PROJECTS
The Friends of Furnivall Gardens help care for the gardens by monthly sessions of weeding and tidying up. For details please see the Friends’ Facebook page. The Friends are also pursuing a project to improve the screen of planting along the north side of Furnivall Gardens (alongside the A4).
IMPROVed planting alongside the a4
Created in the early 1960s, the Hammersmith A4 was driven through historical residential areas in a way which would never be allowed today. The road obliterated everything in its path, including much of the churchyard of St. Paul’s Church, where it destroyed an old wall and many grave markers. And it drove through the green space of Homefield Recreation Ground, dividing it into two. It was designed not as an urban street, but as a quasi-motorway with six lanes of traffic and no surface pedestrian crossings. It damages the community through which it passes in four ways: visual intrusion, noise, pollution, and severance.
Our planting project addresses the first three of these impacts. Its primary purpose is to eliminate the visual intrusion of the A4 by achieving dense, continous, and high planting along the full length of the northern boundary of Furnivally Gardens. At present there are substantial gaps in the planting. The first phase of the project, which was undertaken in February 2025, concentrated on the eastern section of the boundary. Through the generosity of a local resident and with a contribution from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, 100 hollies and yews were planted. A section of the new planting is shown below.
