Working with The City Centre and the City of London Corporation, artist Rebecca Louise Law has created ‘The City Garden’, a site-specific installation of natural materials inspired by some of the 200 open spaces within the City. This map features all of the 34 gardens that are represented in the exhibition and a suggested route that takes you from St Botolph Bishopsgate in the east to the Temple Gardens in the west. From blitz gardens and Wren churchyards to private havens for City employees, this map will give you an understanding of the complexities of the City’s network of open spaces. Far from a concrete jungle, the City has a wealth of historic and contemporary spaces for the public and workers to enjoy with well thought out planting schemes that defy a range of inhospitable and historic barriers.
The City Centre is the place to come to learn all about the Square Mile – the unsurpassed heritage of its built environment; its present offer as a world class financial and business centre; its unique collection of cultural institutions and its exciting future as a vibrant, forward-looking place. Featuring a series of exhibitions, installations and events, The City Centre documents the make-up of the City – it’s cultural life; the business community; its places and spaces; the way it is run today and its plans for the future. Alongside that is a state of the art interactive model of the City’s current and future built environment.
St Botolph Bishopsgate
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The City Garden Map
St Botolph Bishopsgate This churchyard was one of the first to be made into a public garden in 1863, following the Burial Act of 1852 and its subsequent revisions that led to the closure of many overcrowded churchyards in London. A central paved path runs through the churchyard garden, with two ornamental overthrows with lamps across it believed to have been railings removed from the original London Bridge. Either side of the path are lawns with a number of shrubs, trees and tombs as well as seating and tennis courts. Close to the garden’s Bishopsgate entrance is a gothic memorial cross. This is believed to be the first memorial of the Great War to be set up in England, erected in 1916 following the Battle of Jutland and the death of Lord Kitchener.
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London Wall Place
The City Garden Map
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London Wall Place
The City Centre T: +44 (0)207 6008 362 W: thecitycentre.london E: thecitycentre@cityoflondon.gov.uk 80 Basinghall Street London EC2V 5AR Share your experiences: @The_CityCentre
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With special thanks to the City Gardens, Open Spaces department, The Barbers’ Company, The Brewers’ Company, The Girdlers’ Company, The Goldsmiths’ Company and The Plaisterers’ Company. The City Centre is available for hire, please contact us for rates, menus and further details The City Centre is run by New London Architecture on behalf of the City of London Corporation.
London Wall Place is a new destination, offering an acre of landscaped public realm set between two statement office buildings totalling 500,000 square feet. The development benefits from a close proximity to the Bank of England, the reinvigorated City retail environment of Cheapside, the cultural hub at the Barbican and is just metres from the Moorgate entrance to Crossrail, due for opening in 2018. The 45,000 square foot public realm features remains from
St Mary Aldermanbury
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During the Middle Ages this area was the hub of the wine trade, a tradition evoked by sensory flowers, shrubs and climbers, suggesting bouquets of wines, and a miniature vineyard on the terrace. Separated into three tiers, the garden contains wooden arbours, shaded seats and a large lawn. The garden is named after Fred Cleary who during the 1970’s was instrumental in encouraging the planting of trees and the creation of new gardens throughout the square mile. During the Blitz, the house which once stood here was destroyed exposing the cellars. A shoemaker called Joe Brandis decided that he would create a garden from the rubble, collecting mud from the river banks and transporting soil from his own garden in Walthamstow to the site. Next to the pergola is a bed of Yatsuka Tree peonies, presented to the City by the Japanese Island of Daikonjima as a symbol of goodwill in April 2006.
This garden includes the remains of the former church of St. Mary Aldermanbury with flower beds, a lawn and benches. The church was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. It was then gutted again during the Blitz in 1940, leaving only the walls. In 1966 the remains of the church were shipped to Fulton, Missouri, USA. The restored church now stands as a memorial to Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech made at Westminster College, Fulton, in 1946. The church and churchyard site was laid out as a public garden in 1970. A majestic bust of William Shakespeare stands in the garden as a memorial to his contemporaries Henry Condell and John Hemmings who were key figures in the printing of the playwright’s First Folio of works. Both actors are buried in the churchyard.
