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Bartholomew Square is on land formerly belonging to St Bartholomew's Hospital, and replaced a square known as Old Street Square dating from c.1815. In 1894 the MPGA laid out an asphalted playground here. It has been renamed Bartholomew Square in recognition of the former connections of the site. The character of the area was all but obliterated in the 1970s by the GLC's rebuilding, which destroyed the whole pattern of the historic surroundings. Today the area is a hummocky grass patch bordered on three sides by low rise council blocks of Bartholomew Court and the St Luke's Estate. There are a few trees including horse chestnut and London plane and it is railed to Bartholomew Square.
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Laid out as a recreation ground in c.1950s, Bartlett Park is a largely grassed flat site with some trees, planting of shrubs, but mainly in use as playing fields. The park is adjacent to the north of the Lansbury Estate, which was built from the 1950s as part of the reconstruction of Stepney and Poplar, the first phase of which was undertaken as a contribution to the Festival of Britain in 1951. Bartlett Park has utilitarian boundary railings and entrances in Arcadia Place and Northumbria Street where the Celestial Church of Christ is located, built as St Saviour's Church in 1873/4. Canary Wharf dominates the skyline to the south.
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Basing Hill Park is a small park on land that was open fields until the 1920s, but was then increasingly developed for housing. The recreation ground was laid out by 1936 to serve the growing population. The park is largely grassed with perimeter shrubs and trees, including a number of evergreen trees and conifers. Near the entrance on Hendon Way are tennis courts and 2 small built structures, adjacent to which is a small area of rose beds and concrete tubs. A tarmac path runs around the perimeter of the park.
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Battersea Bridge Gardens is a small riverside garden at the foot of Battersea Bridge created when the Thames was embanked to designs of Sir Joseph Bazalgette from 1869 The Embankment was completed as far as Battersea Bridge by 1874. Despite an Enabling Bill introduced by the LCC in 1896, due to local objections, the riverside west of the bridge was not embanked at that time. The garden has raised beds, seating, curved path, areas of grass and a number of trees including a mulberry tree. In 2005 a statue of James McNeill Whistler by Nicholas Dimbleby was erected in the garden, commissioned by the Chelsea Arts Club.
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* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens
Battersea Park is an early municipal park that opened to the public in 1854, the formal opening by Queen Victoria taking place in 1858. The park's original layout had a perimeter carriage drive, perimeter trees and shrubberies, grand tree-lined avenue, winding walks and a serpentine lake with Pulhamite rockwork. It was noted for its horticultural displays, particularly the Sub-tropical Garden supplied by plants grown in the park's greenhouses. There was a bandstand, bowling green and children's gymnasium, and on the east side an open grassed area for sports, now the Athletics Ground. Near this was an American Ground, now created as a nature reserve. A Woodland Walk was added in c.1904 and an Old English Garden in 1912. In 1951 15 hectares were laid out as the Festival Gardens for the Festival of Britain. Many of the park's C19th and C20th landscape features have been restored, funded principally through an HLF grant awarded in 1998, completed in 2004.
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Battishill Street Gardens were opened by Sir John Betjamin in 1975, but the site is of historic interest for the C19th stone frieze installed within the gardens. It was originally made for the Hall of Commerce in Threadneedle Street, which was demolished in 1922. It was given to Islington Council in 1974 for erection in the new Battishill Gardens.
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Baxter's Field is on sloping land that remained open land as housing gradually surrounded it from the late C19th. The OS Map of 1952/3 shows the north-west part in use for allotments, with playing fields to the south-east crossed by a line of trees, and provided with a drinking fountain, but it is unclear whether this was public open space or part of the adjacent Sydenham School grounds. By 1970 it all appears to be one site, crossed by a path on the line of the former boundary between allotments and playing field. A plaque erected by the Sydenham Society in 1980 at the west entrance gives information about George Baxter (1804-1867) after whom the park is named. Now sandwiched between suburban housing the park is largely grass with railed shrubberies, a few trees, a perimeter path and another path crossing the park between the entrances.
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Bayonne Road Estate is GLC housing for which plans exist from 1974 although it was not built until the 1980s. The estate landscaping has numerous trees, areas of grass and play areas, and includes a large open space opening onto Greyhound Road. A path runs diagonally across the grassed area with an avenue of weeping willows. At the focal point where pedestrian access to the various parts of the estate meet is a small hidden garden that has a pergola with climbing roses.
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Dating from the 1970s, Beaconsfield Gardens was a somewhat bland linear strip of amenity grassland along the main road, but it was transformed into pleasant public gardens in 2022 when the overgrown shrubbery was removed, thousands of bulbs planted, mown paths created and facilities for bees, insects and birds installed. The project was the work of Abundance London, a Chiswick-based community organisation, who continue to maintain the gardens working with volunteers. This area was once commonland close to the site of the Battle of Turnham Green in 1642 when the Royalists were routed by the Parliamentarians. Prior to the housing development that took place from the 1860s, the area had been used for grazing and orchards. Beaconsfield Road consisted of Victorian terraced housing and shops but these were demolished in the 1970s when a new Council housing estate was built on the west side of the road, the road curved to provide car parking for the new estate.
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Beaulieu Heights is on woodland that was once part of the Great North Wood before it formed the grounds of two large houses, Hazelwood and Beaulieu Lodge. Much of the land in the area was owned by the Archbishops of Canterbury. A map of 1870 shows woodland at that time of a very similar extent to that in the area today. Croydon Council purchased Hazelwood and Beaulieu Lodge from the Church Commissioners in 1938 and the park was opened to the public after WWII.
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Beaumont Square was laid out as part of the Beaumont Estate in the 1840s. The central garden was originally for the private use of residents but in the late C19th it was leased by the LCC and opened to the public. Beaumont Philosophical Institution used to be in the north-west corner of the square, founded in 1840 to provide 'intellectual improvement and rational recreation and amusement for people living in the East End of London'. In the 1980s the garden underwent major restoration and has planting displays in formal beds, rose beds and fine trees with a children's playground at the south end.
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Beaversfield Park was opened by the Mayor of Heston and Isleworth Borough Council on 8 June 1935, its name taken from the fields of Beavers Farm to the west of Hounslow Barracks on Beavers Lane. It was created to serve the rapidly growing population of Hounslow West, and its early facilities included bowling and putting greens, tennis courts and children's playground as well as horticultural features.