It was one day early in 2005, soon after we’d moved into our flat nearby, that we first discovered Sayes Court Park, adjacent to the currently-disused Thames-side dockyard in Deptford. I was interested in seeing the wizened mulberry tree at its heart, supposedly planted some three hundred years ago by Czar Peter of Russia, of all people.
Old mulberry tree in Sayes Court Park
I was a bit sceptical of that particular legend even then, and am more so now that I have read the contemporary accounts of Peter’s behaviour during his visit. But I was nonetheless intrigued by the idea of a tree surviving from the greener, pre-industrial landscape in these parts. The gnarled but still vigorous and reportedly fruitful mulberry at least held out the eventual prospect of a taste you can’t buy at Tesco.
If you ask local people about the park, some will tell you that John Evelyn, a friend of Samuel Pepys, and like him a diarist, had a famous garden there. His house, and the garden, were indeed called Sayes Court. The question was, how much, if anything, remained from Evelyn’s day in the modern park?
Once you’ve got your eye in for it – by archaeological fieldwork, surveying, studying old maps – you develop an almost tangible sense of the past under your feet. A sort of space-time-penetrating vision. This feels completely natural to me, even if I don’t draw on it much these days, unfortunately. Anyway, doing my best to tune into what you might call this past-detector, I scanned the ground eagerly, hoping to spot something – an anomalous bank, or the parch-marks of an earlier planting layout, or a shard of seventeenth century pottery – anything to connect with what was there before.
But the park, despite bearing the name of Sayes Court, initially appeared to be just a rather run-down, reduced-to-low-maintenance relic of the nineteen-fifties. A few ubiquitous plane trees and shrubs and predictable rows of roses, but otherwise, sadly, not much apart from concrete paths and grass.
So, I began to feel curious to find out what had become of Evelyn’s house, and especially, his renowned garden.
What kind of garden was it? Had it really been completely lost?
I began to delve deeper.
Sayes Court - London's Lost Garden 
An intriguing start: I look forward to reading more!
i read with interest your investigation into today sayes court area . i remember it well as a kid growing up around the area. the mulberry tree reminds me of the time i visited ‘Chartwell House’ Kent, Sir Winston Churchill’s house and had the good fortune to sample some of his fruit! they were enormous and ‘as black as yer hat mate’ 🙂 Keep up the investigation and im sure we all look forward to hearing about your endevours
All the very best, J.
Spot on with the ”1950s relic” description, LLG. I can’t wait until you post up chapter 2 of your detective blog.
I was only talking about this park with my mother today.
She mentioned the elderly mulberry tree in Sayes Court Park, (a place she’d played in many time as a child), she asked me if I could find out if the tree was still there, and I can now tell her yes.
I can also tell you, that my mother lived in Prince Street SE8, until the age of aound 11.
She is now soon to be 85, (born in May 1925), so although the park has the look of 1950’s relic, it was certainly there, going by the name of Sayes Court Park in the 20’s & 30’s. My mother also ‘knew’ the mulberry tree to be 300 yrs old even then. She also commented on how sweet the fruit was!
Once thing she doesn’t know (yet), is that the park was said to be John Evelyn’s garden. I’m sure she will be ‘wide eyed’ at this information (true or otherwise).
Thanks for the original post.
the fruit is certainly sweet. where does your mother live now?
mid july early august the tree fruits…… we could pick some and get them to her!
So grateful to discover these postings by “lostgarden” as I’m now at last reading Evelyn’s diary. I discovered its existence only through Pepys’s diaries. I can’t believe schools don’t depend more on these diaries when they teach this time frame. Why try to re-create a spark of interest when it burns invitingly right here in Evelyn’s and Pepys’s words ready for anyone to partake? Delicious, delightful living bridge to Evelyn’s very consciousness. I am in Sayes garden having a virtual picnic as we speak: in one of the niches so lovingly planted and described by him and now, you.
Thank you, Phyllis. I couldn’t hope for a better response to this blog. I do hope you’ll keep reading and stay in touch.