Raphael Park, Langtons Gardens and Upminster Park are among 13 Havering golds at London in Bloom 2026, with two category wins. The full list, park by park.
Havering has won 13 gold awards at London in Bloom 2026. Twelve went to its parks and the Town Hall frontage, two of them with a category win. The 13th went to the borough as a whole, in the City category, which judges a whole borough, district or city area.
The council published the results on Wednesday 30 September (Havering Council).
The full list
Seven parks and the Town Hall frontage collected 12 of the golds.
| Park | Area | Award | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bedfords Park Walled Garden | Havering-atte-Bower | Gold, category winner | Walled Garden |
| Hornchurch Country Park | Hornchurch | Gold, category winner | Large Conservation Area |
| Hornchurch Country Park | Hornchurch | Gold | Country Park |
| Bedfords Park | Havering-atte-Bower | Gold | Country Park |
| Bedfords Park | Havering-atte-Bower | Gold | Large Conservation Area |
| Dagnam Park | Harold Hill | Gold | Large Conservation Area |
| Langtons Gardens | Hornchurch | Gold | Park of the Year |
| Raphael Park | Gidea Park, Romford | Gold | Extra-Large Park of the Year |
| Raphael Park | Gidea Park, Romford | Gold | Conservation Area |
| Spring Farm Park | Rainham | Gold | Large Park of the Year |
| Upminster Park | Upminster | Gold | Large Park of the Year |
| Town Hall frontage | Romford | Gold | Small Park |
| London Borough of Havering | Borough-wide | Gold | City |
The areas are taken from the postcodes on each park’s council page. Bedfords Park is in Havering-atte-Bower, about 3.5 kilometres north of Romford town centre by the council’s own reckoning.
The council says entries are judged against the Royal Horticultural Society’s standards on three things:
- horticultural excellence
- environmental responsibility
- community participation
The two category wins went to the Walled Garden at Bedfords Park and to Hornchurch Country Park, which sits on the site of the Second World War airfield RAF Hornchurch.
How it compares
Most of the list is familiar. The council’s 2022 release, the last full list we could find on its site, reported 12 golds and a silver. The same parks took gold in the same categories that year. The one park missing this time is Central Park in Harold Hill, which won silver in 2022.
Category wins have moved around. In 2022 they went to Hornchurch Country Park (twice), Langtons Gardens and Spring Farm Park. This year they went to Hornchurch Country Park and the Bedfords Park Walled Garden.
Councillor Martynas Cekavicius, the council’s Cabinet Member for Public Realm, credited “our parks and ground maintenance staff, volunteers and Friends of Parks groups”.
The borough’s own garden awards
The council also ran its own competition, Havering in Bloom, for residents, schools and community groups. Its finalists were presented with certificates and B&Q gift cards by the Mayor, Councillor Maggie Themistocli, at the Town Hall on Friday 18 September (Havering Council, 24 September 2026).
Prizes went in six categories:
- best back garden
- best front garden
- best communal garden
- best hanging basket
- best school display
- tallest sunflower
Branfil Primary School and Harrow Lodge Primary School were placed in the school display category. The communal garden placings included the garden at Upminster Windmill, Evelyn Sharp House and a garden on Abbs Cross Lane.
The sunflower contest was the closest of the lot. The winner, grown on Brentwood Road in Romford, measured 12ft 2in. It beat last year’s winner by one inch, at 12ft 1in.
What it means for you
Every park on the list is free to visit. A few practical notes from the council’s own park pages:
- Langtons Gardens, Billet Lane, Hornchurch: a Repton-designed garden with a serpentine lake, open 8am to dusk. Langtons House is the borough’s register office, so expect wedding parties. Pay and display parking is on Keswick Avenue and Theatre Road (council page).
- Bedfords Park, off the B175 between Collier Row and Harold Hill: 215 acres, a herd of red deer and an Essex Wildlife Trust visitor centre with views across east London (council page).
- Hornchurch Country Park: about 257 acres on the old airfield, with the Essex Wildlife Trust’s Ingrebourne Valley visitor centre in the northern half (council page).
- Raphael Park, Gidea Park: 44 acres around Black’s Lake, with a café. It opened on 2 June 1904 as Havering’s first public park (council page).
The 2027 Havering in Bloom dates have not been published yet. For what else is on in the borough this month, see what’s on in Romford.
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