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Ideal for a sunny day. And for a cold rainy day: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing".
Ninety-six hectares of Lewisham's biggest park: a Georgian mansion, ancient woodland and the swimming lake that was dug back in 2019.
Parks & commonsSwimmingWildlifeFree
John Cator, a Quaker timber merchant and MP, built the mansion here between 1760 and 1762 on land he was still buying up from the neighbouring manors, and planted the park with exotic trees, some of them from his friend Linnaeus; his father-in-law Peter Collinson, the botanist, came to see it in the September it was finished and called the site a paradise. The London County Council bought the estate in 1927 and made it a public golf course, which it stayed for ninety years. The course closed in 2016, and a restoration with the National Lottery Heritage Fund gave the park back its eighteenth-century layout, re-dug the lake Cator had made and opened it for open-water swimming in summer, with a beach, a café in the stable block and the ancient wood on the hill above. The mansion, Palladian in style, is a community centre now.
| Monday | Open 24 hours |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Open 24 hours |
| Wednesday | Open 24 hours |
| Thursday | Open 24 hours |
| Friday | Open 24 hours |
| Saturday | Open 24 hours |
| Sunday | Open 24 hours |
Hours from the page that lists them, checked 8 September 2026.
Submit a correction for this listing.
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.