Friday 18th July 2025

Photos by Sam Tilling

10 years after his last visit (see: The Making of a Modern Park event – how was it? | Bridge to Nowhere), former Park Manager Dave Sadler MBE – came to visit the park, welcomed by members of Friends of Burgess Park plus the current Park Manager, Dominic Leary and Head Gardener, Ciaran Hawkins. 

With an association dating back to the 1950s, Dave was instrumental in making the park what it is today. Happily, Dave is still fit and active at 90, so he took a stroll around Chumleigh Gardens then the World Gardens where Dave pointed out just a few of the many trees he had planted. Then onto a cuppa at the cafe, where he shared some incredible stories – which in the early days were less about gardening than calling in the army to clear unexploded bombs!  When the lake first opened, the Park’s team used to break up the ice every winter to stop ice skaters, who would have fallen in! The visit finished with a buggy trip around the lake courtesy of Ciaran.  All in all, a wonderful day full of memories. 

Dave described the park to Hunter Davies, author of books about London parks, in 1982: “It’s either a good thing, or it wasn’t worth doing in the first place. You have to keep remembering it IS a good thing.” How right he turned out to be!