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1 | The Project Gutenberg eBook of London parks and gardens
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Title: London parks and gardens
Author: Alicia Amherst
Illustrator: Victoria Manners
Release date: May 10, 2025 [eBook #76057]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1907
Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON PARKS AND GARDENS ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed i |
2 | n _underscores_. Superscripts
are shown as ^e or ^{BLE}. Additional notes will be found near the end
of this ebook.
[Illustration: (cover)]
[Illustration: (map)]
LONDON PARKS AND GARDENS
[Illustration: ST. KATHARINE’S LODGE, REGENT’S PARK]
LONDON PARKS AND GARDENS
BY
THE HON^{BLE} MRS. EVELYN CECIL
(ALICIA AMHERST)
CITIZEN AND GARDENER OF LONDON
AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND”
“CHILDREN’S GARDENS,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
LADY VICTORIA MANNERS
“_Reade the whole and then judge_”
JOHN CHRISTOPHERSON,
Bishop of Chichester, 1554
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
1907
|
3 |
Printed by
BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh
PREFACE
In spite of the abundance of books on London, not one exists which
tells the story of the Parks and Gardens as a whole. Some of the Royal
Parks have been dealt with, and most of the Municipal Parks, but in
separate works. When Squares are touched on, in guide-books, or in
volumes to themselves, the Gardens are for the most part left alone,
and gossip of the inhabitants forms the centre of the narrative. This
is the case also with public buildings and private houses which have
gardens attached to them. To give a sketch of the history of the
more important Parks and Gardens, and to point out any features of
horticultural interest, is the object of the following pages. London is
such a wide word, and means such a different area at various periods,
that it has been necessary to make some hard and fast rule to define
the scope of this work. I h |
4 | ave, therefore, decided to keep strictly to
the limits of the County of London within the official boundaries of
the London County Council at the present time.
I would express my thanks to the authorities of the Parks, both Royal
and Municipal, for their courtesy in affording me information, and to
many friends who have facilitated my search in historical and private
gardens. I am also extremely grateful to my friend, Miss Margaret
MacArthur, who has assisted me in the tedious task of correcting
proofs. The lists of trees and shrubs, and of plants in the beds in
Hyde Park, were kindly drawn up for me by the Park Superintendent, the
late Mr. Jordan, with the consent of H.M. Office of Works.
ALICIA M. CECIL.
10 EATON PLACE,
_August 1907_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. HYDE PARK |
5 | 23
III. ST. JAMES’S AND GREEN PARKS 56
IV. REGENT’S PARK 83
V. GREENWICH PARK 106
VI. MUNICIPAL PARKS 119
VII. SOUTH LONDON PARKS 155
VIII. COMMONS AND OPEN SPACES 185
IX. SQUARES 217
X. BURIAL-GROUNDS 242
XI. INNS OF COURT 261
XII. HISTORICAL GARDENS 289
XIII. PRIVATE GARDENS 327
APPENDIX TO PRIVATE GARDENS: CHARLTON 357
LIST OF SOME OF THE WORKS CONSULTED 3 |
6 | 61
HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS: LIST OF TREES AND SHRUBS 368
INDEX 377
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOURED PLATES
ST. KATHARINE’S LODGE, REGENT’S PARK _Frontispiece_
_Page_
DOLPHIN FOUNTAIN, HYDE PARK 38
AUTUMN BEDS, HYDE PARK 46
FOUNTAIN BY COUNTESS FEODOR GLEICHEN, HYDE PARK 54
CROCUSES IN EARLY SPRING, ST. JAMES’S PARK 64
AUTUMN IN REGENT’S PARK 90
SPRING IN REGENT’S PARK 102
WATERLOW PARK 148
OLD ENGLISH GARDEN, BROCKWELL PARK 172
STATUE OF PITT, HANOVER SQUARE |
7 | 220
STATUE OF WILLIAM III. IN ST. JAMES’S SQUARE 226
ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD 250
THE BANK GARDEN 258
THE INNER TEMPLE GARDEN 270
THE FOUNTAIN COURT, MIDDLE TEMPLE 276
LINCOLN’S INN 280
THE GARDEN GATES, GRAY’S INN 288
GREY COAT SCHOOL, WESTMINSTER 298
THE LITTLE CLOISTER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY 302
HERBACEOUS BORDER, LAMBETH PALACE 306
STATUE OF CHARLES II., CHELSEA HOSPITAL 312
CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN 324
THE GARDEN OF SIR LAURENCE ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 334
|
8 | THE LILY POND, HOLLAND HOUSE 340
ST. JOHN’S LODGE, REGENT’S PARK 347
IN THE TEXT
PAGE
DOLPHIN FOUNTAIN IN HYDE PARK 39
FOUNTAINS AT THE END OF THE SERPENTINE 43
A CORNER OF THE QUEEN VICTORIA MEMORIAL GARDENS 81
STONE VASE IN REGENT’S PARK 101
PAGODA ON THE ISLAND, VICTORIA PARK 138
STOKE NEWINGTON CHURCH FROM CLISSOLD PARK 143
FOUNTAIN BY TINWORTH, KENNINGTON PARK 167
STATUE OF MRS. SIDDONS, PADDINGTON GREEN 214
WINTER GARDEN, DUKE STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE 220
SUN-DIAL, ST. BOTOLPH’S 25 |
9 | 6
TRINITY ALMSHOUSES, MILE END ROAD 293
ABBEY GARDEN, WESTMINSTER 301
GARDEN GATE, CHELSEA HOSPITAL 314
IN THE GARDEN, ST. JOHN’S LODGE 349
London Parks & Gardens
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
_London, thou art the Flour of cities all._
--WILLIAM DUNBAR, 1465–1530.
London has a peculiar fascination of its own, and to a vast number of
English-speaking people all over the world it appeals with irresistible
force. So much has been said and written about it that the theme might
seem to be worn out, yet there are still fresh aspects to present,
still hidden charms to discover, still deep problems to solve. The
huge, unwieldly mass, which cannot be managed or legislated for as
other towns, but has to be treated as a county, enfolds within its area
all the phases of human life. It embraces every grad |
10 | ation from wealth
to poverty, from the millionaire to the pauper alien. The collection of
buildings which together make London are a most singular assortment of
innumerable variations between beauty and ugliness, between palaces and
works of art and hovels of sordid and unlovely squalor.
An Englishman must be almost without soul who can stand for the first
time unmoved within the precincts of Westminster Abbey or look without
satisfaction at the faultless proportions of St. Paul’s. The sense of
possession, the pride of inheritance, are the uppermost feelings in
his mind. But he who loves not only London itself with a patriotic
veneration, but also his fellow-men, will not rest with the inspection
of the beautiful. He will journey eastward into the heart of the mighty
city, and see its seething millions at work, its dismal poverty, its
relentless hardness. The responsibility of heirship comes over him, the
sadness, the pathos, the evil of it all depresses him, the hopelessness
of the c |
11 | ontrast overpowers him; but apart from all ideas of social
reform, from legislative action or philanthropic theories, there is
one thin line of colour running through the gloomy picture. The parks
and gardens of London form bright spots in the landscape. They are
beyond the pale of controversy; they appeal to all sections of the
community, to the workers as well as to the idlers, to the rich as well
as to the poor, to the thoughtful as well as to the careless. From the
utilitarian point of view they are essential. They bring new supplies
of oxygen, and allow the freer circulation of health-giving fresh
air. They are not less useful as places of exercise and recreation.
They waft a breath of nature where it is most needed, and the part
they play in brightening the lives of countless thousands cannot be
over-estimated.
The parks and gardens of London have a past full of historical
associations, and at the present time their full importance is slowly
being realised. Much has been done to |
12 | improve and beautify them,
but much remains to be achieved in that direction before their
capabilities will have been thoroughly developed. The opportunity
is great, and if only the best use can be made of it London Parks
could be the most beautiful as well as the most useful in the world.
It is impossible to praise or criticise them collectively, as they
have different origins, are administered by separate bodies, and have
distinct functions to perform. It cannot be denied that the laying out
in some and the planting in other cases could be improved. Plans could
be carried out with more taste than is sometimes shown, and new ideas
be encouraged, but on the whole there is so much that is excellent and
well done that there is a great deal to be proud of.
The various open spaces in London can easily be grouped into classes.
First there are the Royal Parks, with a history and management of
their own; then there are all the Parks either created or kept up by
the London County Council, an |
13 | d most of the commons and other large
open spaces are in their jurisdiction also, though a few parks and
recreation grounds are under the borough councils. Municipal bodies for
the most part take charge of all the disused burial grounds converted
into gardens, though some are maintained by the parish or the rector.
