Park of the week

133. Bury Lodge Gardens

Bury Lodge Gardens is an ornamental park in Enfield, a hidden quiet place close to the very busy A10. It’s on the site previously occupied by Bury Lodge, a timber-framed house dating from medieval times. The house was demolished in 1936. The layout of the gardens and award-winning rose beds, as established by Enfield Council in the nineteen thirties, has been preserved and in the grounds is an outdoor chessboard (bring your own pieces) constructed from kitchen tiles salvaged from the house.

The park is three parts. The first section is landscaped, with a walled garden, the second is a large open grassed space and the third is a children’s playground. There are plenty of benches and the park is bigger than it seems to be.
It has many rose beds (4700 roses were planted when the park was first opened), with long borders and other smaller flower beds, and a lily pond surrounded by pergola walks. These are covered with wisteria if you go at the right time of year, which we didn’t, but there were lots of snowdrops to be seen.  A circular millstone from the house is set into the paving under the pergola closest to the entrance of the park. 

The Friends of Bury Lodge Gardens work in the park every Wednesday morning. There are tarmacked paths all around the edge. Along the southern boundary is Salmon's Brook and to the east is a bowling green. A variety of trees including eucalyptus are found in the park. There are toilets but no café. There isn’t a car park, but we found space to park along the street.

Judith Field

Bury Lodge gardens, Bury Street West, London N9 9JN