It’s easy to miss such gardens amid London’s sensory overload, even for locals living in their easy reach. London’s Vauxhall neighborhood, for instance, is full of rollicking after-hours clubs and traffic-choked streets and bridges. Seek out relief in Bonnington Square Garden, a ragtag oasis of trees, vines, and flowering shrubs in a closed-off square of Victorian townhouses. This is a true diamond in the rough. Known in the 1970s as a warren for hippies and squatters, Bonnington Square reflects its eccentric past, planted as it is with a tangle of mimosa, beech, and mulberry trees as well as lavender, giant ferns, low-growing palms—and the appropriately vegan Bonnington Café.

via London’s Secret Gardens | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine.

Open: Saturday 10:00–17:00 + Sunday 10:00–17:00

Description:

The pleasure garden here was once a bombsite, then a derelict playground, before it was imaginatively re-designed by the Bonnington Square Garden Association, a group of local residents with backgrounds in film, art, design and horticulture.

Funded by grants and local sponsorship, the garden includes a 9-metre Industrial Revolution iron waterwheel, a huge Helping Hand sculpture and evocative, lush sub-tropical planting.

Further planting under the umbrella of the Paradise Project includes trees, groundcover planting, vines and endless street gardens. The pleasure garden is today regarded as one of the finest community gardens in London.

Activities: Refreshments, activities.

Entrance: On north side

Nearest postcode: SW8 1GA

Buses: 2, 36, 88, 185, 436 + 44, 77, 87, 156, 196, 322, 344

Station: Vauxhall

Cycle hire station: Kennington Lane Rail Bridge (Map)

Public toilets: Vauxhall Bus Station: Saturday 06:30-20:00 + Sunday 10:00-17:30

Dogs: Working assistance dogs only

via opensquares.org/detail/Bonnington.

Around 200 communal gardens, many that are not usually open to the public, will be taking part ranging from the historic to the traditional through to roof gardens and allotments. Among the green spaces open especially for Open Garden Squares

Weekend will be many of the much loved and popular gardens such as HMP Wormwood Scrubs; Eaton Square,  Bonnington Square, Cable Street Community Gardens, The Regent’s Park Allotment Garden, The Royal College of Physicians’ Medicinal Garden, The Kensington Roof Gardens, Canons Park – George V Memorial Garden – which will be celebrating its 75th Anniversary and the National Trust’s Carlyle’s House.

via propertytalk Live! – Open Garden Squares Weekend joins forces with The National Trust.

Our recent trip to check out the gardens in Bonnington Square left us sorely in need of refreshment – and fortunately the area is very well endowed on the catering front. On this occasion we chose to get our caffeine fix at Italo, a bustling, fragrant and by all accounts popular deli-cafe which kind of spills out on to the pavement when the weather is warm enough.

The place is run by a pedigree partnership of the Di Lieto family, who ran Di Lieto in Stockwell for over 20 years, and Charlie Boxer, erstwhile novelist and closet foodie (and, incidentally, father of Frank, of Frank’s Campari Bar fame). As corner delis go, this place has got it all: piles of beautifully packaged bits of Italy (with quite a lot from other bits of the Med thrown in), a great range of hot home-made foods and general lunch fodder, cheeses, salamis, and hand-crafted cakes. But it is the smell of coffee which entices and domninates – and jolly good coffee it is too.

The coffee is Caffe Dolce, a fairly exclusive blend being offered at just a few London outlets. Our expresso was a full and manly affair, with a pleasant nutty aftertaste. None of that weird fruitiness that you get with some coffee. All in all Italo is definitely worth a detour next time you swing by the Oval or are Vauxhall bound.

Italo is at 13, Bonnington Square SW8 1TE, and is open Monday – Friday, 9.30am – 7.45pm, and Saturdays from 9.30am to 2pm. Tel: 020 7450 3773.

via London Blend: Italo, Bonnington Square | Londonist.

This is the first spring in several years that isn’t marked by the reawakening of the garden in Peckham. It is a curious feeling to be without an established plot and for the tiny arc of treasures that I moved to my Somerset farm to not be in context. I am saved by my studio garden in Waterloo for the time I am in town. I would find it impossible to live in the city without engaging with something living and green and ever-changing in this hostile setting. I went through several steps to work my way up to the garden in Peckham: an alley in Bethnal Green, a roof garden in Bonnington Square and the community garden there we built. But the garden in Peckham has been my lifeline for the past 13 years.

via Beauty amid the sprawl | Life and style | The Observer.

If you are living in our neighbourhood and want to have an informal party in our space, please let us know your plans and we can try to make sure that you have a great time and the garden looks great at the end of it. Refundable deposit required donations invited.
Please contact us here.
  
The garden receives no financial support apart from donations, so we really do rely on them and the good will of all the volunteers who give their time so kindly to the garden. A big THANK YOU to all of who have helped us over the years.

Press

 
We’re featured in the Observer in Hidden corners: How can you find a secluded spot in our busiest parks? Ask the park keepers

Other havens in the capital include the incongruously lush pleasure garden in Vauxhall’s Bonnington Square.

We’re also featured in the Transport for London OPEN GARDEN SQUARES WEEKEND happening on 13-14 June 2009.

Recent books on Bonnington Square Gardens

The Good Gardens Guide and London’s Parks and Gardens.

Work days

Sat 23rd May 2-5pm                                                                                                  
Sat 30th May

Forthcoming

A clip from a recent feature on BBC Gardeners World.