Richmond upon Thames lies to the south west of London and has more parks and open spaces than any other London borough. These include Kew Gardens and three Royal Parks – Richmond Park, Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park. There are over 100 parks and open spaces within its boundary and 21 miles of river frontage. Many of the open spaces were village greens.
The main borough-managed parks and open spaces are:
- Barnes Common: local nature reserve, open grassland, trees and woodland
- Barnes Green: focal point of Barnes village
- Carlisle Park
- Ham Common
- Kew Green
- North Sheen Recreation Ground, Kew
- Old Deer Park: Crown property, leased to Richmond Borough
- Palewell Common, Sheen
- Petersham Meadows
- Richmond Green: Crown property, leased to Richmond Borough
- Sheen Common
- The Riverside: following the River Thames from Old Deer Park to Petersham Meadows under Richmond Bridge
- Twickenham Green
The Crane Riverside Park, linking the boroughs of Richmond and Hounslow, is one of 11 parks throughout Greater London chosen to receive money for redevelopment by a public vote. The park received £400,000 towards better footpaths, more lighting, refurbished public toilets and new play areas for children.
Famous quotes containing the words richmond, thames, parks, open and/or spaces:
“I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Negres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness”
—Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)
“The wind’s on the wold
And the night is a-cold,
And Thames runs chill
‘Twixt mead and hill.
But kind and dear
Is the old house here
And my heart is warm
Midst winter’s harm.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning, between fields of lilies still shut in sleep; and when, at length, the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the sun’s rays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though there were numerous vessels at this great distance in the horizon on every side, yet the vast spaces between them, like the spaces between the stars,—far as they were distant from us, so were they from one another,—nay, some were twice as far from each other as from us,—impressed us with a sense of the immensity of the ocean, the “unfruitful ocean,” as it has been called, and we could see what proportion man and his works bear to the globe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)