforth Close, off North End Way, NW3 7EX
A favourite of local artists, this formal Arts and Crafts garden, created between 1910 and 1925 by Thomas Mawson for soap magnate Lord Leverhulme and restored in the 1990s, is a little-known part of Hampstead Heath. In late spring the raised, covered pergola - as long as Canary Wharf is tall- is festooned with wisteria, but great views of London are to be had at any time of year. Visit during the early evening and you might see roosting long-eared bats. Read more
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2 comments
Hi Maggie,
So glad you have such fond memories of The Roof Gardens. The gardens are indeed open to the public, please call us on
0207 937 7994 and we will advise you of the opening times for the period you wish to visit.
We look forward to welcoming you back to the gardens.
Regards
The Team
When visiting London as a small child in the 1950's my mother always used to take us to the Roof Gardens restaurant for afternoon tea. I remember there being an unexploded (presumably de-activated!) bomb on display. Are the gardens open to the public as I'd love to visit them again?