Kennington Park

Lonely Planet review

This unprepossessing space of green has a great rabble-rousing tradition. Originally a common, where all were permitted entry, it acted as a speakers' corner for South London. After the great Chartist rally on 10 April 1848, where millions of working-class people turned out to demand the same voting rights as the middle classes, the royal family promptly fenced off and patrolled the common as a park.

During the 18th century, Jacobite rebels trying to restore the Stuart monarchy were hanged, drawn and quartered here, and in the 18th and 19th century, preachers used to deliver hellfire-and-brimstone speeches to large audiences here; John Wesley, founder of Methodism and an antislavery advocate, is said to have attracted some 30,000 followers here.