Grove Hall Park is a 1.19 ha public park in
Bow in the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...
,
East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
. It includes play areas, a ball games area, and a small walled memorial garden.
Grove Hall Park was opened as a
public park in 1909 following its purchase by the local authority in an auction in 1906. Previously the land had been in the possession of the Byas family, who had established Grove Hall Private Lunatic Asylum on the plot in 1820. This establishment primarily catered for ex-servicemen and was featured in
Charles Dickens' novel ''
Nicholas Nickleby'' (1839).
In 1878 it was the largest asylum in London with capacity for 443 inmates.
In 1930 the park was extended with land that had served as the garden for the St Catherine's Convent, Bow.
The former convent Church of Our Lady and St
Catherine of Siena, which opened in 1870, survives in Bow Road, but the
Dominican convent itself moved to
Stone, Staffordshire, in 1926.
[Taking Stock. Catholic Churches of England and Wales]
Retrieved 4 July 2014.
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External resources
* Photographs of Grove Hall Park in summer
* A description of Grove Hall in 1898, when it was still a lunatic asylum
Retrieved 4 July 2014.
References
{{coord, 51.5297, -0.0180, type:landmark_region:GB, format=dms, display=title
Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Bow, London