London’s Pocket Parks: Stratford Park, E15

This pocket park near Stratford town centre can, sort of, be considered to be part of West Ham football club’s origin story.The area was still a mix of fields being slowly surrounded by expanding housing and industrial estates when some of the land was leased to Scottish shipowner Donald Currie in September 1892. He used the land to set up a company football club for his employees working in the docks.
Called the Castle Swifts, the football team only used the site for a year, as there was