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St Dunstan In The East The Church of St Dunstan was originally built around 1100 and is a Grade I listed building. It was severely damaged in 1666 by the Great Fire of London. Rather than being completely rebuilt it was patched up and a steeple and tower was added in 16951701 by Sir Christopher Wren. The Church was again severely damaged in the Blitz of 1941. Wren’s tower and steeple survived the bombing. During the re-organisation of the Anglican Church after World War II it was decided not to rebuild St Dunstan. In 1967 the City of London decided to turn the remains into a public garden, which opened in 1970. Maintenance and improvement works took place in spring 2015 with new planting throughout the garden to revitalise this popular space.
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Whittington Garden The garden was named in honour of the City of London’s best known Lord Mayor Dick Whittington, who was buried in 1423 in the nearby church of St Michael Paternoster Royal which he built at his own expense. The garden was refurbished Whittington Garden
and redesigned in autumn 2005. The eastern end contains well established trees, with lawn and hedging enclosing the area on three sides. Two horsemen sit on granite plinths, sculpted by Cambellotti, which were given to the City of London by the Italian President on his state visit to the City in 2005. There are numerous versions of the traditional story, which tells how Whittington, a boy from a poor Gloucestershire family, sets out for London to make his fortune, accompanied by his cat. At first he meets with little success, and is tempted to return home. However, on his way out of the city, whilst climbing Highgate Hill, he hears the Bow Bells of London ringing, and believes they are sending him a message.
Postman’s Park
St Mary Aldermanbury
Christchurch Greyfriars Church Garden
the Roman city wall and medieval church, surrounded by delightful gardens, tranquil water features and suspended walkways that incorporate the Dioceses and Salter’s gardens. In addition, there are 35,000 square feet of roof gardens with excellent views across London and onto the park-like setting below. London Wall Place is a joint venture development between Brookfield and Oxford Properties and is due for completion in 2017.
Historically Smithfield Rotunda – or Smooth Field as it was known – was the site of grim public executions. Heretics, rebels and criminals were burnt, beheaded or boiled and in 1305 Scottish hero William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered here after being dragged to the site by a horse. Despite its gruesome past Smithfield Rotunda has been a peaceful public open space for 137 years. Today the garden provides a vital wildlife habitat. As part of the Playbuilder project natural play facilities were introduced to the garden for all ages to use. As part of this project new improved border planting was introduced to provide shrub cover for nesting birds and berries as a food source for birds throughout the seasons.
Smithfield Rotunda
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Bunhill Fields Burial Ground Bunhill Fields burial ground’s historic significance has been recognized by its designation as a grade II listed building, as part of the Bunhill Fields Burial ground and Finsbury Square conservation area. It is the last resting place for an estimated 120,000 bodies. The site has a long history as a burial ground, but is most significant for its Nonconformist connections, dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and the burial of prominent people including William Blake, Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan and Susannah Wesley. The significance of the burial ground is recognised by the designation of its historic landscape as a Grade I listed entry on the National Register of Parks and Gardens. Bunhill Fields also forms part of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground and Finsbury Square Conservation Area and has 75 listed tombs within its boundary. Bunhill Fields Burial Ground
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Smithfield Rotunda
2016 The City Garden App is available from the iTunes store.
Cleary Garden
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Rebecca Louise Law
Rebecca Louise Law
St Dunstan In The East
Christchurch Greyfriars Church Garden
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This scenic park acquired its name due to its popularity as a lunchtime garden with workers from the nearby old General Post Office. It is home to the famous Watts memorial, built in 1900 by Victorian painter and philanthropist GF Watts (1817-1904). Watts was a radical socialist with strong sympathies towards the urban poor whose living conditions were often dreadful. In 1887, he wrote to the Times proposing that a park commemorating ‘heroic men and women’ who had given their lives attempting to save others would be a worthy way to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee year. This eventually took the form of the Watts Gallery in Postman’s Park. The park contains a variety of important habitats for wildlife, including a pond, shrub borders, and log piles built by a local school, the Lyceum, to create dead wood habitat for wildlife including Stag Beetle Larvae. The Garden is also home to the ‘Brookfield Bug Buddies’ insect hotel.