Then there is another class of garden which must be included, namely,
all the squares of London, as, although few are open to the public,
they form no insignificant proportion of the unbuilt area.
All through London there are survivals of old gardens, which are still
either quiet and concealed, or thrown open to the public. Such are the
grounds of the Charterhouse, of Chelsea Hospital, or of the Foundling
Hospital, and of other old-world haunts of peace. The rarest thing
in London are the private gardens, yet they too go to make up the
aggregate lungs of the city. Out of a total of upwards of 75,000 acres
there are in round numbers some 6000 acres of parks, commons, squares |
14 | ,
and open spaces in London: of these a little over 4000 acres are in
the hands of the London County Council. Besides this it administers
nearly 900 acres outside the county. The City of London owns large
forest tracts, commons, and parks beyond the limit of the County of
London--Epping, Burnham Beeches, Highgate Wood, and parks in West Ham,
Kilburn, &c.--altogether nearly 6500 acres.
London is such a wide word, it is difficult to set a limit, and
to decide what open spaces actually belong to London. As the town
stretches away into the country, it is impossible to see the boundaries
of London. The line must be drawn near where the chimney-pots become
incessant, and the stems of the trees become black. But the degree of
blackness, dirt, and density is impossible to decide; so a prosaic,
matter-of-fact, but necessary rule has been adhered to in the following
pages, of keeping as strictly as possible to the actual defined limits
of the County of London. Therefore all the parks owned by t |
15 | he City
Corporation or London County Council outside this limit have not been
dealt with, and such places as Chiswick, Kew, Richmond, or Gunnersbury
have been omitted.
To get to some of these places involves a considerable journey. Many
of the outlying parks have to be reached by train, or by a very long
drive, or tram ride. From Hyde Park Corner, for instance, to Bostall
Wood or Avery Hill is a long expedition. To the fortunate few who
possess motor cars the distances are trifling, but the vast majority
of people must exercise considerable ingenuity, and possess a good
bump of locality, if they wish to visit all London’s open spaces. A
knowledge of the distant places, the names of which are inscribed in
large letters on every omnibus, is necessary. The Royal Oak, Elephant
and Castle, or Angel, are but starting-places for the more distant
routes, although they form the goal of green, red, or blue ’busses.
The electric trams of South London have made the approach to Dulwich,
Peckham, G |
16 | reenwich, and many other parks much more simple, and motor
’busses rattle along close to even the distant Golder’s Hill or
Highbury Fields. With a railway time-table, a good eye for colour in
selecting the right omnibus, and a knowledge of the points of the
compass, every green patch in London can be reached with ease, even by
those whose purses are not long enough to let them indulge in motors,
or whose nerves are not steady enough to let them venture on bicycles.
Each park forms the central point of some large district, and they are
not dependent on the casual visitor for appreciation. Every single
green spot, on a fine Saturday throughout the year, is peopled with
a crowd from the neighbourhood, and on every day in the year, winter
as well as summer, almost every open space has a ceaseless throng of
comers and goers.
What is the cost of maintenance of these parks is a question that
will naturally occur; and the answer in many cases is easy to find,
as the statistics of both the Lo |
17 | ndon County Council Parks, published
in their handbook, and those of the Royal Parks, which are submitted
to Parliament every year, are accessible. The following extracts may,
however, be useful. In looking at the two sets of figures, of course
the acreage must be borne in mind, and the great expense of police
in the Royal Parks, amounting to £8782 for Hyde Park alone, must be
deducted before any fair comparison can be made, even when results are
not considered.
+----------------------+------------------------------------------------------+--------+
| | 1907–8. | 1906–7.|
| +------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
| | | | | New | | | |
| | | Wages | Police,| Works | Mainte- | | |
| |Acres.| and | Park- | and | nance. | Tota |
18 | l. | Total. |
| | |Salaries.|keepers.| Altera- | | | |
| | | | | tions. | | | |
+----------------------+------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
| | | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |
| 1. Greenwich | 185 | 225 | 1,090 | 175 | 3,737 | 5,319 | 4,554 |
+----------------------+------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
| { Hyde Park } | | | | | | | |
| 2. { St. James’s } | 509½ | 724 | 12,153 | 4,965 | 50,886 | 69,269 | 48,835 |
| { Green Park } | | | | | | | |
+----------------------+------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
| 3. Kensington Gardens| 274 | 138 | 1,590 | 50 | 5,831 | 7, |
19 | 730 | 7,804 |
+----------------------+------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
| { Regent’s Park } | | | | | | | |
| 4. { and } | 472½ | 290 | 2,171 | 300 | 11,417 | 14,542 | 13,329 |
| { Primrose Hill } | | | | | | | |
+----------------------+------+---------+--------+---------+---------+--------+--------+
_Taken from the Estimates for 1907–8._
+-----------+-------+------------+------------+---------+
| | | Net | Average | |
| | Acres.| Aggregate | Cost of | Number |
| | | Capital |Maintenance.|of Staff.|
| | |Expenditure.| | |
+-----------+-------+------------+------------+---------+
| | | £ | £ | |
| Battersea | 199 | 21,042 | 10,8 |
20 | 97 | 92 |
| Brockwell | 127¼ | 114,322 | 4,493 | 34 |
| Dulwich | 72 | 45,510 | 3,330 | 28 |
| Finsbury | 115 | 137,934 | 7,649 | 52 |
| Victoria | 217 | 38,430 | 12,099 | 107 |
| Waterlow | 26 | 11,178 | 2,658 | 24 |
+-----------+-------+------------+------------+---------+
_Taken from L.C.C. Handbook No. 1009, 1906._
London has always been a city of gardens, and although much boast is
made of the newly-acquired open spaces, a wail for those destroyed
would have equal justification. It is very terrible that everything in
life has to be learnt by slow and hard lessons, dearly purchased under
the iron rod of experience. It is not till the want of a green spot
is brought painfully home to people by its loss, that the thought of
saving the last remaining speck of greenery is borne in upon them with
sufficient force to transform the wish into action. For generations
garden after g |
21 | arden has passed into building land. No one has a right
to grudge the wealth or prosperity that has accrued in consequence,
but the wish that the benevolence and foresight of past days had taken
a different bent, and that a more systematic retention of some of the
town gardens had received attention, cannot be banished.
When Roman civilisation had been swept away in Britain, and with
it all vestiges of the earliest gardens, there are no vestiges of
horticulture until Christianity had taken hold of the country, and
religious houses were rising up in various parts of the kingdom. The
cradle of modern gardening may be said to have been within the peaceful
walls of these monastic foundations. In no part of the country were
they more numerous than in and around London, and it is probable that
every establishment had its garden for the supply of vegetables, and
more particularly medicinal herbs. Attached to most of them, there was
also a special garden for the production of flowers for deco |
22 | ration
on church festivals. It is probable that the earliest London gardens
were of this monastic character, and as long as the buildings were
maintained the gardens were in existence. The Grey, the Black, the
White, and the Austin Friars all had gardens within their enclosures;
and the Hospitaller Orders--the Templars and Knights of St. John--had
large gardens within their precincts. The Temple Garden is still one
of the charms of London, but only the old gateway of the Priory of St.
John in Clerkenwell remains, and the garden, with all its historical
associations, has long since vanished. It was in a small upper room,
“next the garden in the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England,
without the bars of West Smythfield,” that Henry VII., in the first
year of his reign, gave the Great Seal to John Morton, Bishop of Ely,
and appointed him Chancellor, and he “carried the seal with him” to
his house, Ely Place, hard by.[1] These small references show the
picturesque side of such event |
23 | s, the gardens constantly being the
background of the scenes.
It is only one more of the regrettable results of the barbarous way
in which the Reformation was carried out in England, that the gardens
shared the fate of the stately buildings round whose sheltering walls
they flourished. It is not easy to picture the desolation of those
days: the unkept, uncared-for garden, trodden under foot, makes the
forlorn aspect of the despoiled monasteries more pathetic.
London was a city of palaces in Plantagenet times, and the great
nobles had their gardens near or surrounding their castles. Bayard’s
Castle, facing the river for centuries, had its gardens, and there were
spacious gardens within the precincts of the Tower when it was the
chief royal residence in London, and outside the walls of the City fine
dwellings and large gardens were clustered together. Among the most
famous in the thirteenth century was the Earl of Lincoln’s, purchased
from the Dominicans, when they outgrew their demesn |
24 | e in Holborn, and
migrated to the riverside, where their memory ever lives under their
popular name of the Black Friars. Minute accounts of the expenses
of this garden are preserved in the Manor Roll, and a very fairly
accurate picture of what it was can be pieced together. The chief
flowers in it were roses, and the choicest to be found at that date,
the sweet-scented double red “rosa gallica,” would be in profusion.
