Parklife!

London's best green spaces, according to me

When I’m in parks in London I’m not usually taking pictures so here’s a photo from Shutterstock. Thanks Alexey Fedorenko, your drone picture is great. Become a paid subscriber so I can buy a drone and not use Shutterstock for photos in the future.

London is good for many things. Pubs, the tube, bookshops, paying over £7 for a pint of pissy lager. But one thing it doesn’t get enough credit for but that it’s really quite good at is parks.

I thought as I started writing this article that I’d read somewhere that London is the greenest city in Europe, or the world, or at least the United Kingdom. It’s one of those facts that I trot out at the pub if the subject comes up, while paying over £7 for a pint of pissy lager.

But it turns out that it’s complete rubbish. According to The Guardian, in 2017 Greater London was 23% green space, lagging well behind the UK’s best: Edinburgh at 49.2%. Greater London of course encompasses areas that are as ‘London’ as the moon, but still I concede I am incorrect. So I’m wrong, it’s not the greenest city in Europe, the world, or even the United Kingdom. But it does have some nice parks, okay? And here is my guide to them.

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