Finsbury Circus Gardens opens after revamp. But is it London’s oldest park?
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The City of London’s oldest and largest green space is now open to the public. Five minutes from Moorgate Station, this two-acre oasis of calm was opened up for public use as Moor Fields in 1606. These Grade II-listed gardens closed in March 2010 for Crossrail’s construction of the Elizabeth Line and reopened in May 2025 with a revamp that positioned eye-pleasing islands of bedding plants around the central oval-shaped lawn and lawn-facing wooden benches around the perimeter. It has a Grade II-listed drinking fountain, which dates back to 1902 – now moved to a new spot in the gardens.
Finsbury Circus Gardens – the Grade II-listed drinking fountain in the foreground
Is the claim that it is the capital’s earliest public park a contentious one? Well, one or two royal park contenders also opened up in the early 17th century, so let’s take a closer look at those dates and any corroborating historical records.
1637
Hyde Park is amongst the nation’s most well-loved and well-known parks and has seen tragedy and triumph in its sprawling green expanse over the centuries, from celebrations to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars, to Romantic poet Percy Shelley’s wife Harriet taking her life in the Serpentine Lake after he left her for new love Mary Wollstonecraft and his best pal Lord Byron led him away from the family pile on European sojourns. In 1637, during the reign of Charles I, this royal deer park was opened up as a public park. A decade back, Charles had been the first monarch to landscape Henry VIII’s enclosed hunting grounds into formal parkland.
Hyde Park
The early to mid-17th century had been a transformative and tumultuous period as the park underwent marked refashioning and was used as a refuge by Londoners fleeing the ravages of the Great Plague of London, which had swept through the overcrowded and unhygienic streets of the city.
1666
The Stuart dynastic line got into a habit of opening up royal parks to the public – Charles II followed his father by designating St James’s Park a public space in 1666. During his visits to France, he was much taken with the elegant pleasure parks there and ordered the revamping of St James’s in similar fashion. But what drove the decision to open it up? The Great Plague of London, perhaps, and reports of droves of Londoners taking to Hyde Park for fresh, clean air in the natural environment may have pushed this decision to allow commoners on royal land.
St James’s Park
One ponders their reaction on stumbling upon the king’s pet crane with its wooden leg, which he kept in the park, and the magnificent spectacle of flocks of pelicans that arrived as a gift from the Russian ambassador in 1664. Duck Island was laid out in 1665 as a breeding ground for his wildfowl collection; another attraction, which, no doubt, added to the park’s exotic curiosity factor for those visiting for the first time.
So with Finsbury Circus Gardens opening in 1606, Hyde Park in 1637 and St James’s Park in 1666, Finsbury Circus is a few decades ahead of the green spaces edicted by the Charleses. But interestingly, London’s first public park – as laid out by an Act of Parliament – was actually Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets in 1845. That is, it’s the first park enclosed specifically for locals. In 1839, government public health officials sought to redress East End poverty and health concerns by designating more green spaces.
Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets
Their 1839 report found that the East End had the highest mortality rate in the country – there was little access to clean water and East Enders often drank from the bathing ponds in the park. It was decided that a public park would encourage healthier pursuits and give the poorer working class community green spaces and fresh air. Philanthropist and social campaigner Baroness Burdett-Coutts financed a magnificent Gothic pink granite drinking fountain to provide clean water. It still stands as the park’s centrepiece attraction. Although originally named after the Baroness, it’s now known as the Victoria Fountain.
