Furnival Gardens (also spelt Furnivall Gardens) is a park in Hammersmith alongside the river Thames. It was once the location of the mouth of

Hammersmith Creek Hammersmith Creek was an outflow river of the Stamford Brook, and used to run through what is now King Street, into the Thames at the present-day site of Furnivall Gardens in Hammersmith. Until the early 19th century the creek was navigable ov ...

, which had an active fishing trade until about 200 years ago. The creek was filled in during 1936. In 1948, it was decided that there should be a public open space on bomb-damaged land between the river and the Great West Road, to coincide with the 1951

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

. The new riverside park was named after the scholar Dr

Frederick James Furnivall Frederick James Furnivall (4 February 1825 – 2 July 1910) was an English philologist, best known as one of the co-creators of the '' New English Dictionary''. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pio ...

, who founded what is now the

Furnivall Sculling Club Furnivall Sculling Club is a rowing club based on the Tideway in Hammersmith, London. It was for a time called Hammersmith Sculling Club. It was founded in 1896 by Frederick Furnivall, after whom the riverside Furnivall Gardens a few metres awa ...

in 1896. A garden area was created on what had been the Hammersmith Friends Meeting House burial ground, destroyed by a flying bomb in the war. In 1963, a street lamp that had formerly been in

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

was given by

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ger ...

, then Mayor of West Berlin, to mark Hammersmith's twinning with the Berlin (previously West Berlin) district of

Neukölln Neukölln () is one of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. It is located in the southeastern part from the city centre towards Berlin Schönefeld Airport. It was part of the former American sector under the Four-Power occupation of the city. It featu ...

. It now stands on the wall of Westcott Lodge, facing the gardens. Below it is a plaque which reads: "The lamp above this plaque was formerly used to light a street in West Berlin. It was presented by Herr Willi Brandt, Mayor of West Berlin to Councillor Stanley Atkins, L. P., The Worshipful the Mayor of Hammersmith, as a token of friendship between the two communities on the occasion of the Jumelage held in this Borough, 1st June 1963."

References

Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Common land in London {{London-geo-stub