Finsbury Circus Gardens – London’s first public park and the largest open green space in the Square Mile – has reopened following a major transformation project by the City of London Corporation.
Upgrades to this historic, Grade II-listed site include: improved accessibility and seating; a larger, revitalised central lawn; and new landscaping and planting to boost biodiversity and attract a range of habitats for birds, bees, and bats – including 12 additional tree species, over 13,000 plants and more than 6,000 bulbs.
The design by Realm, who worked with Studio Weave to incorporate a brand-new Parks Office, reflects the City Corporation’s ambition in attracting businesses, workers, and visitors to the Square Mile – ensuring that the City continues to play a leading role in driving both London’s and the UK’s economy.
Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation, Chris Hayward, said:
“Finsbury Circus Gardens is a beautiful, tranquil retreat in the heart of the City – now revitalised and ready to be rediscovered.
Our green spaces play a vital role in making the Square Mile a welcoming and attractive place to live, work, and visit – delivering on our vision for a more inclusive, innovative, and sustainable City.
These gardens reflect what makes the City of London so special – not just a global financial powerhouse, but a destination rich in beauty, history, and moments of escape.”
Chair of the City Corporation’s Natural Environment Board, James St John Davis, added:
With the arrival of the nearby Elizabeth Line, much of Finsbury Circus Gardens has been closed for years. But now the wait is finally over, and we’re delighted to welcome the public back to this cherished green space.
Our open spaces are a lifeline in the City, supporting people’s health and wellbeing, and playing a vital role in climate resilience and biodiversity. From birds and butterflies to bees and insects, places like this provide essential habitats while helping to cool the urban environment and improve air quality.
Despite their size, the Square Mile’s parks and gardens – which attract over 21 million visits a year – truly punch above their weight. They offer a vital escape from the bustle of daily life and are central to making the City a more sustainable, liveable and thriving place for all.”
Principal Partner and founder of Realm, Edward Freeman, said:
The site of Finsbury Circus has a varied and fascinating history from the natural processes that helped form it and the people and communities that helped shape it.
Our design references this history through the new layout and materials used within the gardens, with a design focusing on the creation of equitable space with improved accessibility for all and improving biodiversity with new planting palettes and trees selected for climate change and resilience.”
Finsbury Circus Gardens has evolved significantly over the centuries — from boggy fenland shaped by the Roman London Wall and the River Walbrook, to becoming a public park, known as ‘Moor Fields’, in the 1600s.
In 1815, George Dance the Younger introduced a formal layout, and now, in 2025, the new design creates a welcoming and accessible garden space for future generations to enjoy.
The City Corporation manages a network of 11,000 acres of internationally important open spaces across London and southeast England, investing millions of pounds every year. They include iconic places like Hampstead Heath and Epping Forest, as well as over 180 smaller sites within the Square Mile.
As a collective, these gardens, churchyards, and plazas deliver the highest recreational and health benefits out of all the organisation’s open spaces and have a benefit to cost ratio of 87.7:1 – meaning that every £1 spent on maintenance gives a return of £87.70 in public benefits.
In 2024, the City Corporation was awarded the World Urban Parks Legacy Award in recognition of its outstanding contribution to the preservation, management, and enhancement of London’s urban green spaces.
The City of London Corporation also won gold and was named overall winner in the ‘Town category’ at last year’s London in Bloom awards
Speech of The Rt Hon the Lord Mayor of London – Alderman Alastair King DL
Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning.
After ten years, on and off, of closure, it is fantastic to join you all here today at Finsbury Circus Gardens – the oldest, largest, and perhaps most popular of our many beautiful parks here in the Square Mile.
Shakespeare said that “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin”…
…and a quick stroll around these newly renovated paths any given lunchtime will prove that to be true.
Indeed, this is a place that brings people together – whether it is to meet friends and family, grab a bite to eat, or simply to relax in the shade of one of these remarkable trees…an oasis of peace and calm amid the hustle and bustle of the City.
And thanks to the work of all of you here, it is now one that is more accessible and sustainable than ever before.
12 tree species, more than 6,000 bulbs, and over 13,000 plants have been added during the course of this upgrade project – a draw to residents, workers, and visitors alike…not to mention to birds, bats, bees, and butterflies.
On behalf of everyone who already has, and over the years ahead, will enjoy this space, allow me to say a few “thank yous”.
To Jessica Beattie and Edward Freeman at Realm – our landscape architects.
To JJ Cliff at Studio Weave, who designed the pavilion and parks office, and to Tom Emmerton at Maylim, our landscaping contractors.
To our City Officers – Marcus Odunlami and Joanne Hunneybell – from the Property Projects Group for managing the project, and of course to our wonderful City Gardens Team for all their work here and across the Square Mile.
And last but not least, to the members of the Natural Environment Board, past and present, for their invaluable contribution to this project.
This garden reflects everything that makes the City so unique – an international hub of trade and commerce, yes, but a place of history, culture, nature, and connection too.
For over 400 years, Finsbury Circus Gardens has encompassed all of that within just 2 acres. It is a special place…one we deeply value…and through your efforts, it will now be enjoyed for many more generations to come.
So, without further ado, let’s cut the ribbon!
Speech of Jake Tibbetts – City Gardens Manager
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for joining me today.
I’d like to take you on a short but rich journey through time — through a place that, while modest in size, has witnessed more than two millennia of London’s history.
