Windrush Square is a vibrant public plaza at the heart of Brixton, in the London borough of Lambeth. It was first named in 1998 in commemoration of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, which docked in Essex in 1948, carrying 1,027 passengers, at least 500 of whom were from the Caribbean.
In 2010, Boris Johnson, as Mayor of London, oversaw an extension of the square to include the adjacent Tate Gardens, so named for erstwhile Lambeth resident and sugar merchant Henry Tate. Responding to a Lambeth council opinion poll, local residents decided that this larger, more open space – newly furnished with lighting, benches and sculptures – would continue to be known as Windrush Square.
Lifelong Brixton resident, Windrush descendant and community organiser Ros Griffiths chairs the Friends of Windrush Square group. This independent collection of residents, activists and business representatives (which includes the Black Cultural Archives, Brixton Blog, Black Culture Market and Repowering London) exists, as its mission statement puts it, to protect and promote “the heritage, function, and architecture” of the square. It does so by advocating for initiatives that generate social value – in other words, that benefit the local community.
