Tabard Gardens, which holds a Green Flag Award,[7] has large grassed areas, a wildlife area and a children's play area.[8]
An artificial grass football pitch is available to book for a fee.[13] Either the full pitch or half the pitch can be booked for an hour at a time.[14] Built in 2000 and refurbished in 2008,[15] the pitch won the MyLocalPitch (now Playfinder) outstanding London sports venue award for August 2016.[16][17]
A mosaic memorial bench created by Arthur de Mowbray and Jay James was installed in 2011 to commemorate David Idowu, who was murdered in the park in 2008.[24] A peace event is held in the park most years to mark the anniversary of Idowu's death.[25][26][27]
The surrounding Tabard Gardens Estate, but not the park itself, has some of the last remaining stretcher fences in London – these are fences re-purposed from metal stretchers used by Air Raid Precautions wardens to carry Blitz casualties during World War II.[28] The Tabard Gardens Community Allotments[29] are on the surrounding estate, rather than within the park itself.[30]
History
The Tabard inn shortly before its demolition in the 1870s
The Tabard was an inn on Borough High Street[31] established in about 1306[32][33] or 1307.[34] It is best known for being a meeting place for pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury and appears in The Canterbury Tales written by Chaucer in the late 14th century.[35][36] Around the 17th century it was renamed the Talbot[37][38] and was probably rebuilt at least twice, including after the 1676 Southwark fire.[39][40][41] The replacement building, which may have resembled Chaucer's inn,[42] was demolished in 1874[43] or 1875,[44][45] amid protests due to its literary associations.[46]
Tabard Street, renamed after the inn in 1877, was the northern end of Kent Street[47] (the southern portion is now Old Kent Road[48]). Kent Street had been part of the main route between London and the port of Dover until it was supplanted by newer roads.[49] The section that is now Tabard Street was bypassed by the turnpike development of Great Dover Street in about 1814.[50][51][52]
By the 20th century Tabard Street was surrounded by notorious slums.[53] The London County Council razed the majority of the eastern side of the street as part of a major slum clearance programme in 1910.[54][55] From then until 1933 the LCC rebuilt the area as the Tabard Gardens Estate,[55] with large blocks of flats replacing the previous buildings.[54] Of the 101⁄2 acres (4.2 hectares) of the development site, 5 acres (2 hectares) were set aside as a park for the estate, which was called Tabard Gardens and opened in 1929.[4][54]
On 8 March 1968, a 5-year-old boy, David Lawrence, was found murdered in the toilets in the park. The killer was never found.[56]
On 17 June 2008, David Idowu, 14, was stabbed in the park while playing football.[57][58] He died at the Royal London Hospital three weeks later on 7 July.[59][60] 16-year-old Elijah Dayoni was sentenced on 16 January 2009 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years for Idowu's murder.[58][61][62]
Tabard Gardens first won a Green Flag Award in 2013,[63][64] which it has retained in each subsequent year of the competition up to and including 2022.[65][66][67][68]
An air ambulance landed in Tabard Gardens on 31 October 2014 to treat an 18-year-old man who was stabbed to death outside an off-licence in nearby Pilgrimage Street.[69][70] Less than a year later, on 29 June 2015, an air ambulance again landed in the park after Lorraine Barwell, a 54-year-old Serco prisoner custody officer, was fatally assaulted at Blackfriars Crown Court.[71][72]
A large gathering promoted as an "Afro Vibe BBQ" on Saturday 20 June 2020 left the park covered with litter. The following weekend, the police issued an authorisation under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, temporarily allowing them to direct people to leave the area if necessary.[73]
References
^"Tabard Gardens". Parks & Gardens. The Hestercombe Gardens Trust. Retrieved 3 April 2022. OS Original: TQ327794
^"Tabard Gardens". Parks & Gardens. The Hestercombe Gardens Trust. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Latitude: 51.4986082, Longitude: -0.0890381
^"Tabard Gardens". London Gardens Trust. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Size in hectares: 1.762
^ abcHannikainen, Matti O. (2016). The Greening of London, 1920–2000. Routledge. p. 39. doi:10.4324/9781315563145. ISBN978-1138307186. 5 acres of the 10.5-acre area were developed as a new park, named Tabard Gardens that was opened in 1929
^ ab"Tabard Gardens". Green Flag Award. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Managing Organisation: London Borough of Southwark
^ abc"Tabard Gardens". Southwark Council. Retrieved 3 April 2022. The park includes large grassed areas, a wildlife area, a children's play area, an outdoor gym, table tennis tables, artificial grass pitches (available to book) and multi use sports pitches.
