Spring your feet to a pleasant and peaceful walk, a picnic or a family get-together to find some peace and quiet at Wimbledon’s magically beautiful and historic Cannizaro Park. A Grade II listed landscaped Park of Natural Conservation interest in Wimbledon Village, right next to the Cannizaro House Hotel on Westside Common, the Cannizaro Park is home to a spectacular collection of rare plants, shrubs and trees from around the world and includes a variety of scenes: ponds and a range of sculptures (the Millennium Fountain in the entrance which was created by Richard Rome and looks like a giant teapot, the statue of Diana and the fawn and the bust of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia in the Old Tennis Court area), a Sunken Garden, a Herb Garden, an Azalea Dell, a Water Garden, an Italian Garden, a Mediterranean Garden and a Rose Garden. Breathe the oxygen and open your senses to a paradise of euphonious, colourful bird sounds in perfect harmony with the woodland beauty of Birch, Maple and Horse Chestnut trees and a flowering burst of Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Camellias, Tulips, Roses, Magnolias surrounding wide open flat lawn fields suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs.
Cannizaro Park was a private property for almost 300 years and part of the estate of the late Duke of Cannizzaro of Sicily. In 1949, Merton Borough Council took ownership of the property and officially opened the idyllic Park’s gates to the public. Since 1989 Wimbledon’s Cannizaro Art Festival takes place in summer at the grounds of the Park’s Italian Garden. In 1997 the Friends of Cannizaro Park, a voluntary organisation of over 500 members was formed to support the preservation and improvement of the Park’s almost 35 acres of open land which is based around a small valley of gravel subsoil and acid topsoil.
Famous visitors of Cannizaro Park included royalty, senior politicians and great writers such as George III, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, the Duke of Wellington and Mrs Fitzherbert –mistress of King George IV, Lord Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, Henry James & Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia who served his exile from Ethiopia in Wimbledon in the 1930s.
A joy to visit at all seasons –Cannizaro Park looks really special in Spring when
‘I look outside and what do I see?
I see spring looking back at me’ ( ‘Signs of Spring’ by Robin Suitt)