London’s Garden Squares: The City’s Private Green Secret
Hidden behind the terraces of Prime Central London lie some of the city’s best-kept secrets: its garden squares. Green, gated and gloriously quiet, these private oases are one of the defining pleasures of London living — and one of the least understood by those who don’t hold a key.
A Very London Invention
The garden square emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as London’s great estates laid out residential neighbourhoods around a central communal garden. The square was the centrepiece: a shared green, railed and gated, for the exclusive use of the surrounding residents. London is thought to have hundreds of them — a network of private countryside threaded quietly through the city.
Green, Private, Priceless
To hold a key to a garden square is to have a slice of calm on your doorstep: lawns and mature planes, birdsong instead of traffic, a place for children to play and neighbours to meet. Once a year, during London’s Open Garden Squares Weekend, many of these hidden gardens briefly open their gates — a rare chance to see the city’s private green heart.
To hold a key to a London garden square is to hold a piece of the city’s soul.
Squares by Neighbourhood
Each of Valoir’s neighbourhoods has its own. Marylebone is laid out around a calm grid of squares — Manchester, Montagu and Bryanston. Notting Hill hides some of London’s most beautiful communal gardens behind its pastel crescents. And Bayswater’s grand squares open, almost, onto Hyde Park itself.
Living Beside the Green
A home near — or with access to — a garden square is one of London’s quiet luxuries. Valoir’s furnished apartments sit within these leafy enclaves across Prime Central London, each owned and managed in-house, with concierge support whenever it’s needed.
Live Beside the Green
Discover Valoir’s furnished apartments in London’s garden-square neighbourhoods. View available apartments · Book a viewing