It might be that, in the shady corners of the garden, periwinkle
trailed upon the ground, and violets perfumed the air. White Madonna
lilies reared their stately heads among the clove pinks, lavender, and
thyme. Peonies, columbines, hollyhocks, honeysuckle, corncockles, and
iris, white, purple, and yellow, made no mean show. The orchard could
boast of many kinds of pears and apples, cherries and nuts. A piece
of water described as “the greater ditch”[2] formed the fish stew
where pike were kept and artificially fed. Besides all this, there
was a considerable vineyard. It |
25 | was thought a favourable spot for
vines, and the Bishop of Ely’s vineyard, the site of which is still
remembered by Vine Street, was hard by. A good deal of imagination is
now required to conjure up a picture of a vintage in Holborn. Amid
the crowd of cabs, carts, carriages, and omnibuses rolling all day
over the Viaduct from Oxford Street to the heart of the City, it needs
as fertile a brain as that of the poet who pictured the vision of
poor Susan as she listens to the song of the bird in Wood Street to
call up such a scene. The gardens sloping down to the “bourne” were
carefully enclosed--the Earl of Lincoln’s by strong wooden palings,
that of Ely Place by a thorn hedge with wooden gates fitted with keys
and locks.[3] The inner gardens, that were specially reserved for
the Bishop, the great garden and the “grassyard,” were separated by
railings and locked doors from the vineyard. The “grassyard” was mown,
and a tithe of the proceeds from the sale of the grass paid to the
Rector of S |
26 | t. Andrew’s, Holborn. The wine produced was more of the
character of vinegar, and was also sold; as much as thirty gallons of
this “verjuice” was produced in one year. Extra hands were hired to
weed and dress the vineyard, and apparently the vineyard entailed a
good deal of trouble, and for many years it was let. Think of a warm
day in early autumn, clusters of grapes hanging from the twisted vines,
men and women in gay colours carrying baskets of ripe fruit to the
vats where they were trodden, and the crimson juice squeezed out; the
mellow rays of the sinking sun light up the high walls and many towers
of the City, and the distant pile of Westminster is half hidden by the
mists rising from the river, while there, too, the vintage is in full
swing, and the song[4] of the grape-gatherers breaks the stillness of
the October evening. Away to the north the landscape is bounded by the
wooded heights of Hampstead and Highgate. Most of the country round
London then was forest land, and in spi |
27 | te of the changes of centuries
a few acres of the original forest remain in Highgate Woods to this
day, now owned by the Corporation of London. Between the hills and the
city on the north-east lay the marshy ground known as Moorfields, for
some 800 years the favourite resort of Londoners wishing to take the
air. Gradually this open space has been built over, although a few
green patches, such as Finsbury Square, the Artillery Ground, or the
more distant Bunhill Fields, have remained through the changes time
has wrought. This space might have been like one of the other heaths or
commons of London, a beautiful open space in the heart of the town, but
the supposed exigencies of modern civilisation, with the usual want of
foresight, have banished the life-giving fresh air, and the Corporation
of London has had to go far afield, to Burnham Beeches and Epping
Forest, to supply what once was at its door. Literally at its door,
as the busy street of Moorgate recalls the Mayor, Thomas Falconer |
28 | by
name, who in 1415 “caused the wall of the citie to be broken neere unto
Coleman Street, and there builded a posterne now called _Moorgate_,
upon the Mooreside, where was never gate before. This gate he made for
ease of the citizens, that way to passe upon cawseys into the Field
for their recreation.”[5] The fields in question were at that time a
marsh, and though some fifty years later “dikes and bridges” were made,
it was many years before the whole moor was drained. The task at one
time seemed so difficult that the chronicler Stowe, in 1598, feared
that even if the earth was raised until it was level with the city
walls it would be “but little dryer,” such was the “moorish” nature of
the ground. Moorfields was the scene of many curious dramas during its
history. It was the great place for displays, sham fights, and sports
of the citizens. Pepys notes in his Diary, July 26, 1664, that there
was much discourse about “the fray yesterday in Moorfields, how the
butchers at first did be |
29 | at the weavers (between whom there hath been
ever an old competition for mastery), but at last the weavers rallied
and beat them.” Such scenes were very frequent, and Moorfields for
generations was the theatre of such contests. During the time of the
Great Fire, numbers of homeless people camped out there, passing days
of discomfort and anxiety about their few remaining household goods.
Pepys in his casual way alludes to them: “5th September, ... Into
Moorefields (our feet ready to burn, walking through the town among hot
coles), and find that full of people, and poor wretches carrying their
goods there, and everybody keeping his goods together by themselves
(and a great blessing it is to them that it is fair weather for them to
keep abroad night and day); drunk there and paid twopence for a plain
penny loaf.” The “trained bands” used Moorfields as their exercise
ground, and no doubt the prototype of John Gilpin disported himself
there. As the fields were drained after 1527 they became |
30 | more and more
the favourite resort of citizens of all ranks. Laid out more as a
public garden in 1606, they continued the chief open space of the city
until a few generations ago.
The garden of the Drapers’ Company was another of the lungs of the
City, and the disappearance of the great part of it, also within recent
years, is much to be regretted. This land was purchased by the Company
from Henry VIII. after the garden had been made by Thomas Cromwell,
Earl of Essex, and forfeited on his attainder. His method of increasing
his garden was simple enough. He appears to have taken what he wanted
from the citizens adjoining, and his all-powerful position at the
time left them without redress. Stowe describes the way this land was
filched away. “This house being finished, and having some reasonable
plot of ground left for a garden, hee caused the pales of the gardens
adjoining to the north part thereof, on a sudden to be taken doune, 22
foot to be measured forth right into the north of ev |
31 | ery man’s ground, a
line then to be drawn, a trench to be cast, a foundation laid, and an
high bricke wall to be builded. My Father had a garden there, and there
was a house standing close to his south pale; this house they loosed
from the ground, and bare upon Rowlers into my Father’s garden 22 foot
ere my Father heard thereof.... No man durst goe to argue the matter,
but each man lost his Land.”
It is difficult to estimate whether the charitable munificence of the
Company is altogether as great a public benefit, from a health point
of view, as retaining some of the garden for public use would have
been. Men are naturally so conservative, that, because they have been
content to talk and do business, and even search for a breath of air,
in the crowded streets on the hottest summer days, it has probably
never occurred to them that a few minutes on a seat under shady trees
would have “refreshed their spirits,” and the addition of better air
improved their brain powers more effectually. |
32 | The idea of a garden
city is such a new one that it is not fair to judge by such standards.
Distances are now much reduced by electricity above and below ground,
so that the necessity of crowding business houses together to save
time is not so all-important. When the City gardens became built over,
no doubt the newer and more sanitary conditions were felt amply to
compensate for the loss of oxygen given off by the growing plants, and
the preservation of air spaces in the midst of crowded centres had not
occurred to men’s minds.
London four or five hundred years ago must indeed have needed its
gardens. The squalor and dirt of its cramped streets, the noisy
clamour, the rough and uncouth manners, are unpleasing to realise. The
contrast of the little walled gardens, where the women could sit, and
the busy men find a little quiet from the noise outside, must indeed
have been precious. The profession of a gardener, however, did not
seem to soften their behaviour, for some of the worst offe |
33 | nders were
gardeners. So serious did the “scurrility, clamour, and nuisance of
the gardeners and their servants,” who sold their fruit and vegetables
in the market, become, that they disturbed the Austin Friars at their
prayers in the church hard by, and caused so much annoyance to the
people living near, that in 1345 a petition, to have these “gardeners
of the earls, barons, bishops, and citizens” removed to another part
of the town, was presented to the Lord Mayor. Later on, gardening
operations in the City and for six miles round were restricted to
freemen and apprentices of the Gardeners’ Company, and the sale of
vegetables was almost exclusively in their hands. Their guild had power
to seize and destroy all bad plants, or those exposed for sale by
unlicensed persons. The Gardeners’ Company, incorporated in 1605, had a
second charter in 1616, and a confirmation of their rights in 1635, and
it still remains one of the City companies.
All the smaller householders, even in the crowde |
34 | d parts, continued
to enjoy their little gardens for many centuries. Even after the
spoliation of the monasteries, the houses rebuilt on their sites
had their little enclosures; and large houses such as Sir William
Pawlet’s, on the ground of the Augustine monastery, or later on Sir
Christopher Hatton’s on Ely Place, had their gardens around them.
