Vauxhall Park – 28/03/12

I kinda assumed I’d done this one already being as it’s local and large-ish. Turns out I hadn’t. So, here goes…

Vauxhall Park is another one of those fairly eclectic type parks that has a bit of something for everyone. Like Vauxhall itself. So you have the winos shuffling round, the clubbers still coming down from the night before…and the odd mother and toddler.  The main draw for Roo is a play train (although we have to walk past the near identical one in Peddlar’s Park to get there) although on this occasion, he was pretending it was a bear cave (“tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe”). Once again, he can see the real trains from the park, which is always a boon. There are some nice carved wooden animals to play on and some picnic benches, which I quite happily sat at while Roo was driving trains/hunting bears. There’s also a playground, with a couple of climbing frames (none of which are a great toddler size) and swings. What’s missing from the playground nowadays is the yew bush, which was removed after a  few complaints about the combination of toddlers + poisonous berries. Apparantly Lambeth Council never considered this before….

What else? Well, there’s a nice Italian cafe, which does pasta dishes, fresh apple juice, ice cream and yummy cakes (their lemon meringue shortbread was something quite quite special). I haven’t been there recently but at last glance, they welcomed rowdy toddlers. There’s also a lavender garden, a one o’clock club and bizarrely a model village.

With all this on offer, Roo naturally wanted to do three things – 1) chase doggies 2) play in the dry fountain and 3) get into the one o’clock club before it opened. Can these toddlers not read?? He made several bids for freedom as I sat sunning myself at the picnic tables but luckily the friendly park cleaner kept returning him to me. Before he wandered off with the winos anyway….

VERDICT: A nice local park, with lots of green space and decent play facilities

More details here (official website)