Bankside Open Spaces Trust

Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) is a horticulture, gardening and management of urban open space charity, based in Bankside, the southern bank by the River Thames, Southwark, Central London, England. BOST services clients in London and supports and inspires people of local communities and organisations, among others Tate Modern community garden, to improve, create and enjoy the parks, gardens, green spaces, and, passive and active recreation areas.

The charity supports and services a broad and thriving network of park, community managed green spaces and open spaces groups to carry out consultation, fundraise and oversee improvements. BOST has supported residents with choosing new play equipment, bespoke garden design, bespoke garden feature design, and developing new areas, making access improvements and re-landscaping.

BOST helps to initiate and run community gardening clubs, awards small grants for local horticulture projects and both organises and hires out parks and open spaces for celebratory public and private events. BOST has set up a community garden resource centre with a pond, encourages people to grow their own food - vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and bushes - through 'edible projects' utilising raised-bed gardening and planting, and also provides informal horticultural training, landscape maintenance, garden maintenance, grounds maintenance and gardening work experience in the local parks, gardens and open spaces.

History

Founded in 2000, the charitable work of BOST is based in Red Cross Garden, London's first pocket park and an 1887 Victorian creation of Octavia Hill, the English social reformer. Hill also championed providing green and open spaces to people, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on as well as was one of the three founders of the National Trust.

Located between Tower Bridge, Southwark, and Waterloo, Lambeth, districts of Central London, England, these areas have few parks and open spaces and BOST works to enhance and make sure that they meet the needs of local communities.

Gardens & Open Spaces

Londoners, local workers and tourists use the parks and community gardens each day.

BOST spaces are open and free to explore and widely used for everyone and by people and organisations hosting outdoor events such as, community projects, fetes, festivals, parties, film hire, photo shoots, sports activities and tournaments, and corporate events. Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) manages parks and gardens, conserving the spaces. BOST look after the following:

Red Cross Garden

Located just south from the famous farmers market at Borough Market, one of the largest and oldest wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, Central London, England. Red Cross Garden was laid out in 1887 and is a key element in what is considered to be one of Octavia Hill's finest environmental and social schemes. She wanted to create what she referred to as 'open air sitting rooms'

    .[1] Three elements together improved the lives of those living in squalid, wretched Southwark at the time - The Garden, The Hall, The Cottages.

    Waterloo Millennium Green

    Across the road from The Old Vic theatre or a 1-minute walk from Waterloo station in London situated on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. There are wildflowers, dragonflies hovering over the pond with seating and a separate cascading rock water feature.

    The Malborough Sports Gardens

    The Marlborough Sports Garden is located in Union Street off of Borough High Street in the London Borough of Southwark where also in the vicinity literary greats such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens gained inspiration for their works. Historically the Duchess of Marlborough in 1919 decreed that ‘Surplus land from an insanitary area between Borough High Street and Redcross Street should be used as a recreation ground’.

    Partners & Funders

    The organisation is supported by a number of local and national charitable foundations serving the region, and several of the major London Livery Companies. It has projects in cooperation with the Tate Modern and other London organisations.

    See also: Southwark parks and open spaces

    References
    • organisation home page
    • Red Cross Garden, History and Present at The London Parks & Gardens Trust
    • Charity Commission. Bankside Open Spaces Trust, registered charity no. 1085454.
    • publication list
    1. Owen, David (1965). English Philanthropy 1660-1690. Oxford: OUP. p. 495.
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