We've found 28 parks

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

Brompton Cemetery was built for the West London and Westminster Cemetery Company, founded in 1836, on a site purchased from Lord Kensington and the Equitable Gas Company. The new cemetery opened in 1840, designed by Benjamin Baud; the grounds were laid out by landscape gardener Isaac Finnemore with advice from J C Loudon, Messrs Veitch supplying plants. The full extent of Baud's designs were not carried out but by 1847 the buildings included the Chapel with arcades and catacombs. Baud's design had avenues running north-west and south-east from the entrance on Old Brompton Road and these retain their dominant planting of limes; other trees include scattered mature weeping silver lime, holly, Holm oak, cedar of Lebanon and yew. In 1850 the Metropolitan Interments Act enabled the Board of Health to purchase the cemetery for a fraction of the price asked by the Company. Many notable people are buried here.

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

Bunhill is probably a corruption of 'Bone Hill', and the area has been a site of burial for upwards of 1,000 years. The Corporation of London had originally enclosed this site for a new burial ground for plague victims just outside the City walls, but it was subsequently leased for a private cemetery. Bunhill Fields was established in 1665 and became the country's pre-eminent Nonconformist cemetery. Between 1665-1854, when it was closed for burials, some 123,000 interments took place, the oldest existing memorial that of Theophilus Gale, d.1678. Among many important Nonconformists buried here are John Bunyan, Susannah Wesley (mother of Charles and John Wesley), Isaac Watts, Daniel Defoe and William Blake. In 1868 it was converted into public gardens by the Corporation of London, when new walls and gates were erected, paths laid out and trees planted. Following bomb damage, after WWII the north area was largely cleared and laid out as a garden and the south area re-landscaped with 5 railed areas containing over 2000 monuments.

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

Originally called Lower or Great Lodge, Bushy House was built in 1664-65 as the official residence of the Ranger of Middle Park, which was by then enclosed as part of the royal deer park, one of three enclosures that were later amalgamated to form Bushy Park. It remains set in its own grounds, which contain elements dating from the C17th and C19th and some fine mature trees. Since 1902 house and grounds have been occupied by the National Physical Laboratory, undertaking pioneering testing and research. An apple tree planted in 1953 has a plaque recalling Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the law of gravity in 1665/6. The conservatory has an ancient vine.

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

Bushy Park's origins date from the late C15th, when farmland here was enclosed. It became a royal deer park when it was acquired by Henry VIII in 1529. The water features, woodland, park and farmland within the park have been developed over the years since the C16th. Bushy Park Water Gardens Trust received an HLF grant of £25,000 in 1997 to restore the Water Gardens and other 'lost' features.

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

London's oldest botanical garden, Chelsea Physic Garden was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries on a site fronting the Thames to train apprentices in the study of medicinal plants. In decline by the early C18th, the physic garden was essentially re-founded after the Apothecaries were granted a lease in virtual perpetuity by Sir Hans Sloane, who had purchased the Chelsea Manor in 1712. Sloane appointed Philip Miller as Gardener; numerous notable horticulturists are associated with the Physic Garden. The garden contains probably the oldest man-made rock garden in Europe and other features include a Historical Walk of plants introduced by past curators, Victorian fernhouse and glasshouses with Mediterranean plant collections.

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

Chiswick House and its grounds were created by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, one of the earliest promoters of Palladianism in England. His classical villa was built in the late 1720s next to Old Chiswick House, the Jacobean house he had inherited as part of the estate in Chiswick purchased by his grandfather in 1682. Burlington transformed the earlier layout of pleasure and productive gardens in various phases, working with William Kent to create formal gardens that evoked the ideals of ancient Rome. In 1753 the estate passed by marriage to the Dukes of Devonshire, and in 1788 the fifth Duke demolished Old Chiswick House and enlarged the villa. Both the fifth and sixth Dukes remodelled Burlington’s gardens. From the 1860s onwards the Devonshires let the house and in 1929 the reduced estate was sold to Middlesex County Council. In 1948, ownership of the house passed to the Ministry of Works, which embarked on a restoration campaign aimed at returning the villa to its original size and design and the gardens to their original layout. The house and the gardens are now under the stewardship of an independent trust, Chiswick House and Gardens Trust who work with LB Hounslow and English Heritage Trust to preserve this important heritage site.

