Take a walk of 2.8 miles from Bethnal Green underground station and find taking in artistic creativity, personal endeavour, and food production during Open Garden Squares Weekend. Walk through Museum Gardens to Lubetkin’s modernist Cranbrook Estate and the Cranbook Estate Community Food Garden. Look out for Elizabeth Frink’s Blind Beggar and divert briefly along the Regents’ Canal . Find the poignant WWI Memorial in Cyprus Street, and then enjoy the park-like Approach Gardens. Be surprised by the green havens of St Peter’s Church and Vicarage and Jesus Green before arriving in Arnold Circus. (All open on Sunday.)
Approach Gardens is parkland community garden – wild flower area, green lawns, orchard, raised planters, and a community of people supporting each other – what more can one ask?
St Peter’s Church and Vicarage offers a friendly welcome and cool shade on a hot day!
Walk on down Columbia Road, or through Jesus Green behind Columbia Road to find Arnold Circus.
Arnold Circus is a surprising, treed Circus just five minutes away from the bustling Shoreditch High Street. Here you can sit down and enjoy the shade, and quiet, before tackling more gardens during Open Garden Squares Weekend!
Jan
Great photos and more happy memories. I lived in Bethnal Green and went to school in Columbia Road and later in Hackney, where I walked through the streets to Haggerston. I also worked in various clinics and NHS sites in the borough and loved Cyprus Street, which was still looking good when I moved from London 12 years ago. My dad often drank in the Approach Tavern, and I worked close to The London Chest Hospital, and we often visited Arnold Circus as a child. I recall the statue of the man with the dog (we called it the blind beggar). Bethnal Green certainly lives up to its name with greenery! I also loved Stepney Green with the wonderful Georgian architecture and Alms Houses – I must check if there’s a page on that area. Thanks again.