Forster Memorial Park

In the C8th King Edgar (943–975) had granted the manor here to the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter’s in Ghent, Belgium, who owned it until 1415. It was then given by King Henry V to the new Carthusian Priory of Bethlehem in Shene, west London. The area remained in royal ownership until the C16th, later in private ownership. One of the first mentions of the Forster family was in 1798, when solicitor and part-time soldier John Forster raised volunteers for local defence during the Napoleonic Wars. The arrival of the railways in the 1890s brought housing development to much of the area, with stations opening at Bellingham and Hither Green although the area that is now the Downham Estate, built in the 1920s and 30s, remained farmland. By 1904 some 1,000 acres of land in Lewisham belonged to the Forster family, and from the C19th until 1914 the family lived at Southend Hall, which was near the junction of Whitefoot Lane and Bromley Road, and their land stretched to the east either side of Whitefoot Lane and they also acquired land in Bellingham. The Forster family chapel was built in 1824 and served the Southend parishioners before St John's was built in 1928, the land for which was also donated by the Forsters. Until WWI Southend was still largely undeveloped and was surrounded by trees, sports grounds and allotments. After the war Mr Forster gave part of his estate to the Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham for a public park in memory of his two sons, Alfred and John, who had died in the war. Welcomed by the council as much-needed public open space in an area rapidly being developed with new housing, the park was opened in 1922 by his daughter, the Hon. Mrs Dorothy Lubbock. Soon the large LCC Downham Estate (q.v.) would surround the park.

In 1937 the park was expanded to almost twice its size when an area to the north was added following a deal between the Forster Estate Company and the LCC. During WWII over 1,000 bombs fell on Lewisham between October 1940 and June 1941, with one high explosive device landing on what is now the football pitch in Forster Memorial Park. The central area of grassland is surrounded by ancient woodland and it could be a landscape of some antiquity, a field that was cleared leaving the woodland around as shelter, and some ash and hornbeam show signs of past coppicing. The park has some areas of formal bedding, a rockery, some decent oaks and flowering cherries, with vestigial oak woodland running north/south. Since 1999 LB Lewisham's Environmental Task Force has been restoring the ancient woodland to a more natural state by removing inappropriate planting, with funding from the Downham Pride SRB. The park, which at one time had a paddling pool and pitch and putt, now provides a skate park, BMX track and new playgrounds.

The Friends of Forster Memorial Park was formed in November 2016 by a group of local volunteers, who work to improve the park. Fundraising from Phoenix Housing Association, Whitefoot Assembly, Lewisham Greening Fund, Co-op Local Community Fund and Sevenfields Primary Care Network has enabled a number of projects such as new nature and wildlife signage, additional seating outside the park cafe, a table tennis table and cricket surface and an outside classroom for Forest School. In 2022 a Sensory Garden and Children's Trim Trail were underway, and on 22 July 2022, the park celebrated its centenary with an Open Day. The Friends organises numerous activities and events throughout the year.