Even now, in the heart of London, a small row of shabby old houses
survives, each with a small garden attached to it. These are called
Nevill Court, from the site having been within the precincts owned by
Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, Chancellor in the time of Henry
III., who built a great palace near here. One of the row belongs to the
Moravian Mission, or United Brothers, a sect who trace their origin to
John Huss. They settled in this house in 1737. This old-world corner
opens out of Fetter Lane. A small wooden paling separates the minute
strips of blackened garden from a narrow paved pathway. There were
many such gardens in this loca |
35 | lity less than a century ago. Charles
Lamb, when aged six, went to school to a Mr. Bird in Bond Stables,
off Fetter Lane, now vanished; and, returning to the spot in 1825, he
recalled the early associations: “The school-room stands where it did,
looking into a discoloured, dingy garden.... Oh, how I remember ...
the truant looks side-long to the garden, which seemed a mockery of
our imprisonment.” Would that some antiquarian millionaire--if such a
combination exists!--might take into his head to preserve Nevill Court,
to restore the houses and renovate the gardens, and preserve this relic
of Old London, to give future generations some idea of what the smaller
dwelling-houses in the old city were like. In most districts these
little gardens were the usual appendage to dwelling-houses. Pepys,
living in Seething Lane, often mentions his garden. It was there he
sat with his wife and taught her maid to sing; it was there he watched
the flames spreading over the town at the time of the Great |
36 | Fire; and
in it his money was buried during the scare of the Dutch invasion. So
carelessly, indeed, was the money hidden that 100 gold pieces were
lost, but eventually most of them recovered by sweeping the grass and
sifting the soil. The natural way in which Pepys mentions how other
people--Sir W. Batten and Mrs. Turner--during the Fire buried in their
city gardens their wine and other goods they could not send to the
country, that is, Bethnal Green, only shows how general these little
plots were.
Gerard, that delightful old herbalist and gardener to Lord Burghley,
in Elizabeth’s reign, had his own garden in Holborn. In it flourished
no less than some 972 varieties of plants, of which he published a
catalogue in 1596. His friend and fellow-botanist, L’Obel, whose name
is best remembered by the familiar genus Lobelia, testified that he
had seen all the plants on the list actually growing there. The great
faith and skill with which these old gardeners attempted to grow in
London all t |
37 | he newly-acquired floral treasures, from all parts of the
world, is truly touching. To make them “denizons of our London gardens”
was Gerard’s delight. And this worthy ambition was shared by L’Obel,
who looked after Lord Zouche’s garden in Hackney; by John Parkinson,
author of the delightful work on gardening; and later on, the mantle
descended to the Tradescants, who had their museum (the nucleus of the
Ashmolean) or “Ark” and garden in Lambeth; by Sir Hans Sloane, who
established the Physic Garden in Chelsea, and numerous others. It is
curious to think how many of the plants now familiar everywhere made
their first appearance in London. They were not reared elsewhere and
brought to the large shows which are arranged in the metropolis to
exhibit novelties to the public, but really London-grown. They were
foreign importations, little seeds or bulbs, sent home to the merchants
trading with the Levant, or brought back by enterprising explorers
from the New World and carefully nurtured in |
38 | the London gardens,
that the citizens “set such store by.” There were several of these
“worshipful gentlemen” to whom the introduction of flowers is due, and
of many a plant Gerard could say with pride, they “are strangers to
England, notwithstanding I have them in my garden.” Most plants were
grown for use, but others “we have them,” says Gerard, “in our London
gardens rather more for toyes of pleasure than any vertues they are
possessed with.” Some of the first potatoes introduced were grown in
London. Gerard had those in his garden direct from Virginia, and prized
them as “a meat for pleasure.” Jerusalem artichokes were brought to
London by him, and grown there in early days (1617). Parkinson also
had them, calling them “Potatos of Canada.” Bananas were first seen in
England in Johnson’s the herbalist’s shop in Snow Hill. At a much later
date--early in last century--the fuchsia was made known for the first
time to Lee, a celebrated gardener, who saw a pot of this attractive
plant i |
39 | n the window of a house in Wapping, where a sailor had brought
it as a present to his wife. So attached to it was she, that she only
parted with it when a sum of eight guineas was offered, besides two of
the young rooted cuttings. London can claim so many flowers, it would
be tedious to enumerate them all. The first cedars in this country grew
in the Chelsea Physic Garden, some of the first orchids at Loddige’s
Garden in Hackney, and many things have emanated from Veitch’s Nursery,
or the Botanical Gardens in Regent’s Park, or the gardens which used
to belong to the Royal Horticultural Society in South Kensington. The
chrysanthemum in early days flourished in Stoke Newington, and one of
the very first results of cross-fertilisation, which now forms the
chief part of scientific garden work, was accomplished by Fairchild, a
famous nurseryman at Hoxton, who died in 1730.
This same Thomas Fairchild left a bequest for a sermon, to be
preached annually on Whit Tuesday, at St. Leonard’s, Sho |
40 | reditch,
on “the Wonderful Works of God in the Creation,” which is still
delivered, often by most excellent preachers, but to a sadly small
and unappreciative congregation. Every opportunity ought to be taken
to awaken the interest in these wonders of creation in the vegetable
kingdom, and so much might be done in London Parks. They are too
frequently merely places of recreation, and until recently but little
has been attempted to arouse enthusiasm for the beauties of nature,
and to make them instructive as well as attractive. Even in the
crowded heart of London a great deal could be effected, and it is a
satisfaction to feel that attention is being drawn to the subject and
an effort being made in the right direction. In the summer of 1906 a
“Country in Town Exhibition” was held in Whitechapel. This novel idea
was so successful, and met with such appreciation, that 33,250 people
visited the exhibition during the fortnight it was open, besides the
hundreds that collected to see H.R.H. P |
41 | rincess Christian perform the
opening ceremony. The available space of the Whitechapel Art Gallery
was filled with plants that would thrive in London; the Office of
Works arranged a demonstration of potting; bees at work, aquaria,
specimens dried by children or drawn in the schools, growing specimens
of British plants, such as the dainty bee-orchis, plants and window
boxes grown in the district, and such-like, made up the exhibits.
Lectures were organised on plant life and nature in London which were
largely attended. A series of drawings and plans of the Mile End Road
and Shadwell, as they are, and as they might be, were prepared, and
the cost of such transformations was worked out. These were exhibited
in the hopes of awakening the interest of the Corporation who owns
the site of the disused market in Shadwell, and of causing more to be
done in the Mile End Road. It appears that with a comparatively small
expenditure and ultimate loss, these plans could be realised, and the
physical |
42 | and moral conditions of the whole neighbourhood improved.
Every year it is further to get into the country from the centres
of population, and the necessity of improving existing open spaces
becomes all the greater. By improving it is not meant to suggest that
what are sometimes called improvements should be carried out; grander
band-stands, handsome railings, more asphalt paths or stiff concrete
ponds. No, it is only more intelligent planting, grouping for artistic
effect, and arranging to demonstrate the wonders of nature in spaces
already in existence, and to suggest what could be done to cheer and
brighten the dark spots of the city.
The country round London has always been a good district for wild
flowers; the varied soils, aspects, and levels all go to make it
a propitious spot for botanising. Many places now covered with
streets were a few generations ago a mass of wild flowers. The older
herbalists--Gerard, Johnson, and their friends--used to search the
neighbourhood of Londo |
43 | n for floral treasures, and incidentally in
their works the names of these friends, such as Mr. James Clarke and
Mr. Thomas Smith, “Apothecaries of London,” and their “search for rare
plants” are mentioned. Gerard was constantly on the watch, and records
plants seen in the quaintest places, such as the water-radish, which
he says grew “in the joints or chincks amongst mortar of a stone wall
that bordereth upon the river Thames by the Savoy in London, which yee
cannot finde but when the tide is much spent.” Pennyroyal “was found
on the common near London called Miles ende,” “from whence poore women
bring plentie to sell in London markets.” The rare adders-tongue and
great wild valerian grew in damp meadows, the fields abounded with all
the more common wild flowers, and such choice things as the pretty
little “ladies’ tresses,” grew on the common near Stepney, while
butcher’s broom, cow wheat, golden rod, butterfly orchis, lilies of the
valley and royal fern, wortleberries and bilberries |
44 | covered the heaths
and woods of Hampstead and Highgate. Many another flower is recorded by
Gerard, who must have had a keen and observant eye which could spot a
rare water-plant in a ditch while attending an execution at Tyburn! yet
he meekly excuses his want of knowledge of where a particular hawkweed
grew, saying, “I meane, God willing, better to observe heerafter, as
oportunitie shall serve me.” That power of observation is a gift to
be fostered and encouraged, and were that achieved by education in
Council Schools, a great success would have been scored, and probably
it would be more fruitful in the child’s after life than the scattered
crumbs from countless subjects with which the brain is bewildered.
