How big is the average garden?

Key findings

• The median private outdoor-space size for houses in Great Britain was 188.1 m² in the ONS April 2020 mapping analysis. Source

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• For houses in London, the equivalent April 2020 median was 139.6 m². Source

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• The Room Study calculates that London’s median house garden was 25.8% smaller than the Great Britain median in the April 2020 mapping analysis. Source

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• The RHS estimated a mean domestic private garden size of 244 m² in Great Britain in its 2025 spatial study. Source

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What does the 188.1 m² figure measure?

It is the median size of mapped private outdoor space for houses in Great Britain in the ONS April 2020 analysis. Flats have a separate treatment, and Northern Ireland is outside the coverage.

The equivalent London house median was 139.6 m². Using those two published values, The Room Study calculates a 25.8% difference. This is a comparison of medians within one study, not a claim about every London garden.

Why does the RHS report 244 m²?

The RHS 2025 spatial study estimates the mean size of domestic private gardens across Great Britain at 244 m². Its method combines mapping with extrapolation for areas not fully covered.

A mean and a median need not agree even when they describe the same population. Here the studies also differ in their treatment of garden space and mapping coverage. The RHS methodology explains why its total garden-area estimate differs from the earlier ONS result.

Source: ONS analysis of Ordnance Survey mapping, April 2020. Houses only. Method and limits

Have gardens grown between 2020 and 2025?

These two headline figures cannot establish that. Calculating a growth rate from 188.1 m² to 244 m² would mix a house-garden median with a differently defined domestic-garden mean.

For a defensible trend, the geography, garden definition, property coverage, summary measure and mapping method would need to be comparable across dates. This page therefore keeps the studies separate.

Does average size tell us who has a garden?

No. Garden size and access are different questions. The ONS analysis also reported that about 12% of Great Britain’s households lacked access to a private or shared garden in 2020. A garden-size figure should never be used to imply everyone has that amount of outdoor space.

For design, a national figure also says little about a plot’s usable shape. A narrow strip, a shaded courtyard and a broad lawn can share the same area while offering quite different possibilities.

Methodology & sources

The London comparison uses the corrected ONS workbook’s “Country gardens” and “Region gardens” sheets, house median column: (139.6 − 188.1) / 188.1 × 100 = −25.8%, rounded to one decimal. The workbook’s country labels were corrected in May 2022.

The chart compares only the two ONS medians. The RHS mean is deliberately kept out of it. Neither study supplies a current measurement of every individual garden.

We reproduce a small selection of attributed aggregate findings and our calculation. Original OS mapping and the RHS’s commissioned spatial inputs carry separate rights, so we link to the source downloads rather than republish their databases or maps.

We review these resources when the underlying releases change. A review date does not make a figure expire: its measurement period stays visible until a checked revision replaces it.