Stonebridge Gardens

Stonebridge Gardens may have once been part of a field owned by a John Waxman in the C17th (Clarke). It takes its name from a stone bridge that crossed a tributary of the Hackney Brook known as Pigwell Stream, which also marked the division between the parishes of Hackney and Shoreditch. Hackney Brook formerly joined the River Lea at Old Ford, but disappeared after the Regent's Canal was cut, although it remained as a 'small, dry ditch' for some years. In 1883 the small triangular area in the north of the park today, comprising a quarter of an acre, was given as public open space to the Hackney Board of Works free of charge and was protected under the London Squares and Enclosures Preservation Act of 1906. In 1928 this was described as a 'triangular area enclosed by posts and rails and maintained as an asphalt playground with a number of trees around the border'. Since then this area has been largely paved and has an obelisk set in the middle, any inscription now quite worn away and obliterated. This is surrounded by a series of grassed mounds behind low brick walls that have niches for seats, and a number of planted tubs.

The rest of the park was largely created following post-war house clearance and has been landscaped for recreational use as playing fields, with some shrub and tree planting along the railway border. A concrete and mosaic snake play sculpture was constructed in 1981 by Free Form, leading to the park's nickname as Snake Park. Near the park to the south is Haggerston Parish Church of All Saints, which was built in 1855-6 to serve the new residents to the area following development of Sir William Middleton's estate in the 1840s. As part of the Play Pathfinder scheme the play area in Stonebridge Gardens was re-landscaped in 2010 with monkey bars, a sand pit, multiple person swings, a three person see-saw, hammocks and a trampoline.