South Bank Local Community Garden Walk: Free Victorian Oasis

Red Cross Garden on Redcross Way in Southwark is a free public garden laid out in the Victorian era by the housing reformer Octavia Hill, and it is still cared for today by Bankside Open Spaces Trust with help from local volunteers. It lies an easy riverside walk east of the South Bank. For a local community garden walk with a story behind it, few London routes beat starting at the Southbank Centre and ending among Hill's lawns and cottages.

The South Bank is green in a broad, open sense, with Jubilee Gardens and wide riverside promenades, but it has no community garden that neighbours tend themselves. Southwark, a short walk east, does. The streets behind Borough High Street hold several small green spaces cared for by local volunteers working with Bankside Open Spaces Trust, and Red Cross Garden is the one with the deepest roots.

Octavia Hill described the garden as an open-air sitting room for the tired inhabitants of Southwark. That phrase still explains its scale. It is not a park for picnics and ball games, but a pocket of lawn, flower beds and winding paths set in front of a row of cottages. Hill believed that access to green space was as vital to city dwellers as decent housing, and here she built both together.

Start outside the Southbank Centre and walk east along the Queen's Walk, passing under Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. After about fifteen minutes you reach Tate Modern, the converted Bankside power station, where the permanent collection is free to visit. Its turbine hall makes a good warm stop on a cold November morning, and the riverside terrace gives you a clear view across to St Paul's Cathedral.

From Tate Modern, leave the river by heading south past the gallery towards Southwark Street. Walk east along Southwark Street, then turn right onto Redcross Way. On the way you pass the Cross Bones memorial gates, covered in ribbons and tributes to the people buried in the former paupers' graveyard there. Red Cross Garden lies a little further down the same street, behind low railings.

The garden is framed by two rows of Victorian cottages, which together with Red Cross Hall were designed by the architect Elijah Hoole for Hill's housing scheme. The cottages have a village feel, with gables and balconies facing the garden, which is exactly the effect Hill wanted: homes looking onto a shared green rather than onto a busy street. Stand by the railings for a moment and the traffic of Southwark Street seems far away.

Hill wrote of walks winding between small lawns and flower beds set with flowering trees and shrubs, and that layout survives because of a careful restoration that returned the garden to its original size after much of it had been paved over in the twentieth century. A mosaic in the garden marks that restoration. Look for it near the paths when you arrive, then follow the curving walks round to the pond.

On weekdays you will usually find office workers from the surrounding blocks eating lunch, residents of the cottages coming and going, and volunteers working on the beds with Bankside Open Spaces Trust. It is a neighbourhood garden first and a visitor stop second. Keep voices low, stay on the paths, and remember that the cottages are private homes, so avoid photographing through people's windows.

An honest verdict: if you are expecting a large park, you will see everything in twenty minutes. The value is in the history and the calm, not the size. Combine it with the riverside walk and Tate Modern for a free morning, rather than making a special trip just for the garden. If it is busy or closed for an event, the churchyard gardens around Southwark Cathedral are a short walk north and make a quiet alternative.

Bankside Open Spaces Trust works across several small gardens and green spaces in this part of Southwark, and it runs volunteering and community growing activities. If you live or work nearby, its official website is the place to find out how to join a session.

It is worth reading a little about Octavia Hill before you go. She went on to co-found the National Trust, and her campaigns for open space shaped how London protected commons and small gardens. Standing in Red Cross Garden, you are looking at an early working model of her idea that a city neighbourhood should have shared green space on its doorstep, maintained partly by the people who live beside it. That idea is the reason community gardens across Southwark still exist.

Late spring and early summer are when the flower beds look their best, but autumn has its own appeal, with copper leaves on the ornamental trees and fewer people on the paths. Go in daylight and pick a weekday if you want the garden almost to yourself. Each June, gardens across London open up for Open Garden Squares Weekend, and Red Cross Garden has featured in the local listings, which is a good chance to see Red Cross Hall too.

Weekends on the South Bank can be crowded, especially near the Southbank Centre and Tate Modern. Starting early on a Saturday helps you walk the riverside before the crowds build. Coming back, you can avoid retracing the river by walking north to London Bridge station or Borough station, both within a few minutes of Redcross Way.

The route is roughly two kilometres one way and flat, with wide paved paths along the river. It suits pushchairs and wheelchairs, although the garden's inner paths are narrower. Borough Market is a few minutes north if you want food, but it gets very busy at lunchtime on Saturdays. Bring a water bottle, since there is no café inside the garden itself.

The Karpo APP can help you build the morning around the walk, for example timing your Tate Modern visit, adding Southwark Cathedral or choosing the best station home. Ask it to keep everything free and to show you the shortest way from the river to Redcross Way.