Shuttleworth Park - reviving a community garden

Aim

To improve Shuttleworth Park in Bermondsey by encouraging wildlife and making it a greener, healthier place for the whole community to enjoy

We are raising funds to improve Shuttleworth Park - a small neglected green space - with an important history - in South Bermondsey.

We are proud to be selected as one of the few projects for the M&S Energy Community Fund, an initiative supporting green community projects. M&S has kindly offered to match whatever we raise via our platform. So every little bit helps!

Our plans

Our idea is to reconnect Shuttleworth park to the heart of the Blue market place and to make it a welcoming, nature-filled oasis for the whole community to enjoy. We want to introduce blue and purple themed bee friendly plants and flowers (such as Borage, Knapweed, Cardoon), as well as carry on this theme through scented plants and shrubs such as lavender, rosemary and wild marjoram - making the park come alive with colour and fragrance. 

We would also like to create a rain garden in the park and to introduce more native hedging around the perimeters, to help screen out the busy roads nearby and reduce air and noise pollution. We will include native species as much as possible, to create ecologically rich and diverse habitats to encourage birds and wildlife back into the park.

We want to make the park an engaging place for children and adults alike, where they can connect to nature.

Alongside planting flowers and shrubs, we would like to refurbish the children's play area by repainting, repairing and modernising it, and enclosing it with a native hedge to screen it from the road and to help absorb noise and air pollution. 

There is also a lovely old water pump that we would like to see refurbished as a fountain and a feature of the park, which would provide fresh drinking water and a source to water the plants and trees from. Similarly the furniture and railings which are in poor condition, could all be refurbished and repainted in a subtler colour so that they don't dominate the park or interfere with the planting scheme.

(The existing water pump)

Shuttleworth Park is one of the few parks designed by pioneering social reformer and environmentalist Ada Salter (née Brown; 20 July 1866 – 4 December 1942). and stands on the site of the former Shuttleworth Chocolate factory, which burnt down in 1937. Ada saw the opportunity to create a park on the site, and drew up the plans for it to include typical Ada features such as "trees, a children's' play park, a professional gardener and a bathing pool" (quoted from Ada Salter, 'Pioneer of Ethical Socialism' by Graham Taylor). Although Shuttleworth Park was not built until after the war and after Ada's death, it was built to her original design.  With 2022 being the year of the Salter centenary - marking the 100 year anniversary of Ada Salter becoming Mayor of Bermondsey - it is a wonderful opportunity to revive the park as part of Ada's ongoing legacy to Bermondsey.

The project was initiated by Trees for Bermondsey, a local charity who have begun to plant native hedges around the park's perimeter and spring bulbs throughout the park and within the flowerbeds. Trees for Bermondsey are also working with the council to replace, and plant new trees in and around the park. 

We would love this to become something local people can be really involved with and local volunteers from the community will be invited to help plant the flowers and shrubs, and also to help with gardening, watering and keeping the park looking beautiful.

Thank you for any support you can give us - every little bit really does help. We need to raise at least £1,000 from a minimum of 30 supporters to secure the match funding from M&S, so please tell your friends, family and neighbours. Let's make this happen!

Here is some more information about Trees for Bermondsey: 

Trees for Bermondsey is a registered charity whose mission is to plant more trees and to protect, restore and increase tree canopy in Southwark, particularly on the streets, estates and public areas of Bermondsey.

Our vision is of a Bermondsey where every park and green space is connected to each other through trees, hedges, plants, whether it is along our streets, through our gardens, up walls, or across roofs.

We do this by raising awareness and promoting the benefits of trees in the urban environment and creating a link between residents, workers, schools, businesses and Southwark Council. 

To hear more about our other projects, please visit https://www.treesforbermondsey.org.uk

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made