Hammersmith Park Japanese Garden, by Fran Pickering (via Sequins and Cherry Blossom):
For one thing, it’s the oldest traditional Japanese garden in a public place in Britain. And for another, it’s completely integrated into Hammersmith Park as a place where children can play and their parents sit on shady benches to watch them, with none of the formality you see in other Japanese gardens.
How does it come to be there? Well, it’s all that remains of a much larger garden which was one of the main attractions of the Japan-British Exhibition at White City in 1910. […]
In 2010 Hammersmith and Fulham Council commissioned a restoration of the garden by Japanese landscape architect Yoshihiko Uchida and engineer and traditional Japanese Garden expert Satoru Izawa.
Fran's blog on London living is one of the best, and is beautifully designed. This piece is full of fascinating nuggets, and is the perfect guide for exploring the Japanese garden, for example:
It wouldn’t be a Japanese garden without a dry garden. This one is based on the story of the crane and the turtle and their voyage to the island of eternal happiness.
The Chokushi-Mon (Gateway of the Imperial Messenger, a four-fifths replica of the Karamon of Nishi Hongan-ji in Kyoto) also used to stand in the park; it was moved to Kew Gardens in 1911, where it still can be seen.
