Finding a quiet spot in a London park isn’t an easy task. Green Park is full of tourists; Hyde Park is too large to settle down in. Regent’s Park is too pokey to really get away from the hoards. But if you know where to look, there are plenty of hidden spots to get away from the city buzz for a few hours.

The Hill Garden, Golders Green Park

You would be forgiven for failing to notice the Hill Gardens in Golders Green Park, the beautified western annex of Hampstead Heath. Tread past the small exotic zoo, trek across a few unsignposted lawns and you will eventually slip in through a barely marked gate to find a long formal pond and landscaped surroundings.

Ian Greenwood, the gardener who looks after the site, says that people tend to stumble on it by sheer luck. “It’s very quiet up here. It changes with the seasons, but I’ve only seen ten people today. “I know people who have come to Golders Hill Park for 20 years just never make it up the hill.”

The opening vista is a pleasant enough exercise in formal gardens, but the real attraction is the two-level pergola, as long as the Canary Wharf tower is tall. Meticulously maintained, the structure flips in styles and constructions. A robust belvedere overlooks the first gardens, stretching up a long colonnade that is overgrown by plants cared for by Greenwood. Staircases split off to a clipped garden in one direction, and a lawn in the other. The pergola itself stretches off providing a whole range of vistas, in a frenzy of styles, columns and extravagant domes.

The best thing is that this isn’t even a local secret – the locals don’t even know it’s there. At most you will probably see a couple of joggers. The brainchild of Lord Leverhulme, the gardens were created by Thomas Mawson, who brought his town planning expertise to bear on making the site interesting but manageable. And just as stealthily as you entered the park, you stumble out the back gate and find yourself in a muddy track with no signposts or views to suggest that the place even exists.

The gardens are behind Inverforth House, 500m north of Hampstead station

Kyoto Garden, Holland Park

Holland Park as a whole is not exactly the hard-talking home of London, composed of semi-wild woodlands and park cafes for the good folks of Kensington. But the Kyoto Garden, separated off by the most suburban of low-rise gates and serene steps, offers up a truly reified spot, Japanese-style.

The archetypal elements of a garden were created by a team of gardeners flown in from Kyoto in 2001. A serene pond has a gentle waterfall stepping down behind a stone walkway. The gardens are professionally maintained (there is also a meticulous Tudor-style herb garden to the south), mixed in with giant rocks. The place is designed to inspire you to grind to a halt.

Given its low-rise qualities, it is open to everyone. Eric Jones is a retired chartered engineer, visiting with family. “It was a surprise invitation on a day out for my wife’s 80th, part of an excursion in celebration by our grandson. “It’s so tranquil here, just perfect. It’s such a picture with the waterfalls, the lake and the trees around it, it’s great for photos.”

The Kyoto Gardens, at the centre of the park, are in walking distance of Holland Park and High Street Kensington stations.

Postman’s Park

Lodged in the heart of the city, surrounded by mammoth glass-and-steel finance institutions, traffic and construction, Postman’s Park doesn’t seem an obvious quiet spot. The place swarms with city workers during lunchtime – don’t expect to get a seat in the summer – and has been an even less well-guarded secret since featuring in 2006 film Closer.

It is therefore remarkable how quiet and relaxing the park can be if you pick your times carefully. Those tall buildings help to deaden the surrounding din to a distant echo, and sets a stern contrast with the long history of the area.

The park was merged from three separate church yards a century ago, and the one remaining church on the site, St Botolph-without-Aldgate, dates back a millennium. (Cross St Martin’s Le Grand to see the ruins of one of the other churches, the remarkable Christ Church Greyfriars). Still, the site does seem to cling on between the skyscrapers. Even the park’s most famous feature is squeezed beneath an office block – a wall of plaques in tribute to individuals who gave their lives to save others. They compose a remarkable series of glimpses of heroism that always leave you gasping for more.

Glenda Meredith is a retired accountant. “I used to work in the area – we’re just on our way through to the pub. My friend hasn’t seen it before, so we’re showing him. The plaques are so sad – it would be nice to know more information. Why aren’t there any after 1930? And why aren’t they in order?”

The plaques are moving with the sparest of details: a 10-year-old who drowned near London Bridge in 1894, trying to save a friend. A fireman who fell six times from a building while carrying out an unconscious girl in 1876. The plaques were put up by radical socialist painter George Frederick Watts, who wanted to commemorate the bravery of everyday folk. He and his wife put up 47 plaques between them, made by Royal Doulton, up until her death in 1938. Despite the fact that. It’s the wall that really gives the park a poignant tone, but the courage that underpin them doesn’t make the site oppressive.

The park is 100m north of St Paul’s Station on St Martin’s Le Grand