Hot Hot Hot Spaces

Not just another private country estate, this 17^th Century stately home is full of suprises and stories. It’s where the extraordinary happens every day. The house has 28 bedrooms and is suitable for weddings, parties and corporate retreats.

Picture an incredible food court set 170-feet-high under a canopy of flowers and filled with some of London’s finest restaurants. Designed as a vision of the Mediterranean, this rooftop venue is a piece of sunny European escapism – a rooftop eatery, covered by a wooden open air structure wrapped in evergreen ivy, wisteria and bougainvillea, set against white washed walls with murals adorning the walls.

Batman’s been here. The first floor doubled as Gotham City police headquarters in the past two films. The Joker’s been here too, blowing out the back windows during his escape from police custody in The Dark Knight. The Grade I listing building is a focal point for Clerkenwell’s annual Design week, and is the perfect urban setting for a wide range of events from parties to dinners and conferences and product launches.

Host a spooky event within this subterranean world, with over 20 miles of dark and mysterious passageways hewn by end from the chalk. These chalk caves were mined by hand for 8,000 years, having gone out of use in the 1830s. Recently, the caves have served as a backdrop for Doctor Who. A fascinating find just waiting to be transformed.

This 40-acre woodland garden is set within a Victorian woodland plantation planted in the 1830’s. First opened to the public in 1953, it is best known for its evergreen azaleas, which line the ponds and streams and at their peak of flower in late April and early May.

The bombed ruins of a medieval church and Wren Tower made into a charming scene by imaginative planting of wall shrubs and climbers and an effective fountain. An outstanding example of a small City space, which makes the maximum use of scarce resources. Designed by the City of London Architects and Parks Departments in 1971, this garden won a Landscape Heritage Award in 1976. Off Roehampton Lane.

This moveable urban food growing garden in the middle of the King’s Cross development site is perfect for foodie events with a difference. Amongst the rise of glass and steel buildings, it is an urban oasis in which herbs, chillies, apples, sweet potatoes and cabbages grow out of skips and planters made out of scaffold boards and other reclaimed materials.

Built during the 2001 Japan celebrations, this hidden rooftop garden was designed in a typical Japanese style and officially opened by the sponsor, Mr Haruhisa Handa (Toshu Fukami). Peter Swift, a designer with experience of adapting Japanese garden design principles to the British environment and climate, conceived the garden as a place of quiet contemplation and meditation as well as a functional space complementary to the Gallery and its artistic activities.

This green oasis is found amongst the gentrified warehouses of Bermondsey, overshadowed by the glass and metal pillar that is The Shard. The community garden is in the heart of the capital, but known by few.

This East Dulwich artist’s residence is a museum dedicated to objects which might otherwise have been thrown away. The shrine-like space has no surface left uncovered, with every wall and ceiling encrusted with the contents of old Christmas crackers, crockery, trinkets and broken toys. Between them sit intricate mosaics and pieces of text that refer back to poignant moments in the artist’s life, as well as life-sized sculptures of fantastical characters.