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Streets, squares, mews and lanes. The most charming streetscapes in London. Some well known, some hidden gems.
A condemned terrace that squatters saved, now buried under vines, palms and tree ferns.
Squares & yards
Built in the 1870s for railway workers, condemned a century later and compulsorily purchased so it could be knocked down. The houses stood empty, and through the 1980s squatters moved into them one by one until almost the whole square was occupied. They opened a vegetarian café, a wholefood shop, a bar and a nightclub, formed a housing co-operative, negotiated a lease out of the Inner London Education Authority, which owned the buildings, and in 1998 were allowed to buy them outright. Then they planted. Nearly every front garden, wall and railing now carries something - vines, bananas, tree ferns, palms - so a Victorian terrace in Vauxhall reads as jungle that has come up through the pavement. The garden on the corner was made in 1990 on the ground where seven houses were bombed, and is called the Pleasure Garden after the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens that stood a hundred metres north of it. The iron water wheel in the middle is from the 1860s, saved off a marble works that was being demolished nearby while the garden was being dug; it used to wet-cut stone. The café on the corner still has a different cook every night.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.