London’s back under restrictions meaning doors to many of the city’s institutions are once again closed. So, for the moment, here’s the next two in our countdown…
30. 10 small, ‘secret’ and historic gardens in central London…5. Seething Lane Garden…
Seething Lane Garden
Top posts of 2015 – A lost ‘castle’; Jack Cade and London; and, a garden in Seething Lane…
2016 is fast approaching and to celebrate, we’re looking back at the 10 most popular posts we published in 2015. Today, we look at numbers seven, six and five…
7. At number seven is a post we published in February as part of our ongoing Lost London series. In it we looked at the later history of the fortification known as Baynard’s Castle – Lost London – Baynard’s Castle (part 2)…
6. Another in our series on London’s ‘battlefields’ – this one, published in November looks at the role the city played in Jack Cade’s rebellion during King Henry VI’s reign – 10 London ‘battlefields’ – 4. Jack Cade’s rebellion…
5. Our fifth most popular post of 2015 was another in our series on gardens – 10 small, ‘secret’ and historic gardens in central London…5. Seething Lane Garden…
We’ll look at numbers four and three tomorrow…
10 small, ‘secret’ and historic gardens in central London…5. Seething Lane Garden…
This small, simply laid out garden in the City of London is redolent with history.
It was once the site of the Navy Office, the workplace of diarist Samuel Pepys, and it was in the garden of this building that he and Sir William Penn buried their wine and parmesan cheese for safety during the Great Fire of London in 1666.
The office survived the Great Fire but was, oddly enough, destroyed by fire only a few years later in 1673 (there is a blue plaque commemorating it in the garden) and a new office, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was built here in the early 1680s before it was demolished in 1788.
It’s due to its association with Pepys (who also lived in the street and was buried in the nearby church of St Olave Hart Street) that it boasts a bronze bust of him which was erected by the Samuel Pepys Club in 1983, designed by Karin Jonzen and funded by public subscription. It was presented to the garden by Fred Cleary who played an instrumental role in encouraging green spaces in the Square Mile in the 1970s.
The garden, which was laid out in about 1950, is also notable for its beds of red roses, planted to commemorate the deal struck in 1381 in which the Sir Robert Knollys was belatedly granted permission for a footbridge his wife had built over Seething Lane. She had done so contrary to planning rules while he was away fighting with John of Gaunt (ostensibly so she could avoid the dust of the street when crossing from her house to her rose garden), and so when he returned, the City of London Corporation allowed the bridge (now long gone) to remain, but only in exchange for the symbolic “penalty” of one red rose a year.
The occasion is still marked each June in a ceremony overseen by the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames in which a red rose is plucked from the garden and delivered to the Lord Mayor of London at Mansion House.
WHERE: Seething Lane Garden, Seething Lane, City of London (nearest Tube stations is Tower Hill); WHEN: Daily; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/city-gardens/Pages/default.aspx.
This garden reopened in 2018 after being redeveloped as part of the Trinity Square redevelopment.
Exploring London 