Tabard Gardens

Tabard Gardens is a small park in Southwark, London. It is located on Tabard Street^[9] (itself named after the former Tabard public house) and gives its name to the surrounding Tabard Gardens Estate.^[10] The park was created as part of a slum clearance programme by the London County Council^[11] and opened in 1929.^[4] It is owned and managed by Southwark Council.^[12][5]

Tabard Gardens
Location within the London Borough of Southwark
Location	London
OS grid	TQ327794[1]
Coordinates	51°29′55″N 0°05′21″W[2]
Area	1.762 hectares (4.354 acres)[3]
Opened	1929[4]
Etymology	From Tabard Street or the former Tabard public house
Managed by	Southwark Council[5]
Open	Daily from 7:30am until around sunset[6]
Awards	Green Flag Award[7]
Facilities	Children’s play area, outdoor gym, table tennis tables, artificial grass pitches, multi-use sports pitches[8]
Website	www.southwark.gov.uk/parks-and-open-spaces/parks/tabard-gardens

Facilities and features

David Idowu memorial bench

Tabard Gardens, which holds a Green Flag Award,^[7] has large grassed areas, a wildlife area and a children's play area.^[8]

An artificial grass football pitch is available to book for a fee.^[13] Either the full pitch or half the pitch can be booked for an hour at a time.^[14] Built in 2000 and refurbished in 2008,^[15] the pitch won the MyLocalPitch (now Playfinder) outstanding London sports venue award for August 2016.^[16][17]

There are also multi-use sports pitches^[8] for games like basketball,^[18] which are free to use and do not require booking.^[19] A free outdoor gym^[20] was installed in 2013.^[21] It is situated next to three outdoor table tennis tables.^[22] The park hosts boot camp training.^[23]

A mosaic memorial bench created by Arthur de Mowbray and Jay James was installed in 2011 to commemorate David Idowu, who was murdered in the park in 2008.^[24] A peace event is held in the park most years to mark the anniversary of Idowu's death.^[25][26][27]

The surrounding Tabard Gardens Estate, but not the park itself, has some of the last remaining stretcher fences in London – these are fences re-purposed from metal stretchers used by Air Raid Precautions wardens to carry Blitz casualties during World War II.^[28] The Tabard Gardens Community Allotments^[29] are on the surrounding estate, rather than within the park itself.^[30]

History

The Tabard inn shortly before its demolition in the 1870s

The Tabard was an inn on Borough High Street^[31] established in about 1306^[32][33] or 1307.^[34] It is best known for being a meeting place for pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury and appears in The Canterbury Tales written by Chaucer in the late 14th century.^[35][36] Around the 17th century it was renamed the Talbot^[37][38] and was probably rebuilt at least twice, including after the 1676 Southwark fire.^[39][40][41] The replacement building, which may have resembled Chaucer's inn,^[42] was demolished in 1874^[43] or 1875,^[44][45] amid protests due to its literary associations.^[46]

Tabard Street, renamed after the inn in 1877, was the northern end of Kent Street^[47] (the southern portion is now Old Kent Road^[48]). Kent Street had been part of the main route between London and the port of Dover until it was supplanted by newer roads.^[49] The section that is now Tabard Street was bypassed by the turnpike development of Great Dover Street in about 1814.^[50][51][52]

By the 20th century Tabard Street was surrounded by notorious slums.^[53] The London County Council razed the majority of the eastern side of the street as part of a major slum clearance programme in 1910.^[54][55] From then until 1933 the LCC rebuilt the area as the Tabard Gardens Estate,^[55] with large blocks of flats replacing the previous buildings.^[54] Of the 101⁄2 acres (4.2 hectares) of the development site, 5 acres (2 hectares) were set aside as a park for the estate, which was called Tabard Gardens and opened in 1929.^[4][54]

On 8 March 1968, a 5-year-old boy, David Lawrence, was found murdered in the toilets in the park. The killer was never found.^[56]

On 17 June 2008, David Idowu, 14, was stabbed in the park while playing football.^[57][58] He died at the Royal London Hospital three weeks later on 7 July.^[59][60] 16-year-old Elijah Dayoni was sentenced on 16 January 2009 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years for Idowu's murder.^[58][61][62]

Tabard Gardens first won a Green Flag Award in 2013,^[63][64] which it has retained in each subsequent year of the competition up to and including 2022.^{[65][66][67][68]}

An air ambulance landed in Tabard Gardens on 31 October 2014 to treat an 18-year-old man who was stabbed to death outside an off-licence in nearby Pilgrimage Street.^[69][70] Less than a year later, on 29 June 2015, an air ambulance again landed in the park after Lorraine Barwell, a 54-year-old Serco prisoner custody officer, was fatally assaulted at Blackfriars Crown Court.^[71][72]

A large gathering promoted as an "Afro Vibe BBQ" on Saturday 20 June 2020 left the park covered with litter. The following weekend, the police issued an authorisation under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, temporarily allowing them to direct people to leave the area if necessary.^[73]