About us
Be it a sunny picnic, a game of tennis, morning dog walks, or seeing your child take their first pedal on a bike, Wandsworth Common is not just a great place for Londoners to escape the city but part of the fabric of local lives and a place where lifelong memories are made.
As a local family, we were inspired to create a place where everyone could enjoy good, imaginatively prepared food and drink with friends and loved ones, making visits to this beautiful natural space even more special.
In April 2014 we opened The Skylark Café*, taking over the existing park café. We renovated the space, created fresh new menus, brought in new suppliers and developed the team. We opened our second park café in 2016 (The Rookery Café at the lovely Rookery Gardens, by Streatham Common) and a third in 2019, The Stables Café at beautiful Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, closely followed by our kiosk café, Pitzhanger Pantry in Walpole Park, overlooked by the majestic Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing. This summer 2021 The Tea House in Bishop’s Park will also join the family!
To bring our cafés together, we recently created a family name of Roots & Berries, which is also the name of our new bakery HQ on West Hill, Wandsworth. You can visit Roots & Berries on West Hill for a great cup of coffee or a slice of delicious cake if you are passing. It also makes a great stop if you’re heading out of town on a road trip down the A3!
We love that each café is so individual to its location and the wonderful communities who live there. So even though we have a family name, we consciously avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach, adapting the menus and decor by site and getting behind important local causes.
Back to Skylark! We are lucky that the café is an important landmark for the community and we want to do as much as we can to support this by using local suppliers, and supporting some great local charities like Critical NHS, SPEAR, Wandsworth Foodbank, The Friends of Wandsworth Common and the Wandsworth Common Enhancement Fund. Whilst closed during the Coronavirus Crisis we also baked and delivered boxes of our cakes and cookies as gifts for carers and residents in 10 local care homes, to help keep spirits up. Thank you to Ana our super baker and all of those who helped on the weekly deliveries.
We are now taking bookings for events as the café is available for private hire. Please sign up for our Newsletter below or visit our events page for more details.
We do hope you will visit soon!
Feedback is very important to us, so let us know what you think on hello@skylarkcafe.co.uk or via the contact us page on this site.
*The Skylark is a little bird, which can sometimes be seen or heard on Wandsworth Common. We chose it to sum up the freedom and contact with nature that this leafy space provides for those who live around it.