Brockwell Park is in my heart!

In the last few weeks I have been fortunate to be living practically across the road from Brockwell Park in South London, one of many beautiful parks, largely unknown to outsiders, which adorn London neighbourhoods. In the many years I have known the area I had foolishly never bothered to visit it, thinking it was just another green space; I was wrong.

Brockwell Park is a truly superb space available to all from 07:30 and until 15 minutes before sunset (there is a schedule, updated and posted regularly by the gates), more obviously appreciated in the summer months with the sun shining but, in fact, widely used all year round. To my mind it is a perfect park, large but not enormous, beautiful but not ornate, simply laid out, spacious  and accommodating to almost all. Within one finds ancient and young trees, shrubbery, lakes, a playground and even a miniature railway, all linked by a discreet network of pathways enabling the visitor to either hasten from A to B or meander about. Many runners - my corpulent self among them - often use the path that encircles the park close to its outer perimeter in order to increase the distance achieved.

But the cherry on the cake is Brockwell Lido, an open air swimming pool complex (featuring an olympic-size swimming pool) built in Art Deco style in 1937, since modernised and open to all throughout the year (caution: it is unheated!), and much appreciated; alas I have yet to use it, so you will have to wait a bit for a first hand account, though I'm told it's delightful. The local council, owners of Brockwell Park, tried to do away with the Lido on the grounds of cost in 1990 (to my mind there may have also been a 'class' element to this, as swimming facilities may have been regarded as 'for the privileged or bourgeois') but ended up bowing to local pressure and reopened it a few years later, having updated the buildings and including enhanced fitness facilities. It appears to operate successfully to the delight of locals and visitors alike.

Brockwell Hall sits in the grounds at the highest point, master of all it surveys, and houses a cafe providing a useful service for visitors to the park, if a bit of a comedown for the building. Having said that and despite its Grade 2* listing the building is, to my eyes, relatively ordinary and undistinguished on the outside, built on a modest scale in a superb setting in the early 19th century as - and this is hard to credit today surveying its urban surroundings - a country retreat for a wealthy glass merchant! The house and its land were purchased in 1891 by the LCC (London County Council, defunct since the 1960s) and therefore saved, with more acreage added later to produce the current park. Of course many other country houses, often much more important, suffered far worse fates, including demolition, when they ceased to be relevant and became unable to survive after WW2, so we should be grateful for any that remain, however downgraded, and at least a cafe is an important local amenity. The attraction for me here is not found in the house, in any case,  but is in the almost perfect setting replete with ancient trees and green open spaces - in Brockwell Park England truly is a green and pleasant land, even if up the road lie the drab expanses of inner city grey buildings, together with assorted towers of council estates!

This is not a park on the grand scale of the Royal Parks in central London, nothing like as formal or fussy and far more relaxed. It whisks the visitor away to the countryside almost immediately one steps within despite the teeming traffic just outside parts of it and seduces not with its scale or grandeur, though it is neither small nor demure, but with its natural feel and elegance. It has become my favourite London park, displacing my beloved Regents Park on the northern side of which I lived for nearly twenty years.

Herne Hill railway station is two minutes walk from the entrance to the park and normally has a regular service so it is quite easy if you would like to visit it from other parts of London (but do check train schedules because they do alter, especially at weekends) and buses swarm all around from different parts of town, thus eliminating the last of your excuses. On a Sunday there's even a market in Herne Hill (by the station) with tasty food, amazing bread, organic and direct-from-farmer groceries and various trinkets, so things for all (most?) tastes, making the area even more attractive but busier. And there are plenty of local restaurants and welcoming hostelries awaiting you after your meanderings in the park to feed and water (ha-ha!) you in the best possible way, catering to all budgets.

Brockwell Park is a real treat for the senses and can be almost anything you want it to be for everyone, young or old. Visit and find out first hand, amigos, and please let me know how you get on. Those of you who can't be bothered to go have only yourselves to blame, so don't be jealous just because I happen to live but a stone's throw away; like the rolling stone that I have become over the last three or so years, I may soon be moving on again, or not. Whatever happens, part of my heart will always be meandering around the ancient trees of this amazing park.