Island Gardens *

Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.

Island Gardens were created on reclaimed marshland, its long river frontage the ‘only portion of river frontage not used for wharfage or commercial premises’. Negotiations for the purchase of this land for public open space began in 1849 when it was set aside in order to counter the rapid industrial development in the area. Prior to 1830 the area was practically uninhabited but the docks brought a large residential community. A scheme of 1859 proposed planting trees and shrubs to screen plots for a row of five new villas from the river, but this did not gain favour with prospective residents and only one villa was ever built. This was Osborne House, originally called Thames House, which was acquired by the LCC together with the planted area to the river and leased to Poplar Borough Council. It was used for a branch library until 1905 and was also the lodge for the caretaker of the new Island Gardens, for which the land was secured in 1894. The ground was very rough and neglected and paths had to be formed, the land drained and fenced, undertaken at a total cost £2,000. Near the centre was an ‘inexpensive bandstand’, and in one corner a gymnasium. The principal feature of the layout was the gravelled promenade of c. 700 ft, ‘liberally provided with seats’. This afforded fine views of Greenwich's Royal Naval Hospital (q.v.) across the river and in fact Sir Christopher Wren had singled out the Island Gardens site in c.1680 as being the best spot from which his hospital could be seen.

Island Gardens were opened ‘amid great enthusiasm’ on 3 August 1895 by Will Crooks (1852-1921), who had worked in the docks, had helped form the Poplar Labour League and had been elected to the new LCC in 1892. He became the first Labour Mayor of Poplar in 1901 and in 1903 became MP for Woolwich.

Although the park came to be known locally as 'Scrap Iron Park', an image of the early C20th shows well-planted flower beds near the entrance to Greenwich Foot Tunnel. The Foot Tunnel was opened in 1902, mainly for use by workers at West India Docks. It was designed by Sir Alexander Binnie in 1897 and built by Messrs. J Cochrane between 1899-1902. The 390 ft long tunnel is 16 m. below the high water mark, 10 m. below the low water mark with a diameter of 3.4 m and it cost £180,000 to build. Since it replaced the old ferry that had been used from 1676, the ferry operators had to be compensated for their loss of trade. The lifts were opened in 1904, these were later replaced in 1992 replicating the original interior.

Today the layout of the gardens includes a shrubbery along the north boundary enclosing a winding asphalt path with lawn to the south and numerous mature trees, with younger trees and shrubs such as holly, almond, flowering cherry and thorn. There are areas of rose beds to the east on the site of the earlier bowling green, and to the west beside the café and near the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Island Gardens were restored with an HLF grant in 1998.