South Tottenham’s station garden takes on St Pancras in national vote
A modest London Overground stop in Tottenham is going head to head with the grandeur of St Pancras International after both were shortlisted among Britain’s best railway stations — and the contest will be decided by public vote this week.
South Tottenham has been named one of 20 finalists in the Rail Delivery Group’s annual World Cup of Stations, this year celebrating “creating connections that matter”. The north London station, served by the Suffragette line, has won its place on the shortlist not for architecture or shopping arcades, but for a community garden that has quietly transformed life around the platforms.
The garden began as a modest effort by station assistants Ray McDonagh and Azaz Khan to brighten up a neglected patch of unused land beside the tracks. What started as a tidy-up has grown into a sensory garden that now serves as an outdoor lifeline for local schoolchildren — including pupils with special educational needs and disabilities — as well as older residents and people living with dementia from nearby Priscilla Wakefield House.
A garden that belongs to the neighbourhood
Today the space hosts community events and works as an informal meeting point where neighbours who might never otherwise cross paths get to know each other. Its efforts have already been recognised closer to home, with Overground in Bloom and TfL in Bloom awards to its name.
McDonagh says the real reward has been watching the garden bring people together: children learning outdoors, friendships taking root and neighbours stopping for a chat on streets where that does not always happen. The garden, in his words, belongs to the community.
It is a striking contrast with its fellow London finalist. St Pancras International needs little introduction — soaring Victorian architecture, Eurostar links to Europe, communal pianos and the much-loved Christmas displays that turn the concourse into a destination in its own right. Judges praised its architectural beauty and the way each journey feels like an occasion.
South Tottenham’s case is smaller and more intimate: proof, the judges felt, that a station can be more than a place to catch a train.
How the vote works
More than 150 stations were nominated by the public this year, with a judging panel whittling them down to 20 finalists split across five regional groups. South Tottenham and St Pancras both sit in the southern group alongside Brookwood in Surrey and Bishopstone in East Sussex.
Voting opened on Monday 12 October. On the evening of Wednesday 14 October each regional group is cut back to the station leading its poll, leaving five finalists across Britain. Public voting then closes at 11.59pm on Sunday 18 October, and the overall winner will be named on Tuesday 20 October.
Rail Delivery Group co-chief executive Dan Mann said the shortlisted stations show the vital role railways play in connecting communities, particularly as the network moves towards Great British Railways.
Tottenham’s moment
For regulars at South Tottenham, the nomination is recognition of years of graft by station staff and volunteers who saw potential in a forgotten strip of land. Community gardens at stations are nothing new in London — a tiny forest at Hammersmith Grove recently took the top TfL In Bloom prize — but few have woven themselves so tightly into the daily life of the streets around them.
Whether a sensory garden can out-poll an international terminus remains to be seen. But win or lose, the shortlisting has already done what the competition set out to celebrate: put a small corner of Tottenham on the national map for the connections it creates.
Londoners who want to back the garden can vote through the Rail Delivery Group’s competition page before the Sunday deadline — and while they are at it, take a look at some of the capital’s most beautiful stations. The Overground itself keeps growing too, with TfL consulting on a West London Orbital line linking Hendon and Hounslow.
