Town Centre Green Spaces

Bromley is fortunate in having three parks adjoining the High Street, but many shoppers are unaware that they could just walk 100 yards or less, and sit down in pleasant green-space. There is a large children’s sand pit, play equipment, skating park, tennis courts, and the unknown gem of the Palace Park with views of the Bishops Palace, a moat, ice house and rockeries. At Martin’s Hill there’s an impressive view to Crystal Palace and the war memorial. Queens Gardens hosts some cinema sessions in the summer.

These parks have an active Friends group:

Friends of Bromley Town Parks & Gardens dedicated to “Promoting Bromley’s green centre”

There are pages with more details, and old photos, on:

The Bromley Palace Park with 4 ancient monuments and a medieval moat.
Church House Gardens and Library Gardens with the fishpond, amphitheatre, and former yachting pool.
The Bromley Palace Park with 4 ancient monuments and a medieval moat.College Green with one of the old and original Telephone boxes on the former nursery gardens for the Seventeenth Century Colleges.

Below are old photographs – and some newer ones – of our green spaces in the town centre:

Ruin with arched window
The Folly cira 1940s
blocks of apparent masonry between trees
Blocks of apparent masonry are scattered to give a more ruinous appearance to the folly (2005 by Tony Banfield)
brick wall with large bushes on top
The restored Ha-Ha in the Bromley Palace Park in 2022
St Blaise’s Well in the 1920s
St Blaises well and Palace Moat in 1960
Old photo of the Palace Estate
Restored Pulhamite Rocks in The Cascade, the Palace Park in 2006
The Pulhanite rockery and cascade. Looking rather sad in October 2019.
View over moat from St Blaise’s well (2019)
summery porch
The Ice House (and boat house)
Tear tree in land sold for housing
Lead Cistern
corfu cypress and mature palm trees and orange bench
Mature planting outside the Library – condemned because they’re non-native species
Cedar tree that has been reprieved; it’s on land sold to whoever develops ‘Site G’
Library Garden postcard 1940
Floral clock, Library Gardens
LIbrary Gardens
LIbrary Gardens
Colour photograph of the rockery in Church House gardens
Neelgherries garden, now called Libary Garden
Colour photograph of the rockery in Church House gardens
Ballustrades, from before Church House burnt down. The nearest section has been allowed to fall down.
Church House gardens and it’s view in the 1930s
The park is home to many squirrels
The oval flowerbed, originally in the centre of the carriage drive for Church House.
Fish pond in Church House Garden, around 2000
long fenced pond reflecting trees in bloom
The mill pond on a sunny day in March
Bridge by the Mill Pond
College Green
College Green
path with trees along wall
College Slip from the High Street
View of the Seedsman cottage
View of Bromley College from the gate in College Slip
The original Telephone box, called Kiosk 2 (because K1 was a grey concrete prototype)