Myatt's Fields Park is a 14-acre Victorian park in Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth in South London,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, 2.9 miles south-east of Charing Cross.

History

The majority of the area of Myatt's Fields belonged to the estate of Sir Hughes Minet, who in 1770 bought 118 acres of land from Sir Edward Knatchbull on the border of Camberwell and Lambeth. Minet was a third generation descendant of Isaac Minet, a French Huguenot refugee who had fled France following the 1685

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes The Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to practice their religion without s ...

. The names of some of the streets around the park, such as Calais Street and Cormont Road, refer to Minet's French connection. In 1889, Hughes Minet's descendant William Minet gave 14½ acres of land then in the parish of Camberwell to the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

to be used for a public park. Initially to be called Camberwell Park, the name Myatt’s Fields was settled on in 1889. In 1900 the irregular Lambeth/Camberwell boundary was tidied up, transferring the park from Camberwell to Lambeth. The

Metropolitan Public Gardens Association The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (also known as the MPGA) is a charity in London for the purposes of the preservation of public parks and gardens, established in 1882. It facilitated the creation of new public open spaces, including f ...

then spent some £10,000 on the layout of the park, and it was opened on 13 April 1889. In 1935, William Minet's daughter, Susan Minet, gave a further quarter of an acre of land near the junction of Knatchbull Road and Calais Street to the park. Minet family philanthropy also resulted in the construction on the adjacent Knatchbull Road of the neighbouring St James the Apostle church (now converted to flats), the Minet Library, and Longfield Hall, a community hall. The park was designed by Fanny Wilkinson, Britain's first professional woman landscape gardener. Wilkinson was assisted by Emmeline Sieveking, the daughter of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

's physician, Sir Edward Sieveking. It is named after Joseph Myatt, a tenant market gardener, who grew strawberries and rhubarb (for which he was famed) on the land in the 19th century. The park's

mulberry tree ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...

may date from the land's previous use as a market garden. In 2009, a £2.6m renovation of the park was completed with funding from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

and Lambeth Council, as well as £300,000 raised by the Myatt's Fields Park Project Group. The MFPPG is run by local volunteers and was chaired from 2000 until 2011 by Lindsay Avebury (the daughter of

Pamela Hansford Johnson Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow, (29 May 1912 – 18 June 1981) was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic. Life Hansford Johnson was born in London. Her mother, Amy Clotilda Howson, was a singer and actress, ...

and the wife of Eric Lubbock). The current chair is Marjorie Landels. Minet Estate in 1885

Both the park itself and the bandstand in it are Grade II listed. The singer

Florence Welch Florence Leontine Mary Welch (born 28 August 1986) is an English singer, the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Florence and the Machine. The band's debut studio album, ''Lungs'' (2009), topped the UK Albums Chart and wo ...

of Florence and the Machine grew up near the park and has said that her earliest memory was of climbing trees in the park. The park was once described by former Poet Laureate John Betjeman as a "strangely beautiful place."

Features

The Park includes a

bandstand A bandstand (sometimes music kiosk) is a circular, semicircular or polygonal structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an orname ...

, summerhouse, and café. It is also home to tennis courts, a football pitch, basketball court, picnic area, a children's playground and a community greenhouse. In 2015, Myatt's Field was voted the 9th best park in the UK in a public vote organised by the

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, ...

References

External links

Information on the park from Lambeth CouncilNature Area Management PlanBritish History Online - Myatt's Fields, Denmark Hill and Herne Hill
{{Parks and open spaces in London Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Lambeth Camberwell