Welcome to the LONDON PARKIVE!

The London Parkive is an archive of London’s (currently only Southwark’s) parks and open spaces. We are collecting information that is scattered across the internet and physical archives and consolidating it in one place in a way that is easily accessible to the public.

The thing that makes the Parkive unique is you can see the evolution of an open space overtime.

Check out the Alterations view mode to see how parks have been expanded or shrunk over time! You can also see parks that no longer exist anymore by checking out the status view mode, the red shapes tell you where a park that no longer exists used to be!

The London Parkive is a tool for exploring the history of London’s parks and open spaces but it also has the potential to highlight parks that are currently under threat from development.

With general budget cuts and the protection over parks being loosened over the past few decades there is an urgent need to keep tabs on the situation of parks and green spaces within London. A feature that could be implemented is highlighting parks that are currently under threat from development. We have included one example of an under threat park. However it is worth noting that this park is no longer under threat but we have kept it in to demonstrate how the feature could work.

How Does it Work?

How is the information collected and verified?

Currently the information on parks and open spaces has been collected by one person (Maya Osaka) primarily from local archives and the internet.The information that is collected is verified by cross referencing using different materials which includes archival documents, internet searches and using digitised old maps. It is important to note that we try to be as accurate as possible but there may be errors in the data.

How are defunct parks located?

Defunct parks, which are parks that no longer exist anymore, have been located by finding detailed lists of parks and open spaces within London from different time periods. By searching up the names of the parks on the list it is easy to distinguish those that are still open and those that don’t exist anymore. To make sure this is the case, the parks are located on detailed old maps. National Library of Scotland's Geo-Referenced Maps and Southwark Council's Interactive Maps have been useful for this. The maps are also used to draw up the shapes of the parks so they can be displayed on the London Parkive’s map.Finding these parks on the map can be tricky but sometimes the list which they were located on will have a street name associated with the park or looking online at websites such as the Metropolitan Archives Collection Catalogue can help with finding out information.

How can the evolution of a park be depicted?

The evolution of a park, whether its been expanded or shrunk overtime is determined by looking at digitised old maps on the National Library of Scotland's Geo-Referenced Maps and Southwark Council's Interactive Maps. Using geojson.io , a website that allows you to draw shapes onto maps and save them in geoJSON (Geographical JavaScript Object Notation) format, you can draw the shapes of the parks and save them in a format that is compatible with the London Parkive. If a parks shape has changed the various shapes of the park are drawn up and saved and applied to the Parkive’s map creating layers that are colour coded so you can see how the parks shape has evolved overtime.

How is the opening date of a park determined?

The opening date of a park is determined either by looking at the lists of parks and open spaces found at archives, as some of them include opening dates, looking up the history of parks online or by drawing comparisons from old maps to determine when they started appearing on maps. It is interesting how there seems to be more easily accessible information on older parks dating between 1850 and the mid 1900s than later parks. Exact opening dates for newer parks are harder to come by so their opening dates are mostly determined by drawing comparisons between old maps to come up with a time period which the park was opened in.

If you are interested in reading more about the process of creating the London Parkive visit
Maya Osaka's Portfolio Website !

If you want to see the code for the London Parkive check out the Git Hub Repo !