Plumstead Gardens is a surprise! It is large and open and there are some beautiful trees. This is not what you expect when you drive through roads of 1930s semi-detached housing.
View from Church Manorway
The view down the park from Church Manorway is very attractive, green after all the rain and with beautiful trees.
Terrace
There is a raised area with a brick terrace along Church Manorway. There is an attractive brick pattern in the wall and I found traces of this in the wall of the sunken garden as well. Two mature Ginkgo Biloba trees stand at each end of the terrace and there are shrubs along the wall, with a rather curious mound opposite the steps.
Sunken Garden
The sunken garden was designed with a pond and was planted with formal beds and roses. In the 1990s the Council filled in the area which is now just grass.
Children’s playground and sports facilities
There is a sizeable children’s playground, multi-purpose ball court, all-weather cricket nets and table tennis tables as well as a large open area for team ball games like soccer.
Plumstead Gardens is very attractive but I wonder if some of the original design ideas could be reinstated? I know that the fashion for beds of annuals has passed. Could the pond be reinstated in the sunken garden? Instead of roses could there be drought-resistant perennials? The Horniman Museum Gardens are a good example of how gardening fashions are changing.