Urban Green Space and the Blitz: Constructing New Parks and Gardens in Post-War Southwark

This article illustrates how historical cartographic sources can be analysed using a Geographical Information System to identify green spaces in London with a bombsite genesis in order to enhance the understanding of how the Blitz acted as a catalyst for greening the capital. It describes how temporary wartime green space creation and a desire to memorialise using parks and gardens gave way to ambitious plans to weave hundreds of acres of new green space into London's urban fabric after the Second World War. The policies of London's local government show how bomb-damaged land was specifically earmarked as the nuclei around which new green spaces could be assembled to address long-standing deficiencies in open space provision. The analysis of post-war green spaces in the present-day London Borough of Southwark using a Geographical Information System, alongside case studies of Leathermarket Gardens and Burgess Park, illustrates how digital mapping combined with archival research can reveal the processes and policies used by the municipal authorities to assemble new green spaces.