London's Pocket Parks: Ufton Gardens, N1

"This corner pocket park in Haggerston has a plural name, because it's actually two parks if you look closely. It sits on the corner of streets that were laid out in a housing development by Richard Benyon de Beauvoir in the 1840s, with rows of well-to-do housing. The park was itself the site of a couple of houses, but then WWII came along, and on 1st November 1940, a direct hit on the corner badly damaged the houses in the area."

"Post-war rebuilding to the south of the park in the mid-1960s saw the remaining houses replaced with tower blocks, and for many years, the area where the park is today was used for temporary housing - likely portacabins. Later, this was cleared away as well, and the space was laid out as a pocket park. The other side of the road was also cleared."

"Up to a few years ago, the main park was a fairly bland space, mainly some benches around a wide path, some lawn and trees and not much else. Today, it's structurally the same, but there's a lot more planting around the edges and the benches are painted with rainbows, giving the pocket park a new nickname of the Rainbow Park. It changed thanks to the pandemic, when locals with not much else to do started gardening the somewhat neglected space."

"Considering recent fights over low traffic neighbourhoods, it was the De Beauvoir Association that both campaigned to stop more houses being replaced with tower blocks in the 1960s, but also to introduce low-traffic networks. Side roads were closed off or entrances narrowed, as a temporary measure, and made permanent in the 1970s. And in 2023, the road between the two parks was slightly reduced to make space for Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and cycle racks."

Ufton Gardens occupies a corner of Haggerston laid out in the 1840s by Richard Benyon de Beauvoir as well-to-do housing. A direct hit on 1 November 1940 badly damaged corner houses, and post-war rebuilding in the mid-1960s replaced remaining houses south of the site with tower blocks. The present pocket park was created after temporary housing on the site was cleared. The opposite tarmacked games area forms the second garden of Ufton Gardens. Pandemic-era community gardening added edge planting and rainbow-painted benches, creating a regular monthly meet-up. Low-traffic measures date to the 1970s; 2023 works added SuDS and cycle racks.

Read at ianVisits