Cannizaro Park is a public park in Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton. Located towards the south-western edge of Wimbledon Common, it is known for its ornamental landscaped gardens with ponds and sculpture.
The park is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [1]
The park is the remnant of the gardens of the former country house at its centre (now a hotel). The house, originally known as Warren House, was built in the 18th century and was owned by the Grosvenor and Drax families who, for most of its history, let it to a series of wealthy tenants. The adjacent Royal Wimbledon golf course and the western parts of Wimbledon village were also once parts of the estate.
Between 1785 and 1806, Home Secretary and Secretary of State for War, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, occupied the house. At this time it was a major social centre for royalty and senior politicians (George III, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce [2] all stayed there regularly). Dundas organised the landscaping of the gardens, the basic structure of which remains today. Lady Jane Wood in the gardens is a memorial to his wife.
After the Dundas family moved out, George Johnstone and his sister Sophia moved in. Their father, also called George, was a Governor of West Florida and a director of the East India Company.
After George died in 1813, Sophia married the Sicilian Francis Platamone, Count St. Antonio. In 1817 they leased Warren House and held regular parties and concerts, whose attendees included Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington and Mrs Fitzherbert, mistress of King George IV. The Count left his wife and returned to Italy in 1832 when he inherited the title Duke of Cannizzaro (it). The Duchess remained at Warren House until she died in 1841. After her death, the house came to be known by her husband's title (with a variation in the spelling).
A major fire at the beginning of the 20th century destroyed much of the house but it was rebuilt and extended to its current arrangement. In the 1920s Cannizaro House was owned by Admiral Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. [3] He sold it to the Wilson family, its last private owners.
The Wilsons owned the house until the late 1940s and made a series of improvements in the gardens with the planting of new trees, rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. In 1947, the house and gardens were sold to Wimbledon Borough Council. The gardens were opened to the public shortly afterwards and the house was for a time used as a nursing home.
The London Borough of Merton sold the house in the 1980s and it was subsequently converted to its current use as a hotel. The surrounding gardens remain in council ownership and are open to the public. Most parts are well maintained, keeping the character of a large private garden, with many distinct areas and small "garden rooms", but the elaborate Italian Gardens are largely unplanted. For a number of years the Italian Gardens saw opera performances in the summer as part of the Cannizaro Festival, but in 2013 the festival was not held.
Cannizaro Park was the home to a bust of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, created by Hilda Seligman. Selassie stayed in Wimbledon during his exile from Ethiopia [4] in 1936, staying at Seligman's nearby family home. [5] The statue was installed in Cannizaro Park after Seligman's home, Lincoln House, was demolished in 1957. [4]
The bust was destroyed in June 2020 by a crowd of around 100 protestors, thought to have been linked to unrest in Ethiopia following the shooting of Hachalu Hundessa the previous day. [5]
Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia (Enderase) for Empress Zewditu from 1916. Haile Selassie is widely considered a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history, and the key figure of Rastafari, a religious movement in Jamaica that emerged shortly after he became emperor in the 1930s but before he raised to power he had defeated Ras Gugsa Wole Bitul(Nephew of Empress Taitu) of Begemidr(present Gondar) at the Battle of Anchem in 1928 .He was a member of the Solomonic dynasty, which claims to trace lineage to Emperor Menelik I, believed to be the son of King Solomon and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
Addis Ababa is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. In the 2007 census, the city's population was estimated to be 2,739,551 inhabitants. Addis Ababa is a highly developed and important cultural, artistic, financial and administrative centre of Ethiopia.
Wimbledon is a district and town of Southwest London, England, 7.0 miles (11.3 km) southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Wimbledon Town and Dundonald, Hillside, Wandle, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park.
The London Borough of Merton is a borough in Southwest London, England.
RasMakonnen Wolde Mikael Wolde Melekot, or simply Ras Makonnen, also known as Abba Qagnew, was an Ethiopian royal from Shewa, a military leader, the governor of Harar, and the father of future Emperor Haile Selassie. Described by Nikolai Gumilev as “one of the greatest leaders of Abyssinia”, he served in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, playing a key role at the Battle of Adwa. Ras Makonnen was commonly referred to as “the Napoleon of Africa”.
The emperor of Ethiopia, also known as the Atse, was the hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century until the abolition of the monarchy in 1975. The emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country. A National Geographic article from 1965 called imperial Ethiopia "nominally a constitutional monarchy; in fact [it was] a benevolent autocracy".
Southfields is a district of inner London located within the London Borough of Wandsworth, England, 5.6 miles (9 km) south-west of Charing Cross. Southfields is mainly residential, historically a part of Wandsworth itself, and is divided between the SW18 and SW19 postcode areas.
Wimbledon Park is the name of an urban park in Wimbledon and also of the suburb south and east of the park and the Wimbledon Park tube station. The park itself is 27 hectares in area. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is immediately to the west of the park. Wimbledon Park is not part of Wimbledon Common, which is situated further to the west up the hill.
The London Borough of Merton is an outer London borough in the south west of the conurbation. Merton's parks and open spaces range in size from Mitcham Common and a major part of Wimbledon Common to the smaller gardens, sports grounds and recreation grounds within its boundaries.
Persecution of members of the Rastafari movement, an Abrahamic religion founded in Jamaica in the early 1930s among Afro-Jamaican communities, has been fairly continuous since the movement began but nowadays is particularly concerning their spiritual use of cannabis.
Yilma Deressa was an Ethiopian politician. He served as Finance Minister (1957–1970) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1958-1960), Ambassador to the United States, and member of the Ethiopian Senate. John Spencer includes him in his list of five public figures who occupied the most important posts for the two decades following the Second World War.
Fishpond Wood and Beverley Meads is a 5.8 hectare local nature reserve adjacent to Wimbledon Common in the London Borough of Merton. It is owned and managed by Merton Council.
Hilda Mary Seligman was a British sculptor, author and campaigner.
Clarendon School for Girls was a girls' independent boarding school, which began in 1898 in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It moved three times: first to Kinmel Hall near Abergele in Denbighshire in 1948 and then to Haynes Park in Bedfordshire in 1976 before merging with Monkton Combe School, near Bath, Somerset in 1992.
A number of statues and memorials have been the subject of protests and petitions during the George Floyd protests in the United Kingdom in 2020.
Hachalu Hundessa was an Ethiopian singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Hachalu played a significant role in the 2014–2016 Oromo protests that led to Abiy Ahmed taking charge of the Oromo Democratic Party and Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, and subsequently becoming prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018.
The Hachalu Hundessa riots were a series of civil unrest that occurred in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, more specifically in the hot spot of Addis Ababa, Shashamene and Ambo following the killing of the Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020. The riots lead to the deaths of at least 239 people according to initial police reports. Peaceful protests against Hachalu's killing have been held by Oromos abroad as well. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found in its 1 January 2021 full report that part of the killings were a crime against humanity, with deliberate, widespread systematic killing of civilians by organised groups. The EHRC counted 123 deaths, 76 of which it attributed to security forces.
A bust of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie formerly stood in Cannizaro Park in Wimbledon Common, London. A work of the sculptor Hilda Seligman, it was destroyed in June 2020.
The Ethiopian Empire in exile was a government-in-exile formed when Emperor Haile Selassie fled the country after Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Haile Selassie, recognized by Allied world powers as the de jure and legitimate ruler of Ethiopia, went to Jerusalem via Djibouti by boarding a British ship in 1936.
