b5media.com

Advertise with us

Enjoying this blog? Check out the rest of the Travel & Culture Channel Subscribe to this Feed

The London Traveler

A Secret Park near the Eurostar Terminal

by Andrea on February 26th, 2008

I quite often end up using Eurostar and it usually leaves me a bit frazzled, often with an hour or so between trains.

But I’ve discovered a secret. Just follow the street that goes along the right hand side of the station (looking down the tracks), and you’ll find Camley Street Natural Park- a lovely little hideout just ten minutes’ walk from the station.

You’d think there’s not much you can do with two acres on an ex-industrial site. But by creating little mounds and hills, ponds and thickets, the London Wildlife Trust has made a semi-wilderness where you can wander, lost, for half an hour, protected from the traffic just a couple of hundred yards away.

There’s a willow wigwam. There’s a ‘garden in a skip’ which has been made entirely out of salvaged materials. And from the hill at the south of the garden there are fine views of the one remaining gasometer – a beautiful remnant of the Victorian industrial glory that was swept out of the way by the new Eurostar terminal.

There are reeds waving in the wind, rustling against each other, and coots in the pond paddling frantically to evade you. This little green oasis is now my regular stop if I have half an hour to spend before checking in. How I wish all railway stations had a park like this one close by!

Camley Street Natural Park is open Thursday to Sunday 10-5 in term time, 7 days a week in school holidays

Tags: , ,

POSTED IN: Great Places to Unwind, Parks

0 opinions for A Secret Park near the Eurostar Terminal

  • No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!

Have an opinion? Leave a comment: