page_title: Streatham Common
section_title: The Rookery
hierarchical_section_title: Streatham Common / The Rookery
caption_attribution_description: English: Tulips in The Rookery A lovely display of April tulips in The Rookery, Streatham Common
context_page_description: Streatham Common is a large open space on the southern edge of Streatham in the London Borough of Lambeth. The shallow sloping lower half of the common is mostly mowed grass, and the upper half is mostly woodland with some small areas of gorse scrub and acid grassland. The eastern half has been designated a Local Nature Reserve.
context_section_description: Adjacent to the historic common, there is a formal garden, The Rookery, formerly the grounds of a large house that housed visitors to one of Streatham's historic mineral wells.  
  The Rookery is well known for its old cedar trees in the main garden. There is also a rock garden - with a cascade and lower water garden dominated by giant Gunnera. A series of walled gardens were created in part of the former kitchen gardens, including an Old English Garden and a White Garden - which predates the more famous garden in the same style at Sissinghurst Castle.  
  The remaining parts of the kitchen gardens, which had been used as a council plant nursery, but had been abandoned for twenty years, are now managed by Streatham Common Community Garden for community food growing, and are open to the public on most Sundays.
  The Rookery and the adjacent Hilly Four Acres field was purchased by public subscription in 1911 to save the site from residential development, presented to the London County Council, and opened as a public park in 1913. The south east end of Streatham Common and The Rookery abut Norwood Grove within the London Borough of Croydon.  The appeal committee that had bought The Rookery was reformed in 1923 to save Norwood Grove from development, and there is now an almost continuous series of green spaces along the ridge line from Streatham to Crystal Palace.
  The gently sloping lawns of The Rookery are used as an open-air theatre in the summer.
caption: The Rookery
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