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Find a park

Find a Southwark park and get to know its facilities and history.

Contents

Burgess Park

Burgess Park is Southwark's largest park at 56 hectares. The park stretches from Camberwell and Walworth in the west to Peckham and the Old Kent Road in the east. 

It was developed in 1943 as part of the Abercrombie Plan for open spaces. The area was once home to factories, densely populated streets and the Surrey Canal before it was badly bombed during World War II. It was built between the 1950s and 1980s.

The park was named after Councillor Jessie Burgess, Camberwell's first woman Mayor in 1973.

In 2012, Burgess Park re-opened after an £8m transformation, establishing it as a park central to the local community and recognised for its:

  • heritage
  • sports facilities
  • lake
  • wildlife
  • design
  • horticultural
  • barbecues

Facilities

Facilities include:

  • colourful, state-of-the-art play and climbing equipment for children up to 14 years old
  • separate play areas for children under and over 5 year old
  • water play jets at Chumleigh Gardens in summer
  • outdoor cooking - currently closed

Electric cooking area

Closed for winter

Find out how to use the park's cooking hotplates.

Sports

Burgess Park sports centre (accessed from Cobourg Road) facilities include:

  • 2 full-size artificial grass pitches, available to book in quarter (5-a-side), half (7 or 7-a-side) or full-size spaces (11-a-side football and 15-a-side rugby)
  • grass cricket and rugby pitch
  • cricket practice nets
  • a single outdoor basketball court
  • 7 tennis courts near Addington Square and Camberwell Road, open daily 7am and 10pm, book a tennis court
  • fishing
  • a 400 metre BMX national standard track, open regularly until 9pm (all welcome following an induction)
  • outdoor gym
  • changing rooms
  • meeting room

There's a lake with fishing allowed when you buy a day ticket. This allows fishing from dawn to dusk on half of the lake. Dogs must be kept on a lead and are not allowed in the water.

Runners can enjoy a 5km route around the park. Routes are marked with butterfly symbols on the pathway and recycled iron markers.  

Register with parkrun for weekly time trialled runs.

To book or enquire about a space:

Find accessibility information for Burgess Park Tennis Centre.

Toilets 

Toilets are located at:

  • Chumleigh Gardens
  • the tennis pavilion/café at Addington Square
  • Burgess Park Sports Centre on Cobourg Road
  • the BMX track
  • next to the fishing lake

Gardens and volunteering

Chumleigh Gardens are renowned world gardens are designed to reflect traditional English, Asian, Mediterranean, Oriental and Caribbean plantings.

Has raised beds for community gardeners to grow vegetables. Free to visit. Dogs must be on leads.

The Burgess Park food growing project is situated in the Glengall Wharf Garden. 

It runs a wide variety of activities throughout the week. Email burgessfoodproject@gmail.com for further details.

Volunteering

It's a great time to get involved with exciting horticultural projects happening in Chumleigh and across the park. 

Whether you're an experienced gardener or a beginner, you can join our team for various gardening activities, from propagating plants to food growing, weeding, pruning and mulching.

Events and activities

  • Burgess Park Food Project, food growing project at Glengall Wharf Garden, Surrey Canal, Sun 1pm to 3pm, Tues 2pm to 4pm and Thurs 1pm to 4pm
  • Herb Tuesdays, 11am to 4pm (lunch at 1pm)
  • Burgess food group, a sociable meet-up on Sundays for food growing and tasty homegrown, homemade refreshments
  • Grown in Peckham teach you how to grow, harvest and box food for local restaurants, Thursdays
  • Friends of Burgess Park hold regular activities, including practical conservation and gardening, heritage walks and talks and cultural events, volunteers are always welcome to get involved

Groups

If you're a local school, community group or business and would like to organise a group activity in Burgess Park, we can help. 

We support forest schools, team building planting or conservation activities.

If you'd like to join the volunteer mailing list or for more information:

Opening times

Burgess Park is always open.

Sports centre

  • Monday to Friday, 9am to 10pm
  • Saturday and Sunday, 9.30am to 8pm

Getting there

Burgess Park is located at Albany Road, SE5, with entrances at:

  • Albany Road
  • Old Kent Road
  • Chumleigh Street
  • Wells Way

Travel by:

  • car, parking at Albany Road, 8am to 6pm
  • cycle, bike store at Chumleigh Gardens off Albany Road
  • tube, Elephant and Castle
  • bus, Old Kent Road entrance 53, 63, 78,168, 172, 363, 453, Camberwell Road entrance 12, 35, 40, 45, 68, 468, Albany Road entrance 42, 343

How to use the electric cooking area

Opening times

The electric hotplates are now closed for the winter.

How to cook on the hotplate

  1. Press and hold the button until it beeps or starts to flash red.
  2. After three to seven minutes the hotplate should be hot enough to use. It will beep, and the button will change from flashing red, to green. That means it’s time to cook.
  3. You’ll have 20 minutes to cook. The hotplate shuts off automatically after this time.

You can turn off the hotplate at any time by pressing the button for only 3 seconds. Please check that it is off.

The metal plate gets hot. Please do not touch!

Watch our hotplate tutorial video

What to do if there's a problem

If the button starts flashing red and green, or the hotplate isn’t working, call: 020 7525 2000 or email parks@southwark.gov.uk. We will respond as soon as possible.

If you need non-emergency health assistance dial 101.

Outdoor cooking area guidelines

The outdoor cooking area is a community space. Please leave it in a good condition for other people to use.

You can use the hotplates on a first come, first-served basis.

Be mindful of others by letting everyone have their turn to cook.

We recommend from 20 minutes to two hours per group.

Safety and hygiene

You must:

  • only put food and foil trays on the hotplate. Never put anything else on the hotplate as it could damage the surface
  • make sure the hotplate is clean before and after cooking
  • before cleaning, ensure the hotplate is off and cool. You can use the scraper attached to the hotplate with a little bottled water to clean. Please do not use anything metal to clean the hotplate as this could scratch it
  • cook meat thoroughly
  • wait until the hotplate has cooled down before you leave it unattended.
  • leave the area clean for the next person to use. You can use the litter bins for your rubbish. To help us reduce the amount of rubbish we dispose of, please take home what you can

Disposable BBQs can’t be used here or anywhere else in the park.

Map of the area in the park between Albany Road, Wells Way and Chumleigh Gardens. The toilets are located to the north west corner of Chumleigh Gardens. The drinking fountain is between Chumleigh Gardens and the play area.

Accessible route to toilets and fountain (tarmac) shown in blue
Less accessible route to toilets and fountain (gravel) shown in red

Toilets and water

There is a drinking water fountain near the play area at Chumleigh Gardens where you can wash your hands.

Toilets are located near the play area at Chumleigh Gardens. They are open from 8am to half an hour before dusk.