The wild flowers could still be enticed within the County of London,
and species, which used to make their homes within its area, might be
induced at least to visit some corners of its parks. The more dingy
the homes of children are, the more necessary it must be to bring what
is si |
45 | mple, pure, and elevating to their minds, and modern systems
of teaching are realising this. If public gardens can be brought to
lend their aid in the actual training, as well as being a playground,
they will serve a twofold purpose. An old writer quaintly puts this
influence of plant life. “Flowers through their beautie, varietie of
colour and exquisite forme, do bring to a liberall and gentle manly
mind, the remembrance of honestie, comelinesse, and all kindes of
vertues. For it would be an unseemly and filthie thing, as a certain
wise man saith, for him that doth looke upon and handle faire and
beautifull things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and
beautifull places, to have his mind not faire but filthie and deformed.”
It is not possible for all London children to get into the country
now that it is further away, so the more of nature, as well as true
artistic gardening, they can be shown in the parks the better. It used
in olden days to be the custom, among other M |
46 | ay Day revels, to go out
to the country round London and enjoy the early spring as the Arabs do
at the present time, when they have the fête of “Shem-en-Nazim,” or
“Smelling the Spring.” “On May day in the morning, every man, except
impediment, would walk into the Sweet Meddowes and green woods, there
to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and Savour of sweet Flowers,
and with the harmonie of Birdes, praising God in their kinde.”[6] It
would surprise many people to learn how many birds still sing their
praises within the parks of London, although the meadows and other
delights have vanished. This serves to encourage the optimist in
believing in the future possibilities of London Parks.
There is no “park system” in England as in the United States of
America, where each town provides, in addition to its regular lines of
streets, and its main thoroughfares leading straight from the centre
to the more suburban parts, a complete system of parks. The more
old-fashioned town of Boston was |
47 | behind the rest, although it contained
a few charming public gardens in the heart of the town. Of late years
large tracts of low-lying waste grounds have been filled up, and one
piece connected with another, until it, too, rejoices in a complete
“park system.” Chicago, Pittsburgh, and all these modern towns of
rapid growth possess a well-ordered “park system.” The conditions, the
natural aspect of the country, and the climate are so unlike our own
that no comparison is fair. Like everything else in the United States,
they are on a large scale, and while there is much to admire, and
something to learn, there is very little in the points in which they
differ from us that could be imitated. London parks and open spaces,
taken as a whole, are unrivalled. The history and associations which
cluster round each and all of them, would fill volumes if recorded
facts were adhered to; and if the imagination were allowed to run riot
within the range of possibility, there would be no limit. Things w |
48 | hich
have grown gradually as circumstances changed can have no system. Their
variety and irregularity is their charm, and no description of either
the parks, gardens, or open spaces of London can be given as a whole.
Each has its own associations, its own history, and to glance at some
of London’s bright spots and tell their stories will be the endeavour
of these pages.
CHAPTER II
HYDE PARK
_The Park shone brighter than the skyes,
Sing tan-tara-rara-tantivee,
With jewels and gold, and Ladies’ eyes,
That sparkled and cry’d come see me:
Of all parts of England, Hide Park hath the name,
For coaches and Horses and Persons of fame,
It looked at first sight, like a field full of flame,
Which made me ride up tan-tivee._
--NEWS FROM HIDE PARK, an old ballad, _c._ 1670.
In writing about London Parks the obvious starting-point seems to
be the group comprising Hyde, Green, and St. James’s Parks, which
are so intimately conne |
49 | cted with London life to-day, and have a past
teeming with interest. What changes some of those elms have witnessed!
Generation after generation of the world of fashion have passed beneath
their shades. Dainty ladies with powder and patches have smiled at
their beaux, perhaps concealing aching hearts by a light and careless
gaiety. Stately coaches and prancing horsemen have passed along. Crowds
of enthusiasts for various causes have aired their grievances on the
green turf. Brilliant reviews and endless parades have taken place
on the wide open spaces; games and races have amused thousands of
spectators. In still earlier times there was many a day’s good sport
after the deer, or many a busy hour’s ploughing the abbey lands of
the then Manor of Hyde. Scene after scene can be pictured down to the
present time, when, after centuries of change, the enjoyment of these
Parks remains perhaps one of the most treasured privileges of the
Londoner.
In tracing the history of their various phases, |
50 | the survival of many
features is as remarkable as the disappearance of others. The present
limits on the north and east, Bayswater Road and Park Lane, have
suffered no substantial alteration since the roads were known as the
Via Trimobantina and the Watling Street in Roman times. The Watling
Street divided, and one section followed the course of the present
Oxford Street to the City; the other, passing down the line of Park
Lane, crossed St. James’s Park, and so to the ford over the Thames at
Westminster. The Park was never common or waste land, but must have
been cleared and cultivated in very early times. In Domesday Survey
the Manor was in plough and pasture land, with various “villains” and
peasants living on it. The Thames was the southern boundary of the
Manor of “Eia,” which was divided into three parts, one being Hyde, the
site of the existing Hyde Park, the other two Ebury and Neate. Although
now forgotten, the latter name was familiar for many centuries. When
owned by the Ab |
51 | bots of Westminster, the Manor House by the riverside
was of some importance, and John of Gaunt stayed there. Famous
nurseries and a tea garden, “the Neate houses,” marked the spot in the
eighteenth century.
Until the stormy days of the Reformation these lands remained much
the same. Owned by the Abbey of Westminster, they were probably well
cultivated by their tenants, and doubtless the game with which they
abounded from early times afforded the Abbot some pleasant days’ sport
and tasty meals. The first time any of the Manor became part of the
royal demesne, was when the Abbot Islip exchanged 100 acres of what
is now St. James’s Park, adjoining the royal lands, for Poughley in
Berkshire, with Henry VIII. in 1531–2. This Abbot, who had an ingenious
device to represent his name--a human eye and a cutting or “slip” of a
tree--died in the Manor House of Neate or Neyte the same year. He gave
up the lands from Charing Cross “unto the Hospital of St. James in the
fields” (now St. James’s Pa |
52 | lace), and the meadows between the Hospital
and Westminster. Five years later, when the upheaval of the dissolution
of the monasteries was taking place, the monks of Westminster were
forced to take the lands of the Priory of Hurley--one of their own
cells just dissolved--in exchange for the rest of the manor. Henry
VIII., who loved sport, found these lands first-rate hunting-ground.
From his palace at Westminster, through Hyde Park, right away to
Hampstead, he had an almost uninterrupted stretch of country, where
hares and herons, pheasants and partridges, could be pursued and
preserved “for his own disport and pastime.” Hyde Park was enclosed, or
“substancially empayled,” as an old writer states, and a large herd of
deer kept there, and various proclamations show that the right of sport
had to be jealously guarded.
What a gay scene must Hyde Park have often witnessed in Elizabeth’s
reign. The Queen, when not actually joining in the chase, watched
the proceedings from the hunting pavi |
53 | lion, or “princelye standes
therein,” and feasted the guests in the banqueting-house. There were
brilliantly caparisoned horses, men and women in costly velvets and
brocades, stiff frills, plumed hats and embroidered gloves. Picture the
_cortège_ entering by the old lodge, where now is Hyde Park Corner, the
honoured guest, for whom the day’s sport was inaugurated--such as John
Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine, who showed his skill by killing a
particular deer out of a herd of 300--surrounded by some of his foreign
attendants, and escorted by all the court gallants of the day.
The Park must then have been as wild as the New or Sherwood Forests of
to-day. The tall trees, with their sturdy stems, were then untouched by
smoky air, the sylvan glades and pasture lands had no distant vistas
of houses and chimneys to spoil their rural aspect, while far off the
pile of the buildings of Westminster Abbey--without the conspicuous
towers, which were not finished till 1714--might be seen risin |
54 | g beyond
the swamps and fens of St. James’s Park. Hyde Park on a May evening
even now is still beautiful, if looked at from the eastern side across
a golden mist, against which the dark trees stand up mysteriously, when
a glow of sunset light seems to transform even ragged little Cockney
children into fairies. It wants but little imagination to see that same
golden haze peopled with huntsmen, and to hear the sound of the horn
instead of the roar of carriages.
The next scene which can be brought vividly before the mind’s eye is
very different from the last pageant. These are troublous times. The
monarch and his courtiers are occupied in far other pursuits than
hunting deer. Charles I. was fighting in the vain endeavour to keep his
throne, and Londoners were preparing to defend the city. Hyde Park and
Green Park became the theatre of warlike operations. Forts were raised
and trenches were dug. Two small forts, one on Constitution Hill and
one near the present Mount Street in Hyde Park, |
55 | were made, but the more
important were those on the present sites of the Marble Arch and of
Hamilton Place. The energy displayed on the occasion is described by
Butler in “Hudibras,” and the part taken by women in the work. Like the
“sans culottes” of the French Revolution, they helped with their own
hands.
