Battersea Park is an 83 hectare (200 acre) green space in
BatterseaBattersea is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is an inner-city district located 2.9 miles south west of Charing Cross. It has a population of 75,651 people .-Geography:...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite
ChelseaChelsea is an area of south-west London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe...
. It was opened in 1858.
The park occupies a mix of marshland reclaimed from the Thames, and land formerly used for market gardens that served the London population.
Battersea fields, as it was once known, was once a popular spot for
duelAs practiced from the 11th to 20th centuries in Western societies, a duel is an engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with their combat doctrines. In the modern application, the term is applied to aerial warfare between fighter pilots...
ling.
Battersea Park is an 83 hectare (200 acre) green space in
BatterseaBattersea is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is an inner-city district located 2.9 miles south west of Charing Cross. It has a population of 75,651 people .-Geography:...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite
ChelseaChelsea is an area of south-west London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe...
. It was opened in 1858.
The park occupies a mix of marshland reclaimed from the Thames, and land formerly used for market gardens that served the London population.
History
Battersea fields, as it was once known, was once a popular spot for
duelAs practiced from the 11th to 20th centuries in Western societies, a duel is an engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with their combat doctrines. In the modern application, the term is applied to aerial warfare between fighter pilots...
ling. On March 21, 1829, the
Duke of WellingtonField Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century....
and the Earl of Winchilsea met on Battersea fields to settle a matter of honour. When it came time to fire, the Duke deliberately aimed his
duelling pistolA dueling pistol is a pistol used in a classical duel. As a general rule, they are single-shot flintlock or percussion black powder pistols which fire a lead musket ball...
wide and Winchilsea fired his into the air. Winchilsea later wrote the Duke a groveling apology.
Original designs for the park were laid out by Sir
James PennethorneSir James Pennethorne was a notable 19th century English architect and planner, particularly associated with buildings and parks in central London....
between 1846 and 1864, although the park as opened in 1858 varied somewhat from Pennethorne's vision.
Battersea Park hosted the first
footballAssociation football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball...
game played under the rules of the recently formed
Football AssociationThe Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
on 9 January 1864. The members of the opposing teams were chosen by the President of the FA (
A. PemberArthur Pember was a British sportsman, journalist and author, notable for being the first president of The Football Association, from 1863 to 1867, as a member of N.N. Club or N.N...
) and the Secretary (
E.C. MorleyEbenezer Cobb Morley was an English sportsman and is regarded as the father of The Football Association and modern Football....
) and included many well-known footballers of the day.
From the 1860s, Battersea Park was home to the leading amateur football team
Wanderers F.C.The Wanderers Football Club were an amateur football club based in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and were one of the leading clubs in English football in the 1860s and 1870s. They are most notable for having won the first ever FA Cup final, in 1872, and the competition another...
, winners of the first-ever FA Cup in 1872. One team they are known to have played against at Battersea was
Sheffield F.C.Sheffield Football Club, commonly referred to as simply Sheffield F.C., Sheffield Club or Sheffield, are an English football club from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The club are most noted for the fact that they are the world's oldest club now playing Association football, founded in 1857...
in the 1860s. The Wanderers are planning to reform, although it is unknown whether Battersea Park will be used as their home ground again.
The Festival Gardens
In 1951 the park was transformed into the "Festival Gardens" as part of the
Festival of BritainThe Festival of Britain was a national exhibition which opened in London and around Britain in May 1951. The official opening was on 3 May. The principal exhibition site was on the South Bank Site, London of the River Thames near Waterloo Station...
celebrations. As well as a new water-garden and fountains, new features included a "Tree-Walk" which consisted of a series of raised wooden walkways linked together by
tree houseTree houses, treehouses, or tree forts, are buildings constructed among the branches, around or next to the trunk of one or more mature trees, and are raised above the ground...
-like platforms suspended amongst the branches of a number of trees.
Popular attractions included the Guinness Clock, designed by Jan Le Witt and George Him, and the
Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch RailwayThe Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway was a pleasure railway in Battersea Park. It was originally constructed in relation to Festival of Britain events on the South Bank and was designed by Frederick Roland Emett....
.
Battersea fun fair
Another part of the transformation was the addition of Battersea Fun Fair: rollercoasters, swings, roundabouts and general fun for all the family.
The fun fair's most spectacular ride was a rollercoaster called
The Big Dipper, which opened in 1951. It was of wooden construction and suffered a major fire in 1970. It was permanently closed down in 1972 after five children were killed and thirteen others injured in an accident on 30 May 1972 when one of the trains became detached from the haulage rope, before derailing and falling to the ground. The lack of a main attraction led to the decline in the popularity of the fun fair and its eventual closure in 1977.
After the closure, the "Jetstream" ride was sold to Trusthouse Forte, the then owners of
Belle Vue Zoological GardensBelle Vue Zoological Gardens was a large zoo, amusement park, exhibition hall complex and speedway stadium located in Belle Vue, West Gorton, Manchester, England. The Gardens opened in 1836 and developed into one of the most popular attractions in the north of England...
.
Current features in the park
The former site of the fair was levelled and became a site for travelling fairs and exhibitions, and is currently the site of
Battersea Evolution, formerly known as the
Battersea Park Events Arena.
The park is home to a small children's zoo, a boating lake, a bandstand, and several all-weather outdoor sporting facilities including tennis courts, a running track and football pitches.
The park is also the site of the London
Peace PagodaA Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist stupa designed to provide a focus for people of all races and creeds, and to help unite them in their search for world peace. Most have been built under the guidance of Nichidatsu Fujii , a Buddhist monk from Japan and founder of the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist Order...
, erected amidst some controversy in 1985, during
Ken LivingstoneKenneth Robert Livingstone is an English politician; he has twice held the leading political role in London local government, firstly as Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986 by the government of Margaret Thatcher, and secondly as the first Mayor of...
's tenure as leader of the now abolished
Greater London CouncilThe Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area.-Creation:...
. Also in 1985, a replica of the bronze statue of a dog that was the focal point of the historic vivisection-related
Brown Dog affairThe Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration of University of London medical lectures by Swedish women activists, pitched battles between medical students and the police, police protection for...
was erected in this park.
Over the course of 2002-4, the park underwent an £11m refurbishment funded in part by the
Heritage Lottery FundThe Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
, and was re-opened on 4 June 2004 by
Prince PhillipThe Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Philip was originally a royal prince of Greece and Denmark, and thus a member of the Danish-German House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, but renounced these titles shortly before his marriage and adopted the...
.
"Meet Me in Battersea Park"
The Park was featured in
Petula ClarkPetula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
's 1954 single "Meet Me In Battersea Park". The song was co-authored by Clark's father, Leslie, and her accompanist, Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson and also David Valentine (the pen name of David Lavender). It was also the title of a 2001 boxset focusing on this early part of Petula's career.
The park was also featured in the 1960s film "Wrong Arm of the Law".
Nearby train stations
- Battersea Park
Battersea Park is a suburban railway station in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is by Battersea Park itself, and is not far from Battersea Power Station.It is between Victoria and Clapham Junction/Wandsworth Road....
- Queenstown Road (Battersea)
Queenstown Road is a railway station in South London, between Vauxhall and Clapham Junction. It is a short walk from Battersea Park station and Battersea Park...
Closed
- Battersea Park Road
Battersea Park Road railway station was a station in Battersea, South London opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in 1867. It closed in 1916 along with a number of inner-London stations on Main Line. Battersea Park railway station, a very nearby station on a different line out of London...
External links