Victoria Park

If you want a little more green than Mile End Park affords, head north from Mile End tube along Grove Rd, until you reach 88-hectare Victoria Park, the ‘Regent’s Park of the East End’. This leafy expanse has lakes, fountains, a bowling green, tennis courts, a deer park and much more. It was the East End’s first public park when it opened in 1845 and came about after a local MP presented Queen Victoria with a petition of 30,000 signatures. In the early 20th century it was known as the Speaker’s Corner of the East End. During WWII the park was largely closed to the public and was used as an anti-aircraft shelling site as well as an internment camp for Italian and then German prisoners of war.