“Women, who were our first apostles,
Without whose aid w’ had all been lost else;
* * * * *
March’d rank and file, with drum and ensign,
T’ entrench the city for defence in;
Rais’d rampires with their own soft hands,
To put the enemy to stands;
From ladies down to oyster-wenches
Labour’d like pioneers in trenches,
Fell to their pickaxes and tools,
And helped the men to dig like moles.”
--BUTLER’S “_Hudibras_.”
The picture of their sombre garments, neat-fitting caps, and severe
faces, the close-cropped hair and stern looks of the men, working with
business-li |
56 | ke determination, stands out a striking contrast to the gay
colours and cheerful looks of the company engaged in the chase.
The darker trees and sheltered corners of Hyde Park afforded covert
for the wary “Roundhead” to lie in ambush for the imprudent Loyalist
carrying letters to the King. On more than one occasion the success was
on his side, and the bearer of news to his royal master was waylaid,
and the papers secured. The culminating scene of this period must
have been when Fairfax and the Parliamentary army marched through Hyde
Park in 1647, and were met by the solemn procession of the Mayor and
Sheriffs of the City of London.
Dismal days for the Parks followed. Although the Parks had been
declared the property of the Commonwealth, it was from no wish to
use them for sport or recreation. During the latter years of Charles
the First’s reign Hyde Park had become somewhat of a fashionable
resort. People came to enjoy the air and meet their friends, and it
was less exclusively reser |
57 | ved for hunting. Races took place, both
foot and horse; crowds collected to witness them, and ladies, with
their attendant cavaliers, drove there in coaches, and refreshed
themselves at the “Cake House” with syllabubs. This latter was the
favourite drink, made of milk or cream whipped up with sugar and
wine or cider. But the Puritan spirit, which was rapidly asserting
itself, soon interfered with such harmless amusements. In 1645 the
Parks were ordered to be shut on the Lord’s Day, also on fast and
thanksgiving days. In 1649 the Parks, together with Windsor, Hampton
Court, Greenwich, and Richmond, were declared to be the property of
the Commonwealth, and thrown open to the public. But this did not lead
to greater public enjoyment of Hyde Park. Far from it, for only three
years later it was put up to auction in three lots. The first lot was
the part bounded on one side by the present Bayswater Road, and is
described as well wooded; the second, the Kensington side, was chiefly
pasture; t |
58 | he third, another well-wooded division, included the lodge
and banqueting-house and the Ring where the races took place. This part
was valued at more than double the two others, and was purchased by
Anthony Dean, a ship-builder, for £9020, 8s. 2d. This business-like
gentleman presumably reserved the use of the timber for his ships,
and let out the pasture. His tenant proceeded to make as much as he
could, and levied a toll on all carriages coming into the Park. On some
occasions he extorted 2s. 6d. from each coach. In 1653 John Evelyn in
his diary complains on April 11 that he “went to take the aire in Hide
Park, when every coach was made to pay a shilling, and every horse
sixpence, by the sordid fellow who had purchas’d it of the State, as
they were call’d.” Cromwell himself was fond of riding in the Park, and
crowds thronged him as he galloped round the Ring. More than one plot
was made against the life of Cromwell, and the Park was considered a
likely place in which to succeed. On o |
59 | ne occasion the would-be assassin
joined the crowd, which pursued the Protector during his ride, ready,
if at any moment he galloped beyond the people, to dash at him with
a fatal blow. The plotter had carefully filed the Park gate off its
hinges so as to make good his own escape. It is a curious fact that
Cromwell more nearly met his death in Hyde Park by accident than by
design. He was presented with some fine grey Friesland horses, by the
Duke of Holstein, and insisted on driving the spirited animals himself.
They bolted, he was thrown from the box, and his pistol went off in his
pocket, “though without any hurt to himself”!
The Ring, where all these performances took place, was situated to the
north-east of where the Humane Society’s house, built in 1834, now
stands, near the Serpentine. There are a few remains of very large
elm trees still to be seen, which probably shaded some of the company
assembled to watch the coaches driving round and round the Ring, or
cheer the winner of |
60 | a hotly-contested race. Even during the sombre
days of the Commonwealth sports took place in the Park, but with the
Restoration it became much more the resort of all the fashionable
world and the scene of many more amusements. The parks were still in
those days for the Court and the wealthy or well-to-do citizens only.
Probably to many of the rabble and poorer Londoners the nearest view
obtained of Hyde Park would be the tall trees within its fence or
wall, which formed a background to the revolting but most engrossing
of popular sights, the horrors of the gallows at Tyburn. The idea of
giving parks as recreation grounds for the poor is such a novel one
that no old writer would think of noticing their absence in an age when
bull-baiting and cock fights were their highest form of amusement.
The Ring was an enclosure with a railing round it and a wide road. It
is described as “a ring railed in, round w^{ch} a gravel way, yt would
admitt of twelve if not more rowes of Coaches, w^{ch} the |
61 | Gentry to
take the aire and see each other Comes and drives round and round; one
row going Contrary to each other affords a pleaseing diversion.”
The gay companies who assembled to drive round and round the Ring, or
watch races, sometimes met with unusual excitement. On one occasion
Hind, a famous highwayman, for a wager rode into the Ring and robbed a
coach of a bag of money. He was hotly pursued across the Park, but made
his escape, “riding by St. James’s,” which then, and until a much later
date, was a sanctuary, and no one except a traitor could be arrested
within it. So narrow an escape from justice did he have that he is said
to have exclaimed, “I never earned £100 so dear in all my life!”
Numberless entries in Pepys’ Diary describe visits to Hyde Park. His
drives there in fine and wet weather, the company he met, whether his
wife looked well or was in a good or ill temper, and the latest gossip
the outing afforded, are all noted. Many times he regrets not having a
coach of hi |
62 | s own, and does not conceal the feelings of wounded pride
it occasioned. Once he naïvely explains that having taken his wife and
a friend to the Park “in a hackney,” and they not in smart clothes,
he “was ashamed to go into the tour [Ring], but went round the Park,
and so, with pleasure, home.” His delight when he possessed a coach is
unbounded. He made frequent visits to the coach-builder, and watched
the final coat of varnish to “make it more and more yellow,” and at
last on May Day, 1669, he describes his first appearance in his own
carriage: “At noon home to dinner, and there find my wife extraordinary
fine with her flowered tabby gown that she made two years ago, now
laced exceeding pretty, and indeed was fine all over, and mighty
earnest to go; though the day was very lowering; and she would have me
put on my fine suit, which I did. And so anon, we went alone through
the town with our new liveries of serge and the horses’ manes and tails
tied with red ribbons, and the standards g |
63 | ilt with varnish, and all
clean, and green reines, that people did mightily look upon us; and
the truth is I did not see any coach more pretty, though more gay than
ours, all that day ... the day being unpleasing though the Park full
of Coaches, but dusty, and windy, and cold, and now and then a little
dribbling of rain; and what made it worse, there were so many hackney
coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen’s, and so we had little
pleasure. But here was Mr. Batelier and his sister in a borrowed coach
by themselves, and I took them and we to the lodge: and at the door
did give them a syllabub and other things, cost me 12s. and pretty
merry.”
What an amusing picture, not only of Hyde Park in 1669 but of human
nature of all time!--the start, the pride and delight with their
new acquisition, the little annoyances, the marred pleasures, the
ungenerous dislike of the less fortunate who could not afford coaches
of their own, whose ranks he had swelled the very last drive he had
take |
64 | n. Then the little kindness and the refreshment, so that the story
ends merrily.
The “Lodge” is but another name for the “Cheese-cake House” or “Cake
House,” or as it was sometimes called from the proprietor, the Gunter
of those days, “Price’s Lodge.” This house, which was a picturesque
feature, stood near the Ring, on the site of the present building
of the Humane Society, and must have been the scene of many amusing
incidents in the lives of those who graced the Ring, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. A little stream ran in front of it, and the
door was approached over planks. White with beams of timber, latticed
windows, and gabled roof, a few flowers clustering near, with the
water flowing by its walls, the old house gave a special charm and
rural flavour to the tarts and cheesecakes and syllabub with which the
company regaled themselves.
The gay sights and sounds in Hyde Park were silenced during those
terrible weeks, when the Great Plague spread death and destruction |
65 |
through London. As the summer advanced, and the havoc became more
and more appalling, many of the soldiers quartered in the city, were
marched out to encamp in Hyde Park. At first it seemed as if they would
escape the deadly scourge, but the men were not accustomed to the
rough quarters, and soon succumbed.
“Our men (ere long) began to droop and quail,
Our lodgings cold, and some not us’d thereto,
Fell sick, and dy’d, and made us more adoe.