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

By 1849 most of the City of London's churchyards were full and unsanitary, and in the early 1850s interment ceased under the Metropolitan Burials Act. In 1854 the City's Commissioners of Sewers purchased farmland at Little Ilford, once part of Epping Forest, for a new cemetery to serve the City. It was designed by William Haywood, Engineer and Surveyor to the Commissioners with an extensive network of curving paths and avenues, two Gothic chapels and Catacomb Valley formed by draining a former fishpond, its grand entrance flanked by porter's lodge and superintendent's house. It was landscaped by William Davidson with gardens, trees and shrubberies. The first burial took place in June 1856. By dint of purchasing the land the City of London became a 'commoner of Epping Forest' and as such was influential in keeping the Forest from further encroachment and enclosure. One of the first crematoria to be built in this country was opened here in 1904, with the first cremation taking place in 1905; in 1971-3 it was replaced by a second Crematorium, the Old Crematorium becoming a chapel of remembrance. A small garden of rest was created near the Crematorium in the 1920s followed by a small Memorial Garden in 1930, but in 1953 well-known landscape architect Richard Sudell was commissioned to design substantial Memorial Gardens on 4 ha. of land, catering for the increased demand for cremation after WWII.

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

Golders Green Crematorium, the first purpose-designed crematorium 'within easy driving distance of London', was established by the London Cremation Society in 1902 on land it purchased in 1900. The buildings, designed by Sir Ernest George and Alfred Yeates, were developed piecemeal from 1902 until the late 1920s, with the East Chapel by Mitchell and Bridgewater and the Philipson Mausoleum by Edwin Lutyens added in 1938. The grounds are much like they were when first laid out by William Robinson. Open lawns face the Cloister, at one end of which is a rectangular lily pond and War Memorial of 1919/20. Woodland gardens have serpentine paths throughout and to the rear is a small water garden. Among the sculptural features is a bronze sculpture by Henry Pegram, now in the Gertrude Jekyll garden. Many well-known people have been cremated here.

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

Greenwich Park's history dates back to pre-Roman times. After the Norman Conquest it became a large manor, which was inherited in 1427 by the Duke of Gloucester who enclosed the park in 1433. After his death it was taken by Henry VI's wife, and became the Manor of Plesaunce or Placentia and had associations with royalty until the early C18th. Henry VII built a royal palace here and the park was formally laid out for Charles II in the French style with a series of terraces and many trees planted, some of which remain. A great supporter of scientific research, Charles commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to build the Royal Observatory here. Greenwich Meridian Line crosses the landscape, dividing the world into the east and west hemispheres. James II was the last monarch at Greenwich, his daughter Mary later donating the palace site for a hospital for sailors and the park was made available to pensioners at the Hospital. The public were first allowed into the park during the C18th.

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

Hampton Court became a royal palace from 1530 after Henry VIII took the house and grounds Cardinal Wolsey had transformed in the early C16th. The estate was enlarged and improved by successive monarchs, and pleasure gardens laid out by various Royal Gardeners, including William Talman, George London, Henry Wise, and Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. During the C18th and C19th Hampton Court became a popular place for visitors and a guide book was printed in 1817.

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

Highgate Cemetery was opened by the London Cemetery Company in 1839, one of the 7 cemeteries created when it was necessary to alleviate crowded metropolitan burial grounds. The land had once belonged to the Ashurst Estate. The cemetery was laid out with serpentine roads and paths, and formally planted with specimen trees, shrubs and flowerbeds. With its park-like setting it was soon popular as a place to visit as well as a burial place. As a result the Company purchased land for an extension and the East Cemetery was opened in 1856; it is here that Karl Marx is buried. The two parts are divided by Swain's Lane with a passage beneath the road for conveyance of coffins from the chapel. The cemetery deteriorated after WWII and was closed in 1975. The Friends of Highgate Cemetery, formed that year, raised money to purchase the land in 1981 and continue to look after the cemetery. The cemetery is owned by a Cemetery Trust

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

Hyde Park was enclosed by Henry VIII as a royal deer park in the C16th and continued to be used as such in the C17th. It was first opened to the public in 1637. It was landscaped in c.1730 when two lakes were formed, the Serpentine and Long Water. Originally c.248 hectares, the site dwindled to c.138 hectares partly through the development of Kensington Gardens to the west. From 1820s subsequent landscape improvements were undertaken by Decimus Burton.