Well Hall Pleasaunce
A beautiful set of formal and wild gardens in Eltham, free, laid out around a Tudor moated site once home to the author of The Railway Children, with a rose garden and an old barn.
FREE
The lowdown
Well Hall Pleasaunce is a hidden gem in suburban Eltham, a set of gardens laid out in the 1930s around the site of a Tudor manor house. Free to wander, it packs a surprising amount into a small space, formal terraces, a rose garden, a moat, woodland and wilder corners.
The site has real history. The Tudor Barn that survives here, now a restaurant, is one of the few remaining buildings of the old manor, and the author Edith Nesbit, who wrote The Railway Children, lived at Well Hall for many years and is closely associated with the place.
It is the kind of free local park that rewards anyone who makes the trip out, beautifully kept by volunteers and the council, peaceful, and full of quiet history a long way off the tourist trail.
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