AMID all the noise about Greenwich Park, a row that can only get louder as the months go on, SE10 does still boast one small, green, park-like space of total peace and calm.
The East Greenwich Pleasaunce is not just a name to drive your spell-checking software berserk. It is that very rare thing for our town – a slice of local heritage which no-one in authority is currently threatening to wreck.
Perhaps that’s because no-one in authority knows the place exists. I feel almost worried to be writing this piece. If I draw attention to the Pleasaunce, will the council, Locog or Greenwich Hospital suddenly come up with an “exciting” new plan to “transform” it into an iconic £300 million eco-interpretation hub, complete with token wind turbine and pointless new building in multi-coloured glass?
But let me take the risk – let me tell you, in case you didn’t know, that you find the Pleasaunce firmly tucked away, behind a high brick wall, in that small clump of streets just south of the Woolwich Road and just east of where the old hospital used to be. You find it down a little alley between two houses on Halstow Road. You find it through rusty old gates, not very well marked as leading to a public park, on Chevening Road.
But once you have found it, what do you find in it? More than you used to, for sure. The reason I went to the Pleasaunce the other day was to test out the new Pistachios café that’s opened there – an attractive, small, low building at the top end of the park with a pleasaunt outlook over the gently-sloping space.
I can see this being a place I’ll try more often. It’s nice to sit there with a drink and the newspapers, which they have. (They do have some funny ideas about what constitutes a Welsh rarebit, though. When I pointed out that this dish does not have tomatoes in it, the boy who brought it over agreed apologetically, but said that was how the owner made them. Wrong, owner!)
They had a farmer’s market – just the one – the other day. It had been promoted as a regular weekly event, but as the Friends of East Greenwich Pleasaunce say on their blog Pistachio’s have been a “bit previous” in their marketing. The council hasn’t given permission yet and – nice as the idea of a farmer’s market is – there are important issues about the traders’ parking and vehicles to sort out before it does give permission.
Because this, let us not forget, is also a graveyard. The Pleasaunce wasn’t created as a public park, but as a kind of upmarket dumping-ground for about 3,000 dead sailors, former Greenwich Hospital pensioners, who in 1875 were decanted from their previous accommodation in central Greenwich when the South Eastern Railway wanted to build a train track underneath it.
Only a handful of extra-eminent naval stiffs, such as Nelson’s oppo Hardy, were allowed to remain in West Greenwich, in a special vault just missed by the railway tunnel; I visited their mausoleum on Open House Day last month. Everyone else went East. Fascinatingly, burials in the Pleasaunce continued until 1981 – and there will be a special memorial service in the park on Trafalgar Day next Wednesday to remember all those who, in the words of a Pleasaunce tablet, “served their country in the wars which established the naval supremacy of England, and died the honoured recipients of her gratitude.” (However rousingly-worded this is, it does strike me as a slight piece of Victorian spin. If England had been all that grateful, it would presumably have let the veterans stay where a few more people might have come to honour them.)
The future for the Pleasaunce looks good, in a low-key sort of way. The council’s “management plan” sounds sensible, apart from an ominous mention about “toggle-testing each standing gravestone.” Let’s hope they don’t end up, like other bureaucrats have done, demolishing headstones on the remote chance that one might eventually Fall Down On A Child.
Perhaps the real safeguard, though, is that other West-to-East displacement. A hundred years after the corpses moved down the road, the local professional classes began to follow – and for somewhat similar, property-related reasons. Now there is a strong core of people to run friends’ groups, keep an eye on the council and buy Welsh rarebits (preferably without tomato) from their new café.
One thing, at least, they will not have to contend with is a lot of horses trampling over the flowers.
But watch out for the dangerous, out of control black female staffordshire bull terrier that has so far, as far as I know, made two unprovoked and savage attacks (in May and July this year) on two small dogs and a woman (broken bone, ruptured tendon and severe crush injuries to hand). Lots of witnesses to both attacks but dog still not dealt with. Crime number: 3617810/09
Agree the Pleasaunce is something of a hidden gem, and one that is (potentially) improved with the opening of Pistachios. Re your Welsh Rarebit – clearly adding tomato is grave enough offence – but were you also forced to spend 20 minutes watching 3 waitresses/cooks/cleaners/toy shop peddlards/till operators (so ill defined seemed their individual roles) conduct the most extraordinarily ill-choreographed impression of the blind leading the blind whilst trying to get hot drinks/food to a waiting punter?
It’s wonderful that you’ve discovered the Pleasaunce, Andrew – East Greenwich’s hidden gem. We like to think it’s looking so lovely thanks to the dedicated efforts of our Friends group. We were the ones who campaigned for the cafe – it took us two years but we got there in the end. We helped the park achieve Green Flag status two years running now. And I can assure you that there are no plans to ‘develop’ the park in any way, other than by renovating its existing buildings (we have a signed letter frm Council Leader, Chris Roberts to that effect). We couldn’t have done this without the co-operation and support of the Council, in particular Lee Beasley and Rob Goring of the Parks Department (who certainly know the Pleasaunce exists!) We’re proof that local communities and Councils can work together for the common good if they put their minds to it.
One minor correction to your piece: the Trafalgar Day service is actually on Saturday 24th October at 11am (so the Mayor told us).
Matthew Wall, chair, Friends of East Greenwich Pleasaunce
Very sorry to hear you had a bad experience, Craig. We are happy to report we were extremely busy that day. Please come again for a free tea to make up for it and I hope we have made improvements.
We are lucky enough to have one of the houses which backs onto the wall around the Pleasaunce. It is a fantastic place for children – with the play equipment protected by a fence and ‘no dogs’ restriction (if you manage to get past said bull terrior…).
It is quiet and clean and feels a proper local gem. Hopefully the hordes will continue to miss it’s two fairly discrete entrances…
Four times we have tried to go to this park in recent weeks and have had to go else where due to having nowhere to park.
I know your thinking walk or get the bus, but it’s a bit hard from a wheel chair.
Does anyone know where to park a car, where you won’t get a ticket.
Off course it doesn’t help that there is a train station nearby, so I guess that is why parking is so tight around there.
Shame really, looks like it will remain a LOCAL park, which is good for the locals and makes it more special to them.
Lilly – that’s a real shame because the Pleasaunce is actually quite wheelchair friendly, with no steps at all. I agree parking is difficult around Chevening and Halstow Roads but I suggest you contact local councillor Mary Mills (mary.mills@greenwich.gov.uk) and/or Rob Goring (robert.goring@greenwich.gov.uk) at the Parks Department to see what could be done about this. Good luck.
I think the cafe owners have no feel or understanding for the Plesaunce. With the bubble gum machines outside and the amount of litter not cleared up around the cafe our park is just being used to make money. I have even seen customers driving in to use the cafe! The prices are ridiculous (not inclusive as they were meant to be), and the wooden toys and organic baby food are just an obvious pandering to the middle classes who might be taken in thinking this has anything to do with being eco friendly and green.
Just moved to North England from London and I have to say that the only thing about London that I miss is Lizzie and being at the cafe.
I second Chris above. I am a long term East Greenwich resident and live opposite the park. I discovered it a while back and I have enjoyed walking both my dogs there as well as taking my daughters to the playground (they literally learned to walk in the Pleasaunce) and was very pleased both with the fantastic job done by the friends of the Pleasaunce and the addition of the cafe. Having just moved to New Zealand, I do miss my morning coffee and dog walk as well as lazy Sunday brunch and the Guardian in the Pleasaunce, as well as the many friendly dog walkers and Pistacios warm welcome.!