Parks, Gardens, Squares and Fields...Oh My

Private square, fenced-in greenery and a public garden atop a former boneyard

London is full of green spaces, and it's green spaces that make the city such an easy place in which to walk. On a 3/4 mile walk to work, there's a community open space, a public square, a private park for children only, and a formal, 300-year old legal complex that opens its gardens to the public from noon to 2:30pm. There's a world of difference between them all. Squares are typically private and fenced off for use only by surrounding residents, while a garden can be public or private, and larger parks refer to royal properties that have been converted for public access. One of the city's more curious traditions was the conversion of graveyards into parks as new cemeteries were developed in outer London. Nearly every public park was previously a cemetery with unreadable headstones pushed over to the sides. Family tombs are often left almost like picnic tables. In a nearby park is a towering, fenced-in tree whose base has grown up and over headstones placed there by Thomas Hardy, who as a young architect (who knew?), was overseeing the construction of a railroad line through an older cemetery.

Headstones lining a park walkway and the Thomas Hardy Tree