You are welcome at Homestead Park
What is Homestead Park?
At its roots, it’s 15 acres of riverine clay and silty river deposits. It’s home to trees who have been here for hundreds of years. It’s many people’s first playground memories. And it’s a special place for remembering our loved ones. It’s ping pong and picnics and moth surveys and dog walks and lounging in deckchairs. It’s the Pavilion – our very own community space. It’s birdsong and mushrooms and a breath of fresh air. It’s a place to learn to ride a bike or meet with friends, to go for a jog or to hear a new song. It’s cold fingers wrapped around a drink of hot chocolate. It’s part of a corridor of biodiversity that runs along the river. It’s play! The first go on the big slide. An apple fresh from the tree. It’s flood defence and it’s history and it’s been free to enter since 1904. It’s for everyone.
What could it be?
We love the park as it is, but we have some big challenges and big opportunities!
We know that public parks are hugely beneficial to people’s health and wellbeing, and we believe that they should be there for EVERYONE. We are striving to make the park a place where everyone feels valued, respected and welcomed. There are big barriers for some people in connecting with green spaces and we want to do more to pull those barriers down.
We can see the impacts of floods, storms and droughts on our trees and our beautiful plantings. We are planning for greater resilience in a warming climate and doing what we can to boost and improve the biodiversity of the park. The garden team contributes hugely to this goal: there are no pesticides or herbicides used in the park, we are cutting our fossil fuel use (which also makes the park a quieter and more fragrant place to be!). We are planning future plantings with attention to the wider ecosystem. We have more work to do!
We believe in the power of community resilience: the park is a place of connection and learning. We are deeply aware of how lucky we are to have the Pavilion community space as a place to host and to run events. We are working to connect people with nature and also with one another. We've made a start but we hope to offer many more workshops and events at the park including themes like food, craft, music, art and activities to support health.
We’d like the park to feel like a place of dreaming, growing, relaxing and belonging. And we’d love you to be part of that journey and community.
We hope that this new website makes it easier for you to visit the park more often and to stay in touch with what’s happening. See you under the conker tree?
Kate Wilkinson, Head of Homestead park, October 2025