Inventory Site Record

* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens

Myatt's Field Park is on land once part of the estate of the Minet family, who donated the site for a public park. It was laid out by the MPGA, designed by their landscape gardener Fanny Wilkinson, and then passed to the newly established LCC. It is named after Joseph Myatt, who had a market garden here. It was provided with gymnasia for boys and girls, a circular shelter, park keeper's lodge and greenhouses for the bedding displays, and soon had a bandstand. Restored in 2010, it retains its layout of serpentine paths, flower beds and mature trees, and continues to have seasonal bedding displays. More recent additions include a nature conservation area and wet play area.

Previous / Other name:

Myatt's Fields

Site location:

Calais Street/Knatchbull Road/Cormont Road

Postcode:

SE5 9RA

What 3 Words:

visits.policy.guilty

Type of site:

Public Park

Borough:

Lambeth

Open to public?

Yes

Opening times:

7.30am - 15 minutes before sunset. For Little Cat Café opening times check www.myattsfieldspark.info

Special conditions:

Facilities:

Playground with Water Play (10am-6pm); tennis courts; football pitch; toilets; Little Cat Café; Mulberry Centre children's building; Nature Conservation Area.

Events:

Numerous events throughout the year, including music on the bandstand, art and other events. Regular activities such as yoga, capoeira, pram walking. Gardening activities.

Public transport:

Tube: Oval (Northern) then bus. Rail: Brixton/Loughborough Junction. Bus: P5, 3, 36, 59, 185, 436.

Citymapper    
Google Map    
streetmap.co.uk

Research updated:

01/04/2011

Last minor changes:

19/07/2023

Please check with the site owner or manager for latest news. www.lambeth.gov.uk; www.myattsfieldspark.info

Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.

The park is on land that was within an estate of over 44 hectares that was purchased by Sir Wyndham Knatchbull in 1749, through a bequest from Baron Wyndham of Finglass, a former Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. In 1770 the estate was sold to Hughes Minet, who was descended from French Huguenot refugees fleeing religious persecution in the C17th. The Minet estate was farmland until it began to be developed for housing from 1815 onwards, particularly after Camberwell New Road was constructed in 1818. The Minets forbade commercial uses or public houses at the edge of their estate and for the benefit of the new residential community they provided a free library, the Minet Library, a parochial hall for St James' Church Camberwell, and the site for a public park. The site, Myatt's Fields, was so-called after Joseph Myatt, who had leased it for a market garden between 1818 and 1868 and who reputedly grew the best strawberries in London and also fine rhubarb.

Myatt's Fields was given by William Minet to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, who part funded its laying out at a cost of around £10,000, before presenting it to the newly formed London County Council. It opened to the public in April 1889. The design of the new park was by Miss Fanny Wilkinson, who was landscape gardener to the MPGA for some 19 years, over which period she designed over 75 public gardens in London, many of them disused burial grounds. It was laid out with gravelled serpentine paths, and planted with trees, grass, shrubbery and flower beds, with greenhouses and a circular shelter. It was surrounded by iron railings, with a park superintendent's lodge at the main entrance where there was a covered porch and ornamental wrought iron gates. Describing the park in 1898, Lt Col J J Sexby, Head of Parks of the LCC, refers to the 'massive and artistic gates, which are a decided ornament to the park' and the porch, no longer in place, as 'something after the style of a country lych-gate'. Facilities included a gymnasium each for boys and girls and by the late C19th there was an octagonal bandstand in place.

The park retains much of this original layout, with hedges or shrubbery inside the boundary railings and its four entrances have wrought iron gates, although one entrance was relocated in the mid C20th and the lodge is now a private residence. Serpentine paths lead between the entrances, around the central areas of lawn and to the park's bandstand and shelter, now referred to as the summerhouse. There are areas of annual bedding and rosebeds in the north-east section, foliage displays round the summerhouse and a heather garden in the southern section. Mature trees include two avenues of planes, groups of silver birch and individual acacia, weeping ash, thorn, catalpa, oak and chestnut. The site of the gymnasia became the children's playground.

In 2000 a group of park users began to discuss how the park could best be improved and in 2003 the Myatt's Fields Park Project Group was set up. The park has now been renovated at a cost of £3m, the work completed in 2010, when the benches, railings and paths were restored together with new facilities provided, which include a playground with water play, Little Cat Café, a Nature Conservation Area, and a children's building, the Mulberry Centre. The Nature Conservation Area has been open since 2009, set up on the former site of an old putting green and part of one of the tennis courts; it has a pond, orchard, wildflower meadow, willow play huts, and a bug house. The park also has a Greenhouse project with one large greenhouse and 5 large cold frames, recently renovated, where local people can participate in community gardening projects. Fruit and vegetables grown here supplies the park café.

Myatt's Fields Park was one of six parks in London achieving Local Favourite status in the UK's Favourite Parks 2022. In all 364 parks were nominated and over 30,000 votes were cast for cherished local green spaces. As well as winners in each of the home nations, those parks finishing in the top 20% of the public vote achieved 'Local Favourite' status, reflecting the love shown for them by their local communities.

Sources consulted:

EH Register: E Cecil 'London Parks and Gardens' 1907; Bridget Cherry & Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 2: South (Penguin) 1999; J J Sexby 'The Municipal Parks, Gardens and Open Spaces of London', 1898; Ian Yarham, Michael Waite, Andrew Simpson, Niall Machin, 'Nature Conservation in Lambeth', Ecology Handbook 26 (London Ecology Unit), 1994; Marie Draper 'Lambeth's Open Spaces, An historical account', LB Lambeth 1979; Elizabeth Crawford, 'Enterprising Women: The Garretts and their Circle' (Francis Boutle Publishers, 2nd ed. 2009). See article in The London Gardener vol 10, 2004/5 by Rebecca Preston.
See fieldsintrust website for UK's Favourite Parks 2022: https://www.fieldsintrust.org/favourite-parks/local-favourites?utm_campaign=1019662_UKFP%20winner%20announcement%20V2%20existing%20contacts&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Fields%20in%20Trust&dm_i=6LZN,LURY,1770MD,2OPZP,1&utm_campaign=1019662_UKFP%20winner%20announcement%20V2%20existing%20contacts&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Fields%20in%20Trust&dm_i=6LZN,LURY,1770MD,2OPZP,1#london

Grid ref:

TQ317766 (531785,176668)

Size in hectares:

5.12

Site ownership:

LB Lambeth

Site management:

Environment Directorate, Parks and Greenspaces Unit (Team Lambeth). Friends of Myatt's Fields Park/Minet Road Conservation Association

Date(s):

1889

Designer(s):

MPGA (Fanny Wilkinson)

Listed structures:

LBII: Bandstand; St James's Church

On National Heritage List for England (NHLE), Parks & Gardens:

Yes

NHLE grade:

Grade II

Registered common or village green on Commons Registration Act 1965:

No

Protected under London Squares Preservation Act 1931:

No

Local Authority Data

The information below is taken from the relevant Local Authority's planning legislation, which was correct at the time of research but may have been amended in the interim. Please check with the Local Authority for latest planning information.

On Local List:

No

In Conservation Area:

Yes

Conservation Area name:

Minet Estate

Tree Preservation Order:

No

Nature Conservation Area:

No

Green Belt:

No

Metropolitan Open Land:

No

Special Policy Area:

No

Other LA designation:

Historic Parks and Gardens. Park

Myatt's Fields - Bandstand - Photo: Colin Wing
Date taken: 23/06/20 09:06

Click a photo to enlarge.

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