We are standing in Finsbury Circus — nestled in the heart of the City, and arguably the oldest used space for public recreation in the capital. A place that has been marshland, burial ground, dumping ground, a place of refuge, a place for sports , for drying clothes — and today, a carefully tended garden surrounded by the city’s ever-changing skyline.
Let’s begin right at the beginning.
During construction of 12–15 Finsbury Circus Archaeologists working at uncovered evidence of prehistoric human activity here, including an Iron Age burial.
When the Romans arrived, they used this area — outside the protective city wall — as a cemetery from the late first to mid-second century. The wall partially dammed the River Walbrook, creating a marshy landscape. That marsh — or fen — gave us the name “Fens-bury.”
For much of the medieval period, there are not many records. The city expanded westward, not north. This area, on the wrong side of the wall, became a dumping ground.
But in 1173, Moorfields — as this larger area was known — was granted to the City “for the ease of the citizens,” by a wealthy widow, just before the Norman Conquest. From then on, sporadic attempts were made to drain and reclaim it.
In 1211, a 60-metre-wide ditch was dug as a defensive but also to help drain the marsh.
In 1411, the Lord Mayor ordered a cleanup and built Moor Gate to allow access for Londoners seeking open space.
The area slowly began to change. It was used for drying laundry, for archery practice, for grazing cattle — and even for ice skating in winter when the water froze. But drainage remained a constant struggle. Brick clay was dug from the area, and the holes left filled with stagnant water.
In 1606, a major turning point came. Ten acres of land were finally drained, planted with trees, and laid out with gravel paths and benches. This is where it claim as London’s first public park originates. King James the 1st praised the city for its effort to beautify the area for the benefit of his subjects.
The city made its expectations very clear — stocks were erected for anyone who dumped rubbish or relieved themselves in the park.
Fast forward to 1666, and after the Great Fire of London, displaced citizens set up temporary shelters here. Then, in 1676, the second Bethlehem Hospital — known to most as Bedlam — was built on the southern edge of Finsbury Circus. It was the country’s first purpose-built mental hospital, it was located here so the residents could look out on the park and enjoy the fresh air, but being poorly built on unstable ground and eventually demolished in 1814.
Then a plan to transform the area into a residential suburb. Between 1775 and 1800, George Dance the Younger, the City Surveyor, who was also responsible for Mansion House and the front of the Guildhall, envisioned a formal oval garden, surrounded by elegant neoclassical houses. He called it the “London Amphitheatre.” And the boundary of the garden you see today was formed. The garden was for private use, reserved for residents — many of whom were doctors, surgeons, and wealthy professionals.
The Royal Ophthalmic Hospital moved here in 1822. And the London Institution, a major library and educational centre, opened on the north side of the circus, dedicated to “the advancement of literature and diffusion of useful knowledge.”
But by the late 19th century, things shifted again. Rising rents drove out the residents and medical professionals. The Royal Ophthalmic Hospital moved to City Road — and became what we now know as Moorfields Eye Hospital. All of the houses were demolished and may way for businesses including the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which would later become BP.
Salisbury House, built in 1898 designed to house companies trading in the gold and diamond industries was at the time it was the tallest office block in London.
The garden remained private — but not untouched. In 1863, it was nearly lost to the Metropolitan Railway, which wanted to build a terminus here. A petition to the House of Lords successfully stopped it, although the railway was eventually allowed to build tunnels beneath the garden — on condition that the trees were preserved and the garden restored and an annual maintenance fee of £100 paid for ever more.
As the area became increasingly commercial, pressure grew to make the what was now a very underused garden public. The City began pushing for it to be opened up to the public. In 1901, the City of London (Various Powers) Bill passed through Parliament. Not everyone was happy — the librarian of the London Institution objected, he declared that if the gardens were open to the public, students and others would be subject to disturbance and annoyance. But his argument didn’t convince the committee.
And so, on the 25th of July, 1901, Finsbury Circus Garden was officially opened to the public by the Lord Mayor of London — though not without drama. A newspaper at the time reported a violent thunderstorm and wrote “When the place was reached rain fell so heavily that the ceremony as arranged could not possibly be carried out, and the Lord Mayor made his dedicatory speech from the shelter of his carriage, to the accompaniment of deafening peels from overhead“, forced the Lord Mayor to deliver his dedicatory speech from the safety of his carriage, accompanied by “deafening peals from overhead.”
Soon after, two drinking fountains were installed. In 1925, a bowling green was added after a public petition.
During World War II, the garden served as allotments and air raid shelters. The railings were removed as part of the war effort.
In 1955, a bandstand was added. In 1985, a garden pavilion was turned into a wine bar. And then, in 2010, the garden was closed yet again — this time for a different kind of tunnel.
Crossrail — now the Elizabeth Line — needed a shaft here to build the new Liverpool Street station. For more than a decade, the garden was behind hoardings.
But when the work was completed, and the site handed back to the City we launched a design competition resulting in this beautiful garden in its new form: a beautiful, tranquil, biodiverse space, that has climate resilient planting and looks forward to the future.
So here we are — standing in a space that has been many things: a burial site, a marsh, a park, a dumping ground, a hospital, a refuge, a construction site a place of recreation, of relief, and of beauty.
Finsbury Circus is not just a garden. It is a living layer of London’s past — and a reminder that even in the oldest corners of the city, change is constant, and history is never far beneath our feet.
Thank you.
