Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park is a public park in Kennington, South

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Maintained by the

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas ...

, it is bounded by

Lambeth Road Lambeth Road is a road in Lambeth (to the west) and Southwark (to the east), London running between Lambeth Bridge over the River Thames at the western end and St George's Circus at the eastern end. The road is designated the A3203. The boro ...

, Kennington Road,

St George's Road St George's Road is a one-way road in Southwark, London running between Westminster Bridge Road to the northwest and Elephant and Castle to the southeast. The direction of the vehicular traffic is from Elephant and Castle to Westminster Bridge ...

and Brook Drive. It covers an area of . The grounds of the park surround its central feature, the Imperial War Museum London.

History

The park was opened in 1934 after the land was gifted to the 'splendid struggling mothers of Southwark' by

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, (26 April 1868 – 26 November 1940) was a leading British newspaper proprietor who owned Associated Newspapers Ltd. He is best known, like his brother Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Nort ...

. The park was named in remembrance of Rothermere's mother. The land had previously been the grounds of the Dog and Duck tavern and later the

Bethlem Hospital Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films and TV series, most notably ''Bedlam'', a 1946 film with Bo ...

, after which the

freehold Freehold may refer to: In real estate *Freehold (law), the tenure of property in fee simple * Customary freehold, a form of feudal tenure of land in England * Parson's freehold, where a Church of England rector or vicar of holds title to benefice ...

was purchased by Rothermere following the relocation of the hospital to Surrey. The hospital building, constructed between 1812 and 1814, was largely demolished, with the remaining central portion being leased to the government's

First Commissioner of Works The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and subsequent to 1922, within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ir ...

to accommodate the Imperial War Museum. The park received its first

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy, ...

in 2012. The award was renewed in 2013.

Sports facilities

The park's sports facilities include

five-a-side football Five-a-side football is a version of minifootball, in which each team fields five players (four outfield players and a goalkeeper). Other differences from football include a smaller pitch, smaller goals, and a reduced game duration. Matches are ...

pitches, and

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

courts. The provision of these facilities was supported by a £1.4 million grant from the

Big Lottery Fund The National Lottery Community Fund, legally named the Big Lottery Fund, is a non-departmental public body responsible for distributing funds raised by the National Lottery for "good causes". Since 2004 it has awarded over £9 billion to ...

Memorials

On 9 May 1999 a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

War Memorial was unveiled by the

Secretary of State for Defence The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a membe ...

George Robertson, and the Russian ambassador Yuri Fokine. The date of the unveiling was significant as 9 May is marked as

Victory Day Victory Day is a commonly used name for public holidays in various countries, where it commemorates a nation's triumph over a hostile force in a war or the liberation of a country from hostile occupation. In many cases, multiple countries may ob ...

in Russia. Since its inauguration the memorial has been the site of commemorations of Victory Day, Holocaust Memorial Day and

Remembrance Sunday Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in Nov ...

. Also in May 1999 the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

opened a Tibetan Peace Garden, commissioned by the Tibet Foundation, in the park. The garden features a bronze cast of the

Kalachakra ''Kālacakra'' () is a polysemic term in Vajrayana Buddhism that means " wheel of time" or "time cycles". "''Kālacakra''" is also the name of a series of Buddhist texts and a major practice lineage in Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The ...

Mandala, contemporary western sculpture, and a pillar inscribed with a message from the Dalai Lama in English, Tibetan,

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

. On 30 October 2004, two ''

Araucaria araucana ''Araucaria araucana'' (commonly called the monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, piñonero, pewen or Chilean pine) is an evergreen tree growing to a trunk diameter of 1–1.5 m (3–5 ft) and a height of 30–40 m (100–130 ft). ...

'' ('monkey puzzle') trees were planted near the park's eastern gates in memory of two Chileans who were forcibly 'disappeared' in 1974 following a military coup in Chile. The plantings were part of the Chilean Human Rights International Project's 'Ecomemoria' campaign.

References

{{Authority control Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Southwark