Park of the week

103. Bernays Gardens

This garden is in Church Road, Stanmore. I found it when I got lost trying to drive to another open space. Waze had led me up a private road to the wrong place, Maps kept telling me I'd arrived, and I was on my way home when I drove past the garden. It is named after the Bernays family, of whom Leopold and later Stewart Bernays were rectors of Stanmore parish church, next door. 

The garden is on the site of an old Manor House, built in a mock Tudor design by a local property developer in 1930. He planned to make the house self-sufficient with a small farm, and a row of buildings beside the gardens today are still known as the cowsheds. He was fond of inscriptions and inscribed on the beam above the entrance lodge ‘Welcome ever smiles and farewell goes out sighing.’ The main building is known as Cowman’s Cottage, and has a moral statement carved on a wooden plaque on the side elevation: ‘Children of our hearts learn from flowers that grown in golden years.’

Unfortunately, after spending over £100,000 on the project, he had to sell up after he was declared bankrupt. During World War II the gardens were used for allotments. In the nineteen forties the land was bought by Harrow Council and laid out as a public park. The high walls surrounding the garden date from the 19th century and are Grade II listed.

The garden was restored and is maintained by the Bernays Gardens Community Group, who reinstated one of the flower beds as a rose bed, and planted rose bushes, daffodils, poppies, shrubs and plants. They have installed bat boxes, bird nesting boxes and bee/bug boxes, and have created woodpiles to make areas more suitable for wildlife.

There are picnic benches and plenty of places to sit. There is no café or toilets. Parking is a matter of luck – we found a space right outside on the main road. The site is open from 7.30am - dusk.

Judith Field

Bernays Gardens, Old Church Lane Church Road, Stanmore HA7 2QX