A few months ago our neighbour, Helen (who has lived next to us for just on a year now with husband Jim and 2-year-old Matthew) mentioned the garden to me. My response was 'huh?' It turns out that as local residents we get access to Park Square and Park Crescent Gardens (which link via a tunnel under Marylebone Road) for a small annual fee. Those of you who have visited us would definitely have walked by these gardens - Park Crescent Garden is right next to the entry for Regent's Park tube and Park Square Garden is across the road and on the way to Regent's Park. I have walked by these gardens every day to work for the last 3 years and never once thought that we might have access rights! Although, it was never mentioned when we rented to this property so why would we think we would have access? Apparently this is one of the biggest communal gardens in central London, so surely you would think it would be the big selling point? We aren't going to mention it to our real estate agents in case they actually don't know and want to put the rent up!
The gardens are part of the Crown Estate (as our house is) and are beatiful and extremely well maintained. We have already spent lots of time in there and have invited lots of friends over for picnics and drinks and we are constantly amazed at how few people are in there! As soon as the sun comes out in London the parks are full of people, so to have access to huge, gorgeous private gardens very close to our house is amazing. Especially as we were considering moving house to get some open space! Definitely no plans to move now.
Here are some pics I took from the Open Gardens website. See page
here about Park Square and
here about Park Crescent.
The Nursemaid's Tunnel linking the two gardens under Marylebone Road -