^"Tabard Gardens". Southwark Council. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Tabard Gardens is a large local park set within the Tabard Gardens residential estate.
^"Tabard Gardens". Green Flag Award. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Tabard Gardens was formed as part of the London County Council's slum clearance scheme in the early twentieth century.
^"Tabard Gardens". London Gardens Trust. Retrieved 3 April 2022. Site ownership: LB Southwark
^"Tabard Gardens". Southwark Council. Retrieved 3 April 2022. football pitch – booking required (fees and charges apply)
^"Tabard Gardens". Everyone Active. Retrieved 10 October 2021. Multi Use Games Area – Free of charge and no booking required
^"Outdoor sport facilities". Southwark Council. Retrieved 10 October 2021. Tabard Gardens gym is located near the playground and astro pitch off Tabard Street
^LCC 1950, p. 21: "The Tabard was probably one of the earliest inns in this street of inns, for there is mention of it in 1306 when the Abbot of Hyde had lodgings adjoining."
^Walford 1878a, p. 76: "There can be no doubt that by the end of the fourteenth century the 'Tabard' was already one of the inns most frequented by 'Canterbury Pilgrims', or else Chaucer would scarcely have introduced it to us in that character."
^Rendle & Norman 1888, pp. 170–171: "The Tabard owes all its fame to the fact that it was depicted by Chaucer as the place of assemblage for his Canterbury pilgrims."
^Rendle & Norman 1888, pp. 184–185: "The name was changed to Talbot, perhaps by fancy, or because a word slips phonetically with such ease into another shape."
^Walford 1878a, pp. 77, 80: "[A]lthough ... it was for a time called, not the 'Tabard', but the 'Talbot', there can be no doubt that the inn ... was the immediate successor of the inn and hostelry commemorated by our great poet."
^LCC 1950, p. 21: "Chaucer's inn was probably pulled down in 1629 ... After two rebuildings in the 17th century it is extremely unlikely that any of the mediaeval building survived."
^Rendle & Norman 1888, pp. 190–191: "In their report of 1634 they say the Talbot was built of brick six years before ... Now comes the great fire of 1676, ... where it is said that 'the Talbot with its backhouses, stables, etc., was burnt down to the ground.'"
^Walford 1878a, p. 77: "The original 'Tabard' was in existence as late as the year 1602 ... In this fire [of 1676] ... as the 'Tabard' stood nearly in the centre of this area ... there can be little doubt that the old inn perished."
^Shelley, Henry C. (1909). "Famous Southwark Inns". Inns and Taverns of Old London. London: Sir Issac Pitman & Sons. p. 13. From the old foundations, however, a new Tabard arose, built on the old plan, so that the structure which was torn down in 1875 may have perpetuated the semblance of Chaucer's inn to modern times.
^Walford 1878a, p. 77: "No part of it, however, as it appeared at the time of its demolition in 1874, was of the age of Chaucer"
^LCC 1950, p. 21: "The old Tabard Inn was pulled down in 1875, though a modern building bears the name."
^Shelley 1909, pp. 12–13: "When, in 1875, the old Tabard ... was demolished ... many protests were made on the plea that it was sheer vandalism to destroy a building so intimately associated with the genius of Chaucer."
^Darlington 1955, p. 122: "Early in the 19th century the part of Kent Street south of the Lock Hospital, or Stone's End as it was sometimes called, became known as the Old Kent Road to differentiate it from the New Kent Road."
^ abcDarlington 1955, p. 121: "Most of the east side of the street was cleared in 1910 under a London County Council housing scheme; large blocks of dwellings were built and a small open space, Tabard Garden, was formed to give them breathing space."
^ abHannikainen 2016, p. 39: "In 1910 the LCC had begun to construct the Tabard Garden estate (Southwark), one of the first and largest slum clearances in the city. The first house was completed in 1917 and the last in 1933."
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