London’s Pocket Parks: Bonnington Square Pleasure Garden, SW8

This pocket park near the Oval has a most unusual history involving railways, squats, protests and genteel accommodation.The park sits on the corner of a block of houses laid out in the 1870s on land that was part of the Hawbey Estate, almost as a roundabout filled with houses, and was originally intended to be housing for railway workers.
OS Map 1897 – pocket park highlighted in red.
However, many railway workers preferred a pension and to pay for their own homes, so the railway cottages