At length the Plague amongst us ’gan to spread,
When ev’ry morning some were found stark dead;
Down to another field the sick we t’ane,
But few went down that e’er came up again.”
Thus all through the autumn of that terrible year the Park was one of
the fields of battle against the relentless foe. The contemporary poet,
whose lines have been quoted, describes the return of the few saddened
survivors to the “doleful” city. They had lingered through the cold and
wet until December, and surely the Park has no |
66 | passage in its history
more piteous and depressing than the advent of those frightened men who
came with “heavy hearts,” “fearing the Almighty’s arrows,” only to be
overtaken by the terror in their plague-stricken camp.
Hyde Park has witnessed other gloomy pictures from time to time.
Although the colouring of fashion and romance has endeavoured to
make these incidents less repulsive, duels cannot be otherwise than
distressing to the modern sense. For generations Hyde Park was a
favourite place in which to settle affairs of honour. The usual
spot is described by Fielding in “Amelia.” The combatants walked up
Constitution Hill and into Hyde Park “to that place which may properly
be called the Field of Blood, being that part a little to the left of
the Ring, which Heroes have chosen for the scene of their exit out of
this World.” One of the most famous duels was that fought between Lord
Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton on November 15, 1712, which resulted
in the death of both the combatan |
67 | ts--the Duke, whose loss was a great
blow to the Jacobite cause in Scotland, and the Whig opponent. All
through the eighteenth century Hyde Park was frequently the place in
which disputes were settled, and one of the last duels recorded, which
resulted in the death of Captain Macnamara (his antagonist, Colonel
Montgomery, being tried for manslaughter, but acquitted), although
fought on Primrose Hill, originated in Hyde Park. The cause of quarrel
was that the dogs of these two gentlemen fought while out with them in
the Park, whereupon the respective masters used such abusive language
to each other that the affair had to be settled by a duel.
Military displays, for which Hyde Park is still famous, have taken
place there from early times. The works of defence were thrown up,
and Fairfax and the Parliamentary army arrived there in the times of
civil strife, but soon after the Restoration Charles II. had a peaceful
demonstration, and there reviewed his Life Guards. Again, in September
166 |
68 | 8, there was a more brilliant review, when the Duke of Monmouth took
command of the Life Guards, and the King and Duke of York were both
present. Pepys was there, and wrote, “It was mighty noble, and their
firing mighty fine, and the Duke of Monmouth in mighty rich clothes;
but the well ordering of the men I understand not.”
When, in 1715, the fear of a general Jacobite rising induced the Whigs
to take serious precautions, Hyde Park became a camp from July till
November. During a similar scare in 1722 troops were again quartered
there, and the camp became the centre of popular attraction; gaiety
and frivolity were the order of the day, rather than business or
watchfulness. The Park was also used as a camp for six regiments of
militia at the time of the Gordon Riots in 1780. All through George
III.’s long reign reviews were frequent, and one of the most popular
was that held by the Prince Regent before the allied sovereigns, the
Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, in June 1814. Blüc |
69 | her was the
popular hero on the occasion, and when he afterwards appeared in the
Park he was so mobbed by the crowd, enthusiastic to see something of
“Forwärts,” as he was familiarly named, that he had to defend himself
against their rough treatment.
When the Park was again in the King’s hands after the Restoration,
a Keeper was once more appointed, who was responsible for its
maintenance. From the time of Henry VIII. various well-known people had
filled the office of Keeper. The first in Henry VIII.’s time was George
Roper, succeeded in 1553 by Francis Nevill, and in 1574 by Henry Carey,
first Lord Hunsdon, while in 1607 Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was
appointed, and Sir Walter Cope held the office conjointly with him
from 1610. The name of the first Keeper after the Restoration, James
Hamilton, is well remembered by the site of his house and ground,
which are still known as Hamilton Place and Gardens. He was allowed to
enclose 55 acres of park, and to use it as an orchard on th |
70 | e condition
that he sent a certain quantity of the cider produced from it to the
King. In his time a brick wall was built round the Park, and it was
re-stocked with deer. The wall was rebuilt in 1726, and not replaced by
railings until a hundred years later. These iron railings were pulled
down by the mob in 1866, after which the present ones were set up.
The deer, which formerly ranged all over the Park, were in course of
time confined to a small area on the north-west side, called Buckdean
Hill. They were kept for sport during the first half of the eighteenth
century, and the last time royalty took part in killing deer in the
Park was probably in 1768. The exact date of the disappearance of all
the deer is difficult to ascertain. They are remembered by some who saw
them towards the end of the thirties, but by 1840 or soon after they
were done away with.
The roads in Hyde Park must have been rather like South African tracks
at the present day, and driving at night was not free from d |
71 | anger
even at a comparatively late date. Attacks from highwaymen were to be
feared. Horace Walpole was robbed in November 1749, and the pistol shot
was near enough to stun though not otherwise to injure him. The Duke
of Grafton had his collar bone broken, and his coachman his leg, some
ten years earlier, when, on his way from Kensington to “the New Gate
to make some visits towards Grosvenor Square, the Chariot through the
darkness of the Night was overset in driving along the Road and” fell
“into a large deep pit.”
Soon after William III. purchased Kensington Palace from the Earl of
Nottingham in 1691, he commenced making a new road through the Park.
This became known as the King’s Road, or “Route du Roi”: a corruption
of the latter is Rotten Row, the name now given to King William’s
Drive. In the eighteenth century it was called the King’s Old Road, and
the one which George II. made to the south of it was called the King’s
New Road. When this was finished in 1737, it was intended to |
72 | turf the
older “Rotten Row,” but this plan was never carried out. The old road
was much thought of at the time it was made, and the lighting of it up
at night with 300 lamps caused wonder to all beholders.
A young lady, Celia Fiennes, describes the road in her diary about
1695. “Y^e whole length of this parke there is a high Causey of a good
breadth, 3 Coaches may pass, and on each side are Rowes of posts on
w^{ch} are glasses--Cases for Lamps w^{ch} are Lighted in y^e Evening
and appeares very fine as well as safe for y^e passenger. This is
only a private roade y^e King had w^{ch} reaches to Kensington, where
for aire our Great King W^{m.} bought a house and filled it for a
Retirement w^{th} pretty gardens.”
The road was in bad repair before the new one was in good order, and
Lord Hervey, writing in 1736, says it had grown “so infamously bad” as
to form “a great impassable gulf of mud” between London and Kensington
Palace. “There are two ways through the Park, but the new one is so
|
73 | convex, and the old one is so concave, that by this extreme of faults
they agree in the common of being, like the high road, impassable.”
One of the most striking features of Hyde Park to-day is the long sheet
of water known as the “Serpentine,” but this was a comparatively late
addition to the attractions of the Park. From earliest times there was
water. The deer came down to drink at pools supplied by fresh springs.
The stream of the West Bourne flowed across the Park from north to
south, leaving it near the present Albert Gate. Near there it was
spanned by a bridge, from which the hamlet of Knightsbridge derived its
name. The water in the Park was used to supply the West End of London
as houses began to be built further from the City, and Chelsea was also
supplied from it. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster had a right to
the use of the water from the springs in the Park, and the history of
their privilege is recorded on a stone which stands above “the Dell”
on the north-east of t |
74 | he bridge across the end of the Serpentine. The
inscription states that a supply of water by a conduit was granted
to the Abbey of Westminster by Edward the Confessor, and the further
history of the lands, which passed into Henry VIII.’s hands at a time
when all church property was in peril of seizure, is neatly glossed
over as the “manor was resumed by the Crown in 1536.” The use of the
springs, however, was retained by the Abbey, and confirmed to them by
a charter of Elizabeth in 1560. Later on the privilege was withdrawn,
and in 1663 the Chelsea Waterworks were granted the use of all the
streams and springs of Hyde Park. They made in 1725 a reservoir on the
east side of the Park, opposite Mount Street. The sunk garden, with
the Dolphin Fountain, the statue in Carrara marble, and the basin of
Sicilian marble, by A. Munro, was made in 1861 on the site of this
reservoir, which was abandoned two years earlier. It has been stated
that this sunk garden was a remnant of the forts of Cromwe |
75 | ll’s time,
one small one having been near here, but the history of the Chelsea
Waterworks reservoir must have been unknown to those who believed the
tradition. It contained a million and a half gallons of water, and
was protected by a wall and railings, as suicides were once said to
have been frequent. When the Serpentine was made by Queen Caroline,
considerable compensation had to be paid to the Waterworks Company.
