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Burgess Park is a publicpark situated inCamberwell in theLondon Borough of Southwark. It is close toWalworth to the north,Bermondsey to the east andPeckham to the south. At 56 hectares (140 acres), it isthe largest park in the borough.[1]
Unlike most otherparks in London, Burgess Park was carved out of a highly built-up area ofLondon. Virtually all the land now occupied by the park was previously used for housing, industry and transport infrastructure.
Houses were purchased and demolished to form the park. The idea for Burgess Park came out of the 1943Abercrombie plan for open spaces inLondon, and the land has been gradually assembled and landscaped over the subsequent decades, first by theLondon County Council, then theGreater London Council and since the mid-1980s theLondon Borough of Southwark. The earliest component of what is now Burgess Park pre-dates the Abercrombie Plan: the King George's Field, opened in 1938 on the site of a former baths and swimming pool, at theAddington Square end of the park.[2]
The early stages of the expansion of the park led to the incorporation of the North Camberwell Open Space in 1965. The open space included the churchyard of St George's,Camberwell, which had been designed byFrancis Bedford in 1824. The churchyard had ceased to be used for burials in 1856. In 1886, it was acquired as a public open space by theMetropolitan Public Gardens Association and laid out as a public garden with funds provided byViscountess Ossington.Catherine Gladstone opened the garden in 1887. After the churchyard was incorporated into the North Camberwell Open Space, it was re-landscaped in 1966. However, the church closed in 1970 and was allowed to become derelict. When the church was converted to private housing in 1994, most of the garden was allowed to become a private garden.[3]
An important stage in the construction of the park was the closure of theGrand Surrey Canal in the early 1970s, which terminated at Addington Wharf on Camberwell Road. The canal served theSurrey Commercial Docks, and the area near Camberwell was full of 19th-century streets, houses and industrial buildings (including anR White'sginger beer factory and the Watkins Bible Factory[4]), many of which had suffered heavy bomb damage duringWWII. The stretch of canal now incorporated in the park is the site ofCamberwell Wharf, which was virtually straight. Other land incorporated in the park was occupied by housing.
Named Burgess Park in 1973 (after CouncillorJessie Burgess,Camberwell's first female mayor), it is still incomplete and contains some former roads which have been stopped up but not yet grassed over. The boundaries of Burgess Park remain a matter of dispute, and because the park is unfinished, it is regularly the subject of proposals[citation needed] to build housing, schools or transport links of the sort that would never be contemplated in one of London's older parks of Victorian origin.
There are a large number oflisted buildings in the Park, remnants of the streets which once occupied the site: an early 19th centurylime kiln,[5] thePassmore Edwards library, baths and wash houses (the piers and railings of which are separately listed)[6][7] and the formeralmshouses in Chumleigh Gardens (which have three separate listings).[8][9][10] The whole of the Passmore Edwards building was listed as anasset of community value in 2014. The adjacent former church of St George designed by Bedford, now converted into flats, is also listed; some parts of its former churchyard form part of the park.[11] Its war memorial of Christ, head bowed, holding a crown of thorns, by the Danish artistArild Rosenkrantz, is also listed.[12]
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The library, baths and wash houses are occupied by the Lynn AC boxing club[13] and formerly by a theatre groupTheatre Delicatessen.[14] An external wall has a large mosaic of aCamberwell Beauty butterfly. The almshouses are occupied by offices and by a café. There are also several bridges, which once used to cross the canal.
Chumleigh Gardens, near the centre of the park, is a World Garden, with plants and landscaping designed to reflect the diversity of the surrounding population of this highly cosmopolitan portion of London. It was established in 1995, in the grounds of the former Female Friendly Society Asylum.[15]
Recent additions to the park includeSilent Raid, an art installation by Sally Hogarth commemoratingZeppelin raids on the local area in 1917[16] and a memorial to locally-bornJack Harvey VC.[17]
There is a thriving Friends of Burgess Park who also have an online heritage project on the park, Bridge To Nowhere. In the past, the park has played host to many festivals, including, in August, theCarnaval Del Pueblo, Europe's largest celebration ofLatin American culture.
In 2009, Burgess Park was one of 11 parks throughoutGreater London chosen to receive money for redevelopment by a public vote. The park received a grant of £2 million fromBoris Johnson,Mayor of London, as part of a London-wide competition, and the money was used to install better footpaths, additional lighting, refurbished public toilets and new play areas for children.[18] Subsequent plans existed to top this up to £6 million by Southwark Council, to ensure the renovation of the space.
Peckham BMX Club are based in the park and has trained several world-class riders including Olympic medallistKye Whyte.[19]
Other facilities include tennis courts, football pitches, a rugby field (winter) / cricket oval (summer), a bbq area, a sports centre, a nursery, a community art project, Art in the Park, a local rugby club, Southwark Tigers, and two playgrounds.[20] The park hosts a Saturday morning 5 kmParkRun.[21]
51°29′01″N0°04′55″W / 51.483576°N 0.081841°W /51.483576; -0.081841
