Outdoors & Nature

Ideal for a sunny day. And for a cold rainy day: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing".

Tell us what we can do better, or what you’re trying to discover.

Grosvenor Square

London's second largest garden square, dug up for a year and replanted as a wood.

GardensWildlifeFree

Photo by Matt Brown, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Laid out from 1720 for Sir Richard Grosvenor and planted five years later as a ‘wilderness worke’ — a densely wooded mound and shrubbery around a gilt statue of George I — then tamed into quarters in the 1770s, simplified into lawns, stripped of its elms in the 1840s and replanted with the London planes that stand today. John Adams lived on the square in 1785 as the first American minister to Britain, and the American century that followed left its marks: the statue of Franklin Roosevelt, paid for by public subscription and unveiled by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948; Elizabeth Frink’s bronze eagle on a Portland stone column for the 244 American and 16 British pilots of the RAF’s Eagle Squadrons; and the September 11 memorial garden. A rebuild finished in July 2026 returned the square to something like its first idea. An oval wildflower lawn sits inside a woodland walk under the old planes, with new wetlands, 44 new trees and some 70,000 plants; the planted area went from 140 square metres to 8,000. The Wheatsheaf Building in the middle holds a café kiosk and the London Wildlife Trust, which runs the learning programme here.

Where
Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1K
Nearest station
Bond Street · 3 min walk

Open from 7am, closing 9pm in summer and 6pm in winter.

The square publishes the two seasons but no date for the change. Dogs on leads; step free throughout.

NearbyOutdoors & Nature

NearbyOther Categories

See more nearby listings

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.

Which area are you in?