If you're looking for somewhere to spend a lazy summer day and possibly consume some lazy summer beverages in our fair capital but don't fancy stepping over drunk bearded men in London Fields who are spending their days alternating between kicking a football at you and reaching peak sunburn then allow us to suggest a few under-populated green spaces to spend your day in instead.
The Phoenix Garden
Don't get drunk in here, it's too nice and it's run by community volunteers but, if you do find yourself around Covent Garden or Soho and you need a nice place to stop and have a picnic, sit down or one (and we stress ONE) gin in a tin, head to the Phoenix Garden on Stacey Street behind Shaftesbury Avenue. There's some nice benches that are hidden behind lovely bushes so you can hide away very easily. Plus, there's a park right next door that you can use to lie down in if it's grass you're after.
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Pergola & Hill Gardens
Hampstead Heath is arguably the most banging of all the parks in London. Unless you're a South Londoner (hello) in which case it's a bloody trek. The Pergola & Hill garden is worth making the pilgrimage for though. It's like some mad old crumbly corridor from Hogwarts that's been transported to the Heath and is most excellent for pretending to be aristocratic and strolling through sipping champagne and surveying your land.
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The Walled Garden in Brockwell Park
If the overpacked lido in Brockwell Park is putting you off ever having children (srsly, why are they so loud) then escape and head to the Walled Garden near the Herne Hill end of the park. It's overgrown enough to make you forget you're in London and, turns out, lovely flowers and bushes have excellent calming properties.
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West Square Gardens
Elephant & Castle isn't exactly the sort of place that you'd expect to find anything green at all. In fact, for the past decade, it's been nothing but a big, shiny construction site, with Minstry of Sound lurking ominously on a back street. Move away from the hubub through and find yourself in West Square Gardens, a dead fancy square like that one in Notting Hill surrounded by posh houses. Pick up some fish and chips from the Castle Fish Bar round the corner.
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Camley Street Natural Park
Just over the other side of the road from the big new fancy bit outside the Central Saint Martin's in Kings Cross (ie. the bit with the fountains that are fun for kids to play in by day, and you by night), there's an overgrown park, two acres big set on the Regents' Canal. It's full of frogs, butterflies and bird and is run by a total hero team of volunteers.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.