We've found 129 parks

The British Museum was built in stages from 1823 onwards, planned as a large quadrangle with an open courtyard extending north from Montagu House. This was the original museum, which opened in 1759 housing the collection Sir Hans Sloane had bequeathed to the nation. The quadrangle was essentially completed in 1852, the South Range built as the principal facade following the demolition of Montagu House in c.1840. The forecourt of the museum has a lawn either side of the main entrance on Great Russell Street. The West Lawn has been used for special exhibitions from time to time including Africa Garden, China Landscape, India Landscape and, in 2010, South Africa Landscape.

Brookfield Estate was built by St Pancras Borough Council to provide much-needed housing post WWI. Designed by Albert Thomas, who worked with Edwin Lutyens, the estate has echoes of Hampstead Garden Suburb with curving streets, large garden areas, street trees and hedged boundaries. Brookfield Primary School was conceived as part of the estate and opened in the 1920s. An area of private open space within the Brookfield Estate has been used for recreation since the late C19th when the land was part of the Holly Lodge estate of former landowner Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The rural aspect of the Brookfield Estate is enhanced by the historic Highgate Cemetery to the north.

* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens

Brunswick Square was developed as part of the Foundling Estate. The Foundling Hospital was established in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram, whose statue is just outside Brunswick Square Gardens. The Trustees of the Hospital purchased 56 acres in Lamb's Conduit Fields from Lord Salisbury and the Hospital, now Coram's Fields, was built by 1753. The plan was to develop the surrounding estate in order to provide ground rents to support the hospital but also to retain an open situation. Brunswick Square, one of two squares either side of the Hospital, was built between 1795-1804 and was named after Caroline of Brunswick, the Prince Regent's wife. The central railed gardens were laid out between 1796-99. Initially for the private use of residents of the square, the gardens are now public. Re-landscaping in 2002/3 included new railings, paths and seating.

Burgh House is a detached Queen Anne house built in 1703-4, now a meeting place and venue, and houses Hampstead Museum. From 1906-24 it was the home of art specialist and author Dr George Williamson, who in 1908 commissioned Gertrude Jekyll to design the garden behind the house. Now largely built over, all that remains from her design is the terrace with millstones set into the path. Following WWII Burgh House was purchased by Hampstead Borough Council and reopened in 1947.It was later leased to Burgh House Trust. In 1979 the sloping terraced garden had become derelict and was restored, planted with over 100 varieties of plants. Improvements to the garden continued in the 1980s with plants favoured by Jekyll introduced.

This long narrow garden enclosure, laid out as a lawn with trees, forms a common frontage to Cambridge Gate built in 1875/77. The terrace was not part of John Nash's designs of 1811 for developing the Crown lands as Regent's Park but was built on the site of The Colosseum, which opened in 1830 providing a huge panorama of London as its main attraction, but later demolished in 1875. The garden has a retaining wall and at each end are terracotta statuary groups depicting 'The Three Graces'. Cambridge Gate is so-named after George III's son Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge.

This long narrow garden enclosure laid out as a shrubbery provided a common frontage to the 12 large houses of Cambridge Terrace facing Regent's Park. The Terrace was designed by John Nash as part of his plan of 1811 to develop the Crown Estate lands as a fashionable residential area, with the backing of the Prince Regent, later George IV. Authorisation had been given in 1794 for developing the land, once part of Henry VIII's hunting park but by then leased mainly as farmland, which was due to revert to the Crown in 1811. Cambridge Terrace was named after George III's son Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge.

Camden Gardens is a public garden on a triangular site enclosed by railings, laid out with grass and trees. The land was formerly owned by Marquis Camden and the garden was originally provided for the private use of residents of the surrounding houses. A Committee of inhabitants managed the gardens out of rates levied by St Pancras Borough Council. In the mid C19th the land was crossed by the London Midland and Scottish Railway but further building was prohibited under the London Squares and Enclosures (Preservation) Act of 1906. Some improvements were carried out in the C21st with new railings, gates and planting but further improvements took place in 2020 through Pocket Park funding as a result of the Camden Highline project for which the gardens will be an entry point. This new community park along a disused stretch of railway viaduct between Camden and King's Cross, is due to be completed c.2022.

Camden Square was built gradually from the 1830s-50s, forming the centrepiece of the Marquis of Camden's New Town development. The main feature was once the neo-Gothic St Paul's Church, demolished in 1956. The Midland Railway built a tunnel through the square in the 1860s. The central gardens were for the private use of the square's inhabitants, and remain overlooked by surviving terraces on most of three sides. It was maintained by a Committee of inhabitants out of rates levied on the occupiers; the first rules and regulations were drawn up in 1845. Features included gravelled pathways, lawns, trees, flower and shrub borders. In 1928 it was surrounded by a lilac hedge and had lawns, tennis courts, shrubberies and fine trees. Now enclosed by modern railings, the original layout of serpentine walks survives with some mature London plane, oak, horse chestnut and shrubs. Camden Council took over management in the 1950s and built an adventure playground on the tennis courts site and later a play centre. The square was home to a Climatological Station, founded by George Symons, former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, and to many artists.

Although Camley Street Natural Park only opened in 1985 it is a legacy of the pioneering conservation projects set up by the GLC's London Ecology Unit. Situated adjacent to the Regent's Canal, from Victorian times until 1960s the site was used as a coal depot, but then became derelict. Acquired by the GLC in 1981 for a lorry park, local people successfully lobbied against this with the London Wildlife Trust. As a result it became a community nature park, attracting a diverse range of wetland species of flora and fauna. It contains woodland, marshland, reed beds around a pond, wild flower meadow and garden area. In 2020 a new visitor centre building was completed by Ash Construction, and other improvements

Cartwright Gardens was built as part of the Skinners Company estate. This development included Burton Crescent constructed 1809-1811 and named after its builder and developer, James Burton. The crescent-shaped garden was laid out around 1818 and is shown on Greenwood's map of 1830 with a perimeter path and a screen of perimeter trees or shrubs. In the centre were two oval areas of what was probably lawn, enclosed by paths, and between the two were triangular shrubberies. Burton Crescent was renamed Cartwright Gardens after the political reformer and local resident John Cartwright. A bronze statue by George Clarke was added to the garden in 1831set on a granite plinth that has details of Cartwright's works as a reformer. The garden is enclosed by iron railings, with mature plane trees, laid out with grass and circular walks. Two hard tennis courts cover half its area, added in the early C20th. At one corner stands a single storey rusticated lodge of red brick. The current path layout (2011) remains broadly the same as that depicted in 1830.

Cecil Sharp was a key figure in reviving modern English folk music, joining the Committee of the Folk Song Society in 1904. In 1911 he founded the English Folk Dance Society; the two societies later amalgamated. Sharp died in 1924, bequeathing his library to the Society, which raised funds to buy a plot of land on which to build its national headquarters and memorial to him. Cecil Sharp House opened in June 1930 and according to original plans its triangular garden was intended as an open air theatre, although there is no evidence that it was used as such. Two curving flights of stairs lead from the building onto lawn, with a semi-circular seating area set into the wall at the apex of the triangle. The garden today contains shrubs, flowers and trees, some planted in memory of people connected to the Society.

Between Chalcot Gardens and Englands Lane is a narrow strip of shrubbery forming the common frontage of the houses of Chalcot Gardens, built in the 1880s and named after a farm which existed as Chaldecote Farm by 1253. By the C17th there was an Upper and a Lower Chalcots Farm, the latter later giving its name to Chalk Farm. An C18th owner of Upper Chalcot Farm, James England, gave his name to the road although it had existed for many years past as a path to the farm.