A local’s guide to the City of London’s Postman’s Park, one of the most secret gardens and best hidden gems in London with a memorial to heroic self sacrifice!
Located close to St Paul’s Cathedral and secret spots like Host Cafe at St Mary Aldermary, Postman’s Park is one of the quietest places you could dream of while walking around London.
Once the burial ground to St Botolph-without-Aldersgate and other nearby parishes, the park is almost always empty, aside from a few locals and the odd tourist checking out the remarkable memorial inside – the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice.
I’ve had this short guide to Postman’s Park in the works for some time now, and if you’re as interested in London’s historical sites and quirky spots as I am, you’ll love to discover this hidden gem.
City of London’s Secret Gardens: Postman’s Park and Memorial
The first time I visited Postman’s Park, I seem to remember I’d been walking a lot that day, and had walked around another secret garden earlier, Mark Street Gardens closer to Shoreditch.
What I love about London is the plethora of old places you can walk around for free, undressing the city’s layers one after the other.
Postman’s Park is especially great to visit because of its Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice: I spent long minutes reading about ordinary people who lost their lives while saving others, their names preserved on ceramic tablets.
Entering the City of London’s Postman’s Park
Before you enter Postman’s Park (which you can do from Aldersgate Street or Little Britain), you’ll see several quirky things, like an original police telephone – no longer in use, but a remnant of London’s past.
Step into the park, and you’ll see the church on your right, as you enter in what was once a churchyard, turned gorgeous garden.
Church of St Botolph-without-Aldersgate, City of London
Postman’s Park, City of London Photo Gallery
Postman’s Park opened back in 1880 on several former churchyards; those of St Botolph’s, St Leonard’s on Foster Lane, and Christ Church Greyfriars.
The poetic name ‘Postman’s Park’ comes from its proximity to the old General Post Office building; postal workers would have lunch in the garden before going back to work.
If you take a closer look, you’ll see that the park is partially raised, slightly above street level; this is due to the fact that many graves and interments accumulated there over centuries.
This is one of the most peaceful places in London; so quiet, empty more often than not, and definitely a great place to write, read, or reflect on your thoughts.
London’s Postman’s Park: G.F. Watts’ Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice
One of the highlights of Postman’s Park is the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times in guides to London’s hidden gems.
Conceived by Victorian artist George Frederic Watts in 1887, the memorial is located along one wall of a park.
It takes the form of a timber loggia with, on the wall, ceramic plaques initially hand-painted by William De Morgan.
Many of the plaques date to the 19th and 20th century.
Some tell stories of adults, some belong to children, like that of an 11-year-old boy who died in 1901 after saving his brother from being run over in Commercial Street reading ‘Mother I saved him, but I could not save myself’.
Originally, there was space for 120 tablets, and the first four were installed at the unveiling in 1900; there are, however, only 54 to date, with the most recent tablet installed in 2007.
The plaque to the G.F. Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice reads:
Unveiled in 1900, the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice was conceived and undertaken by the Victorian artist George Frederic Watts (1817-1904).
It contains plaques to those who have heroically lost their lives trying to save another. Watts believed that these ‘everyday’ heroes provided models of exemplary behaviour and character.
‘The material prosperity of a nation is not an abiding possession: the deeds of its people are’, G.F. Watts
‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’, John 15:13
City of London’s Secret Gardens: Postman’s Park and Memorial
London’s Postman’s Park has kept an intangible, eerie feeling of peace, when it could very well have become a quite creepy place to visit.
When you know that the garden’s established on a former churchyard, and couple it with the Memorial to Self Sacrifice, you understand that London knows to make new with the old, and keeps on keeping on.
Should you have some time during a day out in London or are looking for free spots to visit, this is a secret garden I cannot stop raving about.
If you would like to discover other gardens and parks of the sort, these are a few hidden gems you might want to see next:
- City of London’s Secret Gardens: St Pancras Church Gardens
- London’s Secret Gardens: St Pancras New Church and Caryatids
- London’s Secret Gardens: How to Visit St Dunstan in the East
- London’s Secret Gardens: Crossrail Place Roof Garden, Canary Wharf
Postman’s Park London
Address: Aldersgate Street / Little Britain, City of London
Nearest Tube: St Paul’s (Exit 1 for Aldersgate Street)
Website: City of London