Ada Salter - Beautifying Bermondsey

Ada Salter - Beautifying Bermondsey

9th Jun 2018 2pm - 3:30pm
Greenwich Mean Time
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2018-06-09 14:00:00 2018-06-09 15:30:00 Europe/London Ada Salter - Beautifying Bermondsey Throughout The City, London, UK

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Ada Salter was a local politician, who believed "the cultivation of flowers and trees is a civic duty”. She and her husband, Dr Alfred Salter MP, made a significant difference to the lives of local people in the first half of the twentieth century. 

In densely populated, heavily industrialised Bermondsey, Ada’s Beautification Committee undertook extensive street tree planting, turned churchyards into playgrounds, planted bulbs and shrubs and acquired pockets of land to create green oases.  She replaced overcrowded slums by cottage-style housing and encouraged local window box and garden competitions.

The industry may have gone and riverside warehouses become residential apartments, but as we walk through the garden suburb she created, among trees she planted and pocket parks she fought to acquire, we see that Ada’s Beautiful Bermondsey lives on and meets its modern equivalent in new garden squares, floating gardens on houseboats and balconies above our heads.

Led by Sue McCarthy