SITE DETAILS

Fuller information:

The site was once part of Rush/Rushey Common, which in 1810 was enclosed and divided among tenants of Lambeth Manor, the land subject to the Rush Common Act of 1806. The portion where the library gardens are now was assigned to Thomas Woodroffe Smith who leased it to James Porter. By 1839 a row of houses had been built where the library and cinema now stand and the garden was an island that became known as Brixton Oval, which was protected from building as part of the Enclosure Act. The houses were demolished in the late C19th when the new library was built in 1893, designed by S R J Smith and the theatre in 1894, paid for by Henry Tate. Tate was from Lancashire and had worked in a sugar refinery in Liverpool; he patented an invention to cut up sugar mechanically into cubes, after which he founded his own business in London and settled in Streatham Common at Park Hill in 1884 (Tate Gardens Streatham q.v.). His collection of paintings became the nucleus of the Tate Gallery and he also established a number of charities in London and Liverpool, including 2 free libraries in Lambeth.

Knighted in 1898, after his death in 1899 his widow Dame Amy Fanny Tate commemorated his philanthropy by the purchase of Brixton Oval for £3,250 in 1904, and presented it to Council for a public garden in 1905 with certain stipulations: it was to be called the Tate Library Garden; no bust or statue other than that of Sir Henry Tate was to be erected. It was to be closed at dusk and there were stipulations about seats to be provided. It was laid out with raised flower beds, surrounded by iron railings with 2 wrought iron gates on stone piers surmounted by seated lions. A bronze bust of Sir Henry by Thomas Brock on a pedestal in a flower bed was erected by public subscription in 1905.

In 1937 a small area of the garden was taken for road widening and in 1965-66 the garden was redesigned at a cost of £3,000. The railings were removed and the bust re-sited on a circular brick base with 4 lions from the old gate-piers, the garden paved over and seats and flower pots provided, with a plane tree preserved as a central feature. Also sited in the garden was an old milestone formerly on the site of the Town Hall and a stone laid by Henry Irving in 1894 for Brixton Theatre, and a memorial fountain was erected.

Opposite the Tate Library Garden a newer public space, Windrush Square, was laid out in 1998 on the site of a derelict coach station and was named following public consultation after SS Empire Windrush, which sailed from Jamaica to Southampton in 1948. It was initially laid out as a simple grassed area enclosed by Victorian style railings but it has now been amalgamated with Tate Library Gardens as part of the Brixton Masterplan, approved by Lambeth Council in 2009. This was a joint project between Lambeth Council, Transport for London, Design for London and the local community. The new public open space re-opened in February 2010. In addition to removal of the one-way system around St Matthew's Church and widening of Brixton Hill to accommodate more 2-way traffic the scheme includes a new pedestrianized public space incorporating Windrush Square and Tate Library Garden where the Henry Tate statue has been repositioned for greater prominence.

Sources consulted:

Marie Draper 'Lambeth's Open Spaces, An historical account', LB Lambeth 1979; Bridget Cherry & Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 2: South (Penguin) 1999

Grid ref:	TQ3175
Size in hectares:	0.11
On EH National Register :	No
EH grade :
Site on EH Heritage at Risk list:
Registered common or village green on Commons Registration Act 1965:	No
Protected under London Squares Preservation Act 1931:	Yes
The information below is taken from the relevant Local Authority's planning legislation, which was correct at the time of research but may have been amended in the interim. Please check with the Local Authority for latest planning information.
On Local List:
In Conservation Area:	Yes
Conservation Area name:	Brixton
Tree Preservation Order:	No
Nature Conservation Area:	No
Green Belt:	No
Metropolitan Open Land:	No
Special Policy Area:	No
Other LA designation:	Protected London Square. Park Regeneration Area. Rush Common Land. Open Space