Postman's Park : Londons Oasis.

Walking up St Martin’s Le Grand under the gaze of the towering dome of St Pauls, your eye is immediately drawn to the brutalist structure in the middle of the road encompassed by roaring traffic. The black and white tiles on the facade and grey concrete streets in the sky are part of the Museum of London. Constructed in the seventies, this brutalist roundabout sculpture is well suited to its towering neighbours of the Barbican Estate.



The contrast from St Pauls to the Barbican is somewhat bewildering; it exudes all that is great about London, a city that has constantly reinvented itself to stay ahead and relevant. Whereas most monuments of this scale in distance cities are surrounded by open parks or plazas, the beauty of St Pauls is only emphasised more by its close proximity to a number of architectural periods spanning hundreds of years.

All this architectural wonder can often bemuse some tourists who aren’t quite sure whether to take a photograph and marvel in its wonder, or recoil at the “insensitive” streetscape. As people make up their minds they head down to the Museum of London and often miss what I consider an essential oasis of hidden London.



Postman’s Park, one of the biggest parks in the City of London, is concealed and so too often missed. Lurking behind the church of St Boltophs Aldergate, this secluded spot is almost guaranteed to be quiet with only a scattering of visitors. Stepping inside the iron gates is a surreal experience, the noise and chaos of the outside traffic simply disappears.
Since opening in 1880, the park has grown and now includes two former burial sites and land on which housing was destroyed in Little Britain.
The more time you spend in the park, the more you notice. Memorials and gravestones amongst rose bushes and trees, fountains and statues give this park a real sense of exploration and history. Most notably this park is famous for its memorial to self sacrifice.




The sheltered seating area is covered with a range of different tiles, each one telling the story of human sacrifice in heroic circumstances. Designed to hold 120 truly remarkable memorials, it is possible to lose yourself for an hour or more in the serenity that is cherished by any Londoner.



Postman’s park has become more popular with tourists and visitors since its appearance in the 2004 film ‘Closer’, however it still remains in my opinion one of London’s best kept secrets. The memorial plaques and head stones from the 1800’s really add a sense of escapism and anonymity to this beautiful Central London retreat.