Tigers in Southwark Park

Bermondsey and Rotherhithe have a beautiful city park.  Southwark Park is right on the boundary between the old boroughs and there used to be a lot of in-fighting between them over its management.  Now they are both part of Southwark and the park is listed Grade II.  With Kings Stairs Gardens across Jamaica Road this green lung goes right down to the river.   Surrounded by council flats it is still like being out in the countryside.

There is quite a lot of wildlife

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There is a bandstand from Queen Victoria's Great Exhibition, installed in 1884 and a drinking fountain..




There are two wonderful caryatids holding up nothing in the shrubbery. These come from Rotherhithe Old Town Hall, 1897, which was bombed in World War II.  In 1974 these were moved to the Heygate Estate, but now that huge council block has been demolished they are in the park

By 1885 a boating lake had been added, and there are still paddle boats for hire.

Near the lake is the oasis of Ada Salter's Garden.  Ada Salter was married to Dr. Alfred Salter.  They both worked tirelessly to improve the slums of Bermondsey, fighting disease and trying to improve the borough's housing and living spaces.  They planted the thousands of trees we still enjoy and created gren space wherever they could.  Ada became the first woman Labour Mayor in 1922, Alfred Salter became a Labour MP and both were Labour councillors.  The garden was created in memory of Ada Salter in 1934.

There are two art galleries showing pretty good exhibitions, a nice cafe, a good playground, a running track, lots of space for ball games and running around and a bowls club.  The park is used a lot by the locals especially mums with small children.

Across Jamaica Road on the Thames is Kings Stairs Gardens.  Edward III built a manor house here in the 14th century and it was used until Tudor times.  Later there was a working commercial pottery on the site.  The remains of the manor house are still there in the garden.   Here is an artist's idea of what the manor looked like.

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