In October 1555 the Clerk of the Barber Surgeon’s Livery Company was given an allowance for improving the grounds, and over the next 40 years 100 sweet briars, rosemary, strawberry plants, violets and vines made up the first garden on site. In 1666 the garden prevented the Great Fire from reaching the Anatomical Theatre, though the rest of the hall was lost. In October 1967 Past Master Sir John McNee proposed that the
Postman’s Park
The Barbers’ Physic Garden
Barber Surgeons’ Physic Garden
London Wall, Noble Street
City Corporation create a physic garden. The current Physic Garden is on the site of the 13th bastion of the 21 bastions built by Emperor Hadrian in AD 122. It was constructed on a derelict bomb site in 1987, on the initiative of Past-Master Sir Francis Avery Jones. The design of the garden aims to present a broad view of the way in which plants have been used, from the earliest times to the present day, in relation to both the practice of medicine and surgery and to the use of plants in domestic and civic environments.
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London Wall, Noble Street This sunken garden was built in the early 1970s adjacent to the Plaisterers’ Hall and updated in 2002. The Noble Street name comes from that of a C14th landowner, Thomas Noble; properties here suffered heavy bomb damage in World War II and the garden is an excavated site within which are remains of the old Roman Wall. The garden is laid out with grass, seating, and some planting, with creepers growing over the remains of the Roman wall; the Plaisterers’ Hall formerly opened onto the north part of the garden, with balustrading surmounted by urns at intervals along the boundary with the former hall, now demolished. The south part of the garden had some public access. The Worshipful Company of Plaisterers was incorporated in 1501 and its original hall was built in 1556 in Addle Hill off Carter Lane, rebuilt first after the Great Fire of 1666 and then in 1882 after another fire.
In the Middle Ages this was the site of a Franciscan monastery. Following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII it was converted for use as a parish church and in 1429 Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor, founded a library here. A major overhaul of the gardens took place in 2011, when the garden was stripped of all its planting. The new planting design was implemented to reflect current trends in garden planting and to increase biodiversity. The wooden towers within the planting, which replicate the original Church pillars, act as Rose arboreta throughout the Summer.
St Andrew Holborn
Beech Gardens
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Beech Gardens Professor Nigel Dunnett was commissioned by the City Corporation to develop new gardens and plantings North West of the Barbican after waterproofing works had been carried out. The new gardens, which had to respect the listed features and layout, provided an exciting opportunity to maximise a range of benefits such as increasing the biodiversity and aesthetic value, whilst meeting the challenging site conditions of this ‘podium’ landscape, including exposure and a wide range of microclimates. Crucially, the gardens are a pioneering example of a radical transformation of the public realm to meet the challenges posted by climate change and to create a more sustainable approach to the urban landscape. The planting scheme includes 22,000 herbaceous plants to provide colour and interest throughout the flowering season and fourteen new multi-stemmed trees to provide structure and a linear aspect to the garden.
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St Andrew Holborn The church of St Andrew survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, saved by a last minute change in wind direction, but because it was already in a bad state of repair Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt it anyway. The church was all but demolished during the Blitz and the City decided after much discussion that it should be rebuilt ‘stone for stone and brick for brick’. The refurbishments of the gardens were completed in 2015. These improvements include a fully accessible entrance to the Church and gardens, a new boundary wall and metal railings, improved paving ,seating and new garden planting. A variety of mixed shrubs and herbaceous planting concentrates on colour, form and bio-diversity.