Burgess Park

Houses were purchased and demolished to form the park. The idea for Burgess Park came out of the 1943 Abercrombie plan for open spaces in London, and the land has been gradually assembled and landscaped over the subsequent decades, first by the London County Council, then the Greater London Council and since the mid-1980s the London Borough of Southwark. The earliest component of what is now Burgess Park pre-dates the Abercrombie Plan: the King George's Field, opened in 1938 on the site of a former baths and swimming pool, at the Addington Square end of the park. The early stages of the expansion of the park led to the incorporation of the North Camberwell Open Space in 1965. The open space…

There are a large number of listed buildings in the Park, remnants of the streets which once occupied the site: an early 19th century lime kiln, the Passmore Edwards library, baths and wash houses (the piers and railings of which are separately listed) and the former almshouses in Chumleigh Gardens (which have three separate listings). The whole of the Passmore Edwards building was listed as an asset of community value in 2014. The adjacent former church of St George designed by Bedford, now converted into flats, is also listed; some parts of its former churchyard form part of the park. Its war memorial of Christ, head bowed, holding a crown of thorns, by the Danish artist Arild…