Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park is a public park in

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Maintained by the

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council ...

, it is bounded by

Lambeth Road Lambeth Road is a road in Lambeth (to the west) and Southwark (to the east), London running between Lambeth Bridge over the River Thames at the western end and St George's Circus at the eastern end. British History Online. The road is design ...

, Kennington Road,

St George's Road St George's Road is a one-way road in Southwark, London running between Westminster Bridge Road to the northwest and Elephant and Castle to the southeast. The direction of the vehicular traffic is from Elephant and Castle to Westminster Brid ...

and

Brook Drive Brook may refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming People * Brook (surname) *People with the given name Brook, ...

. It covers an area of . The grounds of the park surround its central feature, the

Imperial War Museum London The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civi ...

History

The park was opened in 1934 after the land was gifted to the 'splendid struggling mothers of Southwark' by

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (26 April 1868 – 26 November 1940), was a leading British newspaper proprietor who owned Associated Newspapers Ltd. He is best known, like his brother Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Northcl ...

. The park was named in remembrance of Rothermere's mother, Geraldine Mary Harmsworth. The land had previously been the grounds of the Dog and Duck tavern and later the

Bethlem Hospital Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in Bromley, London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films, and television series, most notably '' Bedlam'', ...

, after which the

freehold Freehold may refer to: In real estate *Freehold (law), the tenure of property in fee simple * Customary freehold, a form of feudal tenure of land in England *Parson's freehold, where a Church of England rector or vicar of holds title to benefice ...

was purchased by Rothermere following the relocation of the hospital to

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. The hospital building, constructed between 1812 and 1814, was largely demolished, with the remaining central portion being leased to the government's

First Commissioner of Works The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and subsequent to 1922, within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irel ...

to accommodate the Imperial War Museum. The park received its first

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy, ...

in 2012. The award was renewed in 2013.

Sports facilities

The park's sports facilities include

five-a-side football Five-a-side football is a version of minifootball, in which each team fields five players (four Outfield#In association football, outfield players and a goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper). Other differences from association football ...

pitches, and

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of seven players. The primary objective is to shoot a ball through the defender's goal ring while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own. It is one of a ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

and

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

courts. The provision of these facilities was supported by a £1.4 million grant from the

Big Lottery Fund The National Lottery Community Fund, legally named the Big Lottery Fund, is a non-departmental public body responsible for distributing funds raised by the National Lottery for " good causes". It is the largest community funder in the UK and ...

Memorials

On 9 May 1999 a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

War Memorial was unveiled by the

Secretary of State for Defence The secretary of state for defence, also known as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Defence. As a senior minister, the incumbent is a member of the ...

George Robertson, and the Russian ambassador Yuri Fokine. The date of the unveiling was significant as 9 May is marked as

Victory Day Victory Day is a commonly used name for public holidays in various countries, where it commemorates a nation's triumph over a hostile force in a war or the liberation of a country from hostile occupation. In many cases, multiple countries may ob ...

in Russia. Since its inauguration the memorial has been the site of commemorations of Victory Day,

Holocaust Memorial Day A Holocaust memorial day or Holocaust remembrance day is an annual observance to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and of millions of other Holocaust victims by Nazi Germany and its allies. Many countries ...

and

Remembrance Sunday Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in Nov ...

. Also in May 1999 the

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

opened a Tibetan Peace Garden, commissioned by the Tibet Foundation, in the park. The garden features a bronze cast of the

Kalachakra ''Kālacakra'' () is a Polysemy, polysemic term in Vajrayana, Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism that means "wheel of time" or "time cycles". "''Kālacakra''" is also the name of a series of Buddhist texts and a major practice lineage in History of ...

Mandala, contemporary western sculpture, and a pillar inscribed with a message from the Dalai Lama in English, Tibetan,

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

. On 30 October 2004, two ''

Araucaria araucana ''Araucaria araucana'', commonly called the monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, pewen, pehuen pine or piñonero, is an evergreen tree belonging to the family Araucariaceae and growing to a trunk diameter of and a height of . It is native to ...

'' ('monkey puzzle') trees were planted near the park's eastern gates in memory of two Chileans who were forcibly 'disappeared' in 1974 following a military coup in Chile. The plantings were part of the Chilean Human Rights International Project's 'Ecomemoria' campaign.

References

{{Authority control Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Southwark