Vauxhall Park

Vauxhall Park exists because a local politician wanted to ensure his community had a place to hear birds and the rustle of leaves. Henry Fawcett, a blind Member of Parliament, lived in a house on this very site until he died in eighteen eighty-four. When developers threatened to replace the green space around his home with dense housing, his wife, the famous suffragist Millicent Fawcett, teamed up with social reformer Octavia Hill to save the land. Their successful public campaign resulted in the opening of the park in eighteen ninety.