Tabard Gardens

Merrick Square is named after Christopher Merrick who left land to Trinity House in 1661. The square of 32 houses was built from 1853-72 and overlooked a private garden, still enclosed by its original C19th cast iron railings. At each end of the garden are 2 concrete cast urns on plinths and trees include London plane, chestnut, lime, sycamore, laburnum and various shrubs. The central beds were replanted in 2000 under the supervision of the Museum of Garden History, now renamed the Garden Museum.

Trinity Church Square was laid out in 1824-32 on land belonging to the Corporation of Trinity House. Adjacent to the garden is the church of Holy Trinity, built in 1823-24, and since 1975 converted into the Henry Wood Hall for music rehearsal. The garden is private and laid out with lawn, shrubs, ornamental planting and mature plane trees. Within it is the statue of a king on a stone pedestal, late C14th in style, which was erected here by 1836 and may have once been in Westminster Hall. The garden has undergone re-planting in 2000 and in 2002 Trinity Street was closed to through-traffic.

Dickens’ Fields, formerly known as Dickens Square Park is a local park located off Falmouth Road, close to the Rockingham, Lawson and Trinity Newington housing estates. The LCC Rockingham Estate was built in the 1930s and included Dickens Square, although this road pre-dates the LCC estate and is shown on maps from the mid-C19th as Union Square. A number of the streets and terraces of housing here were cleared in the early 1970s and part of the area was laid out as public open space with Dickens Park dating from the 1980s. The need to improve the park, which had become overgrown and was felt to be unsafe, was under discussion for many years and it was eventually re-landscaped and re-opened on 1 September 2021 when it was renamed Dickens’ Fields. Within the park is the Anne Keane playground, named after a local resident who had campaigned for the development of the park.