Walpole Park
Walpole Park is a municipal urban public open space run by London Borough of Ealing Council. Its main entrance is situated in the Mattock Lane, Ealing, West London.
In 1987 it was registered by English Heritage on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is some 28 acres (110,000 m2) in size. Within its boundaries are the Pitzhanger Manor museum & art gallery and Perceval Lodge. These buildings and part of the boundary wall are also statutory protected structures of Grade I and Grade II respectively.
There is also a late Victorian ornamental lake bordering the House's rear lawn and further west a pond which has a pair of fountains, both of which attract waterfowl.
The land for the park and Pitzhanger Manor itself was acquired by the council in 1899 from Sir Spencer Walpole, which in turn had been bought by his father the Rt. Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole. The sum paid was £40,000. It was opened to the public for the first time on 1 May 1901.
Walpole is also a ward of the London Borough of Ealing. The population at the 2011 Census was 13,330.
The original house, which stood here, and its grounds which make up the present park, was once the property of John Soane the architect, who bought it in 1800. After several more changes of ownership it was purchased by the Urban District Council of Ealing in 1900. The Borough surveyor Charles Jones who negotiated the terms of the sale with his close friend Sir Walpole also went on to set out the design of tree-lined avenues, paths and flower beds. The outer path is nearly a mile in circumference. The sides of the pond nearest Pitzhanger Manor was planted with plants and shrubs and other stuff.
Soane's house then became the borough's central public lending library. The library vacated the site in 1984. Work then began on researching the building to discover the original décor and renovating it back to how it had been in Soane's day. A library extension that had been built on the north-side was converted into the present day art gallery and other stuff.
At the end of the 1980s some restoration work was done to recreate some of the original layout by Soane of the garden, which he had done with the help of .
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