Park of the week

171. Mint Street Park

This park is the largest green park in Bankside, on the southern bank of the Thames, to the east of the South Bank area where the arts venues are.  It’s a local play space and venue for community events, with gardens, lawns, a playground, outdoor gym and an open-air performance area. stage. It’s managed by the Bankside Open Spaces Trust.

When Charles Dickens was young, lodging in nearby Lant Street, he passed Mint Street on his way to work. The St. Saviour’s Union Workhouse at Mint Street is thought to have provided Dickens with the model for the scene in Oliver Twist where Oliver asks for more.

Mint Street Park was laid out on the site that the Evelina Hospital for Sick Children  occupied from 1869 to 1976, before moving to a new building next to St Thomas’ Hospital. The Evelina had been founded by Baron Frederick de Rothschild in memory of his wife Evelina, who died in premature childbirth in 1866. It was  founded to tackle the high rate of childhood diseases prevalent in the crowded streets of Bankside.

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After the hospital closed the buildings were demolished and the site had become a semi-derelict open space, with a reputation for crime and anti-social behaviour. Bankside Open Spaces Trust worked with the council and local people to transform it into the park. Improvements included new landscaping, access and lighting. Raised beds were created and planted by the gardening club working with Putting Down Roots, a project run by St Mungo's Association working with homeless people. There are also a planted rockery and borders and a large stag beetle loggery. 
A small area of roughland and scrub dominated by nettles, bramble, hawthorn and dog rose provides shelter and nesting habitat for common birds and invertebrates throughout the year.

Judith Field

Mint Street Park,  14 Weller Street, London SE1 1QU