45 Squared 15) ST ANDREW'S SQUARE, KT6
Borough of Kingston, 100m×60m
First today to Surbiton, the quintessential Surrey suburb, although it's no longer in Surrey and the etymology of 'suburb' and 'Surbiton' are entirely separate. As is so often the case the town owes its existence to the railway, specifically that Kingston councillors insisted they didn't want it coming anywhere near them so it ran south instead. Smart streets fanned out from the new station, originally built by pioneering housing developer Thomas Pooley but he'd gone bust by the time St Andrew's Square was built so it was funded by Coutts bankers instead. We're one rung back from the main shopping street, nudging the neighbourhood known as Seething Wells, with the towering brickwork of StAndrew'schurch rising on the corner. Welcome to the only traditional Victorian garden square development in the borough of Kingston.
It feels like you're walking around the quieter side of Westminster or Kensington, such are the vibes, with three sides of the square faced by Gothic three-storey brickterraced houses. Their pediments are particularly twiddly, also very white, with front doors accessed between pillars and up the inevitable steps. On the northern side the houses have more independent character and names like Strathmore, Little Dell and Little Rex. The downside is that nobody gets a parking space, more a free-for-all around the square, which is much more of an issue now that most of the houses have been subdivided into several flats. It must also be terrible living in a square marred with inconsistent apostrophes, three of the street signs reading ST ANDREWS SQUARE and only one the officially correct ST ANDREW'S SQUARE.
For visitors the best bit is the central garden, originally solely for residents but these days easily unlatched. It has lawn and flower beds and many trees, including a recently planted flowering crab, plus some odd lumps of stone that look like bits of ruined monument but won't be. The spiky pinecone-topped railings are replacements for those whipped away to aid the war effort. As the most convenient public space hereabouts it sometimes gets used for special events, for example the Surbiton Village Fete and the annual SeethingFestival. The latter apparently celebrates Lefi Ganderson's triumph over the evil giant Thamas Deeton, bringing together ancient guilds including the Talcum Miners and the Sardine Fishers, and is I suspect no more historic than the 'traditional' Croxley Revels.
Every bench in the garden currently has a notice tied to it placed there by The Friends of St Andrew's Square, because of course such an organisation exists. FOSAS are keen to alert residents to a More Collections Fewer Bins Trial they want to run through the summer, concerned that fortnightly collections and three bins per flat is a recipe for widespread obstruction and general ugliness. You get more of a sense of the local population's tastes from the shops up Maple Road, where locals sun themselves outside bistros and restaurants double up as gin bars. The Gordon Bennett! may be London's only pub to end with an exclamation mark. Margo and Jerry would never have lived in St Andrew's Square, it's insufficiently suburban, but they might have well lived nearby.
45
45 Squared 16) JUBILEE SQUARE, KT3
Borough of Kingston, 60m×30m
From Kingston's oldest square to its newest, as yet unfinished, not that anyone knows how it'll end up. We're in New Malden, not far from the Fountain or the shops but out of sight of both. You could easily pass by either and not realise this was here. But Jubilee Square is intended to become a community focal point, indeed the community focal point, somewhere to celebrate New Malden's rich history and culture in a suitably sustainable way. The Jubilee in question was the Queen's Platinum when the Mayor of Kingston turned up and said "This is your square. Our vision is for it to be completely led by the community - how it looks, how it’s used, everything. We are simply providing the canvas: it is up to you to fill it with life." The community hasn't filled it yet.
It's a strangely open space which was once a cricket ground, then allotments, then the site of a former community centre. And yet it has all the allure of a demolished zone surrounded by hoardings that are clearly hiding something, and all against the backdrop of a 1970s multi-storey car park. Thankfully the hoardings have been jazzed up with art and jolly messages, in one corner a meandering history of the site, in another a twee beekeeping fable and elsewhere an invitation to join the New Malden Camera Club. Rocks and bollards provide a secure perimeter and in one corner you'll find sufficient wooden benches to cope with heatwave levels of collective sitting down. As for the gapingly empty central space, that is one weird chessboard painted on the tarmac.
The geometric pattern is really a communal work of art called Home On The Hill with every tile representing a different resident's experience of New Malden. The background colours represent six answers to the question How long have you lived here?, the colours on the tiles are five answers to What makes New Malden feel like home?, and the two patterns relate to whether your favourite food is sweet or spicy. It's both wonderfully inclusive and ridiculously contrived, making sense only if you manage to find the key on one particular hoarding. Even more spuriously much of the street furniture invites you to send it a text to start up a conversation, although when I messaged Bollard number 3 it remained resolutely silent.
The only successful part so far, I'd say, is the Co-Grow Garden down the eastern side. Here a group called AuLaw Organic Farm are growing vegetables for consumption and for seed, particularly southeast Asian vegetables reflecting New Malden being the root of London's largest Korean community. They hold harvest events when ready, not to feed the neighbourhood but to spread the word on how to do this in your own garden in the hope you will. Volunteers are currently being sought to spread more woodchips around the planters. Three years after the Platinum Jubilee it feels like Jubilee Square is still seeking meaning, despite a hardcore of volunteers lighting a slowburn inspirational flame. But I suspect any other council would have looked at this prime plot and built hundreds of flats across it instead, so well done to Kingston for giving hope a try.
