Flowers,  History,  Lens-Artists,  London,  Trees, forests and woodland

History and nature in Lesnes Park

April 6, 2025 / 38 Comments

You can live in a city all your life and never uncover all its secrets nor learn all its history. There are always new places to discover and explore. A very recent outing of discovery took me from my home in Ealing, west London, to a park in Abbey Wood on the city’s eastern fringes.

The fairly new Elizabeth line has its eastern terminus in that suburb, making it an easy 40 minute train ride from Ealing. And on a sunny spring day what can be better for a city dweller than a walk in a park?

For this week’s Lens Artists challenge Ann-Christine poses the question, what have you seen on a recent outing? So let me show you, and her, around this lovely park. As the suburb’s name suggests, it offers not just parkland but also a ruined abbey and a wood!

A bit of history

As I said, there is always something new to learn about my home city. And what I discovered in Lesnes Park led me to an investigation of a slice of London history I had previously been unaware of.

In 1178 Richard de Lucy, the Chief Justiciar of England (a role similar to today’s Prime Minister) founded an abbey near the south bank of the River Thames, east of London. What is interesting is his reason for doing so. De Lucy (also sometimes spelled Luci) had twice been excommunicated by Thomas Beckett some years previously, because he had introduced a law that ‘clerics convicted of felony in ecclesiastical courts should be punished by a lay authority instead of by the church’ (source: Encyclopaedia Britannica). Becket’s murder by the king’s henchmen in 1170 resulted in part from the archbishop’s refusal to lift the sentences of excommunication. When de Lucy founded Lesnes Abbey it is generally accepted that he did so as penance for his part in that murder. He entered his own abbey in 1179, having resigned his office, and died there the following year.

Today the abbey is in ruins, one of the first to have been dissolved by Cardinal Wolsey under Henry VIII. But it is nevertheless a highlight of a visit to the park that takes its name. Information boards point out the foundations of different structures and provide illustrations of what it once looked like. Children play where the monks once prayed. And a nearby fenced-in garden, the Monk’s Garden, showcases the various herbs the monks would have grown and used as medicine in their infirmary.

Exploring the park

As well as exploring the abbey ruins on this recent outing, we had a short walk in the woods. I was delighted to see bluebells already starting to flower, as well as the bright celandines carpeting the ground in places. And we were pleased to see quite a few butterflies, after a recent BBC News story highlighted their decline in recent years.

Elsewhere there were blossoming trees, and others with new leaves just starting to unfurl.

Art in the park

There is also some interesting art to enjoy. The main entrances to the park have gateways inspired by the curved arches and doorways of the Lesnes Abbey and the abbot’s crozier. They were designed by Trish Hawes and fabricated by Heather Burrell. Near the gate we entered by is a sculpture of a monk, carved from a tree stump by Tom Harvey (also known as Carver Harvey).

Despite seeing so much, and enjoying a light lunch from the park’s refreshment kiosk, we left plenty for another visit, especially in the woods which are designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest containing fossils from the Eocene Epoch (54.5 million years ago). There are other carvings by Tom Harvey to discover too. And it was too hazy to properly photograph the views of London from a platform on the hill behind the abbey, especially as I only had my phone with me for these shots. So I’m sure we’ll be back one day soon!

I visited Lesnes Park in April 2025

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