There is a delightful little garden in St. Johns Wood, North West London.

One of its boundaries is the noisy Wellington Road, near the glass-covered Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London and the Lord’s Cricket ground. The address of the former burial is Wellington Place, Wellington Road, NW8 7PF.

The St. Johns Wood burial ground dates from 1807. It covered an area of two and a half hectares (six acres). The burial ground was used from until 1855 when the St. Marylebone Cemetery at East Finchley was opened. There are thought to be 50,000 graves here.

For more information about the park, call the City of Westminster council at 020 7641 5271 or check the list of all Parks Gardens and Open Spaces managed by the City of Westminster.

The Mill Lane Open Space is a diminutive natural area in West Hampstead. Its narrow entrance does not anticipate the nice surprise that this piece of London nature is. It is in Mill Lane, London Borough of Camden, NW6 1. It is owned by LB Camden.

There are two great things about the space: the pond and a corner with a large pile of logs. They both support a good number of frogs and newts.

We visited the site at the end of May. Some big Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) dominated the dry pond. The plant is native to Britain but cultivated worldwide. In some regions, the flag iris scaped to become an invasive aquatic plant. Its rhizomes make the pest practically impossible to eradicate.

In Mill Lane however, the flower is a very nice feature of the site.

Swans have a tainted reputation of serving as tacky symbols of tender love and aristrocatic elegance.

You only need to see the picture of the entry ‘Swan’ at the otherwise self-restrained Wikipedia. Or any porcelain sculpture from Lladró or other purveyors in bad taste.

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Gale force winds and heavy rain swept the island tonight.

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