The Pleasure Garden at Bonnington Square

Image: © Marathon Taken: 19 Oct 2021

Bonnington Square in Vauxhall is an amazing oasis to stumble across near to the high-rise towers of Vauxhall and area. It can be reached via a passageway through a house from Harleyford Road Community Garden and on the other side you reach a square of houses built in the 1870s in order to house railway workers. By the late 1970s, Bonnington Square was compulsorily purchased for the Inner London Education Authority, which intended to demolish it in order to build a new school. A Turkish shopkeeper in one of the buildings managed to prevent the demolition through legal means during the period in which all the houses' occupants were departing, and shortly afterward squatters began moving into the vacated buildings. It has a secret garden at the centre (known as the Pleasure Garden), leafy overgrown corners, vines climbing up the house fronts and both tropical and native trees planted in every available space. This is the entrance to the Pleasure Garden with the hand almost beckoning you in. The information board at the entrance can be seen at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6998018 More about the place can be seen at https://livinglondonhistory.com/the-fascinating-story-of-vauxhalls-secret-jungle-neighbourhood/ The writer of this post says that he has found one of his new secret spots in London and I agree.

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