I haven’t been here since my grown up children were small, but this is an amazing park.
I’d arranged to meet a friend. There is a cafe here with an outside terrace. Ideal for social distancing outside (which is what we are allowed to do right now with one person not from our own household). We arrived at exactly the same time, though we came from different parts of London. Firstly we stopped for a hot chocolate in the cafe before we walked the perimeter of the park. As you can see from the photo above there are lots of tennis courts, but there is also a lake, running track, playground, gardens, beach volleyball, crazy golf (great to see that’s still here), toilets and the cafe.
The park has always been busy. With schools back it is mainly mums with pre-schoolers, or nursery schools with a class of tiny children wearing high-vis tabbards. Across the lake you can clearly see the All England Tennis Club which hosts Wimbledion fortnight in June/July every year (except this one, of course).
The cafe offers hot and cold food, kids meals and a range of hot and cold drinks. The Vegetable Lasagne was delicious. My friend had a jacket potato with tuna. It only offers takeway right now, so everyhting is delivered in polystyrene with throwaway cutlery. I hate this, I really do, and I am torn between my hatred of throwaway cups etc., and supporting local businesses, which are suffering right now due to Covid restrictions. It’s a hard one. I have my own reusable mug, but no one will take them right now.
The park used to house Wimbledon Manor House and you can read about it’s history here. The nearest train station is Wimbledon and it is around a twenty minute walk from there. The underground (District Line) station of Wimbledon Park is right by the park.
My London+ 