Park of the week

144. King Square Garden 

This is a large municipal park in Clerkenwell, surrounded by tower blocks.

The area, mainly fields, was owned by St Bartholomew’s Hospital, who sold it to the Church Building Commission in 1822, to build a large church.  They also planned to develop the fields into middle-class housing. The development was a typical garden square, surrounded on three sides by decent housing and the church on the fourth.

It’s thought that Lenin stayed in King Square for a few weeks in 1907 while attending a conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

During World War II, the area was badly affected by bombs, with most of the houses surrounding it suffering damage, especially to the southeastern corner. The houses were cleared, and on three sides large council housing blocks built. The old roads around the square were removed and the square enlarged. The row of houses to the south was also demolished and replaced with parkland.

By 1996, the estate and the parkland were complete. The sports pitches were refurbished in 2010 and the playground areas revamped in 2011. Rebuilding work in 2016 uncovered a burial ground.

The park is now designated as a Site of Local Importance to Nature Conservation. In 2018, Islington’s first Word Garden opened in the park to celebrate the power of words and reading, inspired by stories and memories. It features special benches customised with poetry, a new games table and a new planting scheme. The new planting will add colour and fragrances, designed to enable people who have sensory impairments to enjoy spending time in the space. 

Part of the garden is paved, and the rest has grass, flowerbeds, shrubs and trees, including lime, London plane, horse chestnut and ornamental cherry. There’s also a community garden and a nature education area, a children’s playground, sand pit and a water play feature. It has toilets but no café.

Judith Field

King Square Garden, King Square, London EC1V 8DB