David Williams on ‘The Greening Of London’, September's meeting

Our speaker at our September meeting was David Williams on ‘The Greening Of London’. David is a registered City of London guide and lecturer who specialises in themed walks and talks about London’s history.

David started the talk with some facts and statistics on how green London is. It has the reputation of being a very green city. In fact 47% of London is green which includes parks, formal gardens, allotments, cemeteries, our house gardens and window boxes. Apparently, there are 741 allotment sites across London. The City of London (the square mile) is very affluent and funds lots of sites in other London Boroughs and the surrounding area including St James and Hyde Parks, Epping Forest and the Olympic Park.

Victoria Park in Hackney is believed to be the first public park. There are 7 large cemeteries around London including Highgate, which were created to accommodate the growth in the population of London.

We were also given lots of information about historical people and organisations that had an influence on London and it’s green spaces. The Worshipful Company of Gardeners is one of the livery companies of the City of London a philanthropic organisation which provides charitable work. Christopher Wren designed a plan to build a park all along the Embankment by the river Thames. It took 200 years to come to pass. Humphrey Repton, a famous landscape garden designer lived in Romford, Essex. He famously recorded his designs in little red books. Octavia Hill was one of the founders of the National Trust.

Professor Abrecrombie was a town planner was also a strong advocate for implementing ‘green belts’ to safeguard agricultural land from growing urbanisation which is very relevant to us today. Together with the architect JH Forshaw, they identified key problems such as overcrowding and poor housing in deprived neighbourhoods, traffic congestion and the inadequate provision of open space. Abercrombie and Forshaw’s recommendations included the separation of industry and housing, the enhancement of historical centres, an increase in open space and the creation of three ring roads to ensure the city’s functionality.

The talk gave us all food for thought on issues about the environment, our access to open spaces and the local planning processes.

 

Professor Abrecrombrie 

 

The Worshipful Company of Gardeners