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:
“Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Home! Yes! she would see Trafalgar Square, again; and Nelson on his plinth; and Chelsea Bridge as it dissolved into the Thames at twilight ... and St. Paul’s, the single Amazon breast of her beloved native city.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“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)
“Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design;—and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)