We headed off first to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens or Spring Gardens, which hold quite an interesting history. The gardens opened in 1661, and were most popular during the early 1800's, with various entertainment activities including faires, hot air balloon ascents, fountains and fireworks. I found it to be quite a bland space, surrounded by housing and with the Vauxhall City Farm on one end. It didn't feel unsafe since there wasn't very much inthe way of shrub planting or hiding space but there was something about the absence of people during the day that made me think I would rather take a detour than walk through there at night. Either way it seemed well maintained and clean.
The City Farm is a great example of a community taking ownership of their environments to create a facility for their pleasure and purpose. The squatters on thsi site in the 70's grew their own vegetables and looked after livestock.
Our next stop was Harleyford Road Community Garden which links to Bonnington Square Gardens, both for me such inspirational community spaces. The central square of Bonnington Gardens was going to be turned into a car scrap yard after the war, and the local residents, a mix of squatters, home owners and tenants, joined forces to oppose the council's scrap yard decision and proposed a community garden. From its conception it was so successful, people living around the square started planting window boxes and greening the streets, creating bespoke street planters. Today it is a garden of Eden.....I was completely blown away at how beautiful it is.....the atmosphere is amazing, even in the last few days of autumn, the street is awash with leafyness. Brilliant precedent for greening streets, for the local community by the local community. A guy called Drake, local resident and landscape architect gave us an overview of the area, and what they had to deal with over the years with the council etc......the website is worth looking at too with some interesting stuff in the byelaws.
Finally we took the Tate to Tate boat which gave me time to take in the tight birch planting around the Tate Modern, a project of Vogt Landscape Architects who I worked for in the summer.
+ Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (Spring Gardens)
+Vauxhall City Farm
+ Gross Max
+ Bonnington Square Gardens
+ Harleyford Road Community Garden
+ Vogt Landscape Architects
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