[Illustration: DOLPHIN FOUNTAIN, HYDE PARK]
In this age of experiments in plant growing, when American writers glow
with enthusiasm on the wonders of the “New Earth,” and when science
has transformed the dullest operations of farming and gardening
into fields for enterprise and treasuries of possible discoveries,
it is humiliating to find the water in Hyde Park being used for like
experiments as long ago as 1691–92. Stephen Switzer, a gardener,
who would have been described by his contemporaries as a “lover of
ingenuities,” was fond of indulging in speculations, and studi |
76 | ed
the effect of water on plants. He quotes a series of experiments
made by Dr. Woodward on growing plants entirely in water, or with
certain mixtures. For fifty-two days during the summer of 1692 he
carefully watched some plants of spearmint, which were all “the most
kindly, fresh, sprightly Shoots I could chuse,” and were set in water
previously weighed. For this trial he selected “Hyde Park Conduit
water”--one pure, another had an ounce and a half of common garden
earth added to it, a third was given an equal quantity of garden mould,
and a fourth was kept on “Hyde Park water distilled.” The results in
growth, and the quantity of water absorbed, were carefully noted at the
end of the time.
[Illustration: DOLPHIN FOUNTAIN IN HYDE PARK]
When Queen Caroline conceived the idea of throwing the ponds in Hyde
Park into one, and making a sheet of water, the school of “natural” or
“landscape” gardening was becoming the rage. Bridgeman, a well-known
garden designer, who had charge of the ro |
77 | yal gardens, has the credit
of having invented the “ha-ha” or sunk fence, and thus led the way for
merging gardens into parks. Kent, who followed him, went still further.
He, Horace Walpole said, “leaped the fence, and saw that all Nature was
a garden.” The fashions in garden design soon change, and the work of
a former generation is quickly obliterated. William III. brought with
him the fashion of Dutch gardening, and laid out Kensington Gardens in
that style. Switzer, writing twenty-five years later, says the fault of
the Dutch gardeners was “the Pleasure Gardens being stuffed too thick
with Box”; they “used it to a fault, especially in England, where we
abound in so much good Grass and Gravel.” London and Wise, very famous
nursery gardeners, who made considerable changes at Hampton Court,
and laid out the grounds of half the country seats in England, had
charge of Kensington Palace Gardens, and housed the “tender greens”
during the winter in their nurseries hard by. These celebrated |
78 | Brompton
nurseries were so vast that the Kensington plants took up “but little
room in comparison with” those belonging to the firm. Queen Mary took
great interest in the new gardens. “This active Princess lost no time,
but was either measuring, directing, or ordering her Buildings, but
in Gard’ning, especially Exoticks, she was particularly skill’d, and
allowed Dr. Pluknet £200 per ann. for his Assistance therein.” After
his queen’s death William III. did no more to the gardens, but they
were completed by Queen Anne. She appointed Wise to the chief care
of the gardens, and when in 1712 rules for the “better keeping Hyde
Park in good Order” were drawn up, and people were forbidden to leap
the fences or ditches, or to ride over the grass, a special exception
was made in favour of Henry Wise. Switzer, in tracing the history of
gardening to his day (1715), praises the “late pious Queen, whose love
to Gardening was not a little,” for “Rooting up the _Box_, and giving
an _English_ Model to |
79 | the old-made Gardens at _Kensington_; and in 1704
made that new garden behind the Green-House, that is esteemed amongst
the most valuable Pieces of Work that has been done any where....
The place where that beautiful Hollow now is, was a large irregular
Gravel-pit, which, according to several Designs given in, was to
have been filled, but that Mr. Wise prevailed, and has given it that
surprizing Model it now appears in. As great a Piece of Work as that
whole Ground is, ’twas near all completed in one Season, (viz.) between
Michaelmas and Lady Day, which demonstrates to what a pitch Gard’ning
is arrived within these twenty or thirty years.”
When William III. purchased Kensington Palace, the grounds covered less
than thirty acres. Under the management of Wise, in Queen Anne’s time,
more was added, and the Orangery was built in 1705. Few people know the
charms of this old building, which stands to the north of the original
garden, and which future alterations may once more bring more in |
80 | to
sight. As the taste for gardening changed from the shut-in gardens of
the Dutch style to the more extended plans of Wise, the garden grew
in size. Again, when Bridgeman was gardener, Queen Caroline, wife of
George II., wished to emulate the splendour of Versailles, and 300
acres were taken from Hyde Park to add to the Palace Garden. Bridgeman
made the sunk fence which is still the division between Kensington
Gardens and the Park; and with the earth which was taken out a mount
was made, on which a summer-house was erected. This stood nearly
opposite the present end of Rotten Row, and though it has long since
ceased to exist, the gate into the Gardens is still known as the Mount
Gate. Kent, who succeeded Bridgeman, continued the planting of the
avenues and laying out of the Gardens, and the greater part of his
work still remains. The Gardens were reduced in size when the road was
made from Kensington to Bayswater, and the houses along it built about
seventy years ago, and the exact si |
81 | ze is now 274 acres. Queen Caroline
would have liked to take still more of the Parks for her private use;
but when she hinted as much to Walpole, and asked the cost, he voiced
public opinion when he replied, “Three crowns.”
[Illustration: FOUNTAINS AT THE END OF THE SERPENTINE]
The fashion of making sheets of artificial water with curves and
twists, instead of a straight, canal-like shape, was just taking the
public fancy, when Queen Caroline began the work of converting the
rather marshy ponds in Hyde Park into a “Serpentine River.” The ponds
were of considerable size, and in James I.’s time there were as many
as eleven large and small. Celia Fiennes, the young lady who kept a
diary in the time of William and Mary, which has been already quoted,
after describing the Ring, says, “The rest of the park is green, and
full of deer; there are large ponds with fish and fowle.” The work
of draining the ponds and forming a river was begun in October 1730,
under the direction of Charles Withe |
82 | rs, Surveyor-General of the Woods
and Forests. The cost of the large undertaking was supposed to come
out of the Queen’s privy purse, and it was not until after her death
that it was found that Walpole had supplemented it out of the public
funds. The West Bourne supplied the new river with sufficient water
for some hundred years, after which new arrangements had to be made,
as the stream had become too foul. The water supply now comes from two
sources--one a well 400 feet deep at the west end of the Serpentine,
where the formal fountains and basins were made, about 1861, in front
of the building of Italian design covering the well. The sculptured
vases and balustrade with sea-horses are by John Thomas. The water
in the well stands 172 feet below the ground level, and the depth
is continually increasing. It is pumped up to the “Round Pond,” and
descends by gravity. The second supply comes from a well 28 feet deep
in the gravel on “Duck Island,” in St. James’s Park. The water, which
is 1 |
83 | 9 feet below the surface, remains constant, that level being the
same as the water-bearing stratum of the Thames valley in London.
It is pumped up to the Serpentine, and returns to the lake in St.
James’s Park, supplying the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace
on the way. The deep well provides about 120,000 gallons, and the
shallow about 100,000 a day. The “Round Pond”--which, by the way, is
not round--affords the greatest delight to the owners, of all ages,
of miniature yachts of all sizes. There are the large boats with
skilful masters, which sail triumphantly across the placid waters, and
there are the small craft that spend days on the weeds, or founder
amid “waves that run inches high,” like the good steamship _Puffin_
in Anstey’s amusing poem. When the weeds are cut twice every summer,
many pathetic little wrecks are raised to the surface, perchance to be
restored to the expectant owners.
Skating was an amusement in Hyde Park even before the Serpentine
existed, and the old |
84 | er ponds often presented a gay scene in winter,
although it was on the canal in St. James’s Park that the use of the
modern skate is first recorded in Charles II.’s time.
During the last hundred years Hyde Park has frequently been disturbed
by mobs and rioters, until it has become the recognised place in which
to air popular discontent in any form, or to ventilate any grievance.
The first serious riot took place at the funeral of Queen Caroline, in
1821. To avoid any popular demonstration of feeling, it was arranged
that the funeral procession should not pass through the City. The Queen
had died at Brandenburgh House, and was to be interred at Brunswick.
Instead of going straight by way of Knightsbridge and Piccadilly, a
circuitous route by Kensington, Bayswater, Islington, and Mile End
was planned. On reaching Kensington Church, the mob prevented the
turn towards Bayswater being taken. Hyde Park was thronged with an
excited crowd, trying to force the escort to go the way it wished.
A |
85 | t Cumberland Gate quite a severe encounter took place, in which the
Life Guards twice charged the mob. Further down Oxford Street were
barricades, and to avoid further rioting the procession eventually had
to take the people’s route, passing quietly down to the Strand and
through the City.
The occasion of the Reform Bill riot in 1831, when the windows were
smashed in Apsley House, is well known, and from 1855 to 1866 Hyde Park
witnessed many turbulent demonstrations. The first occasion was in July
1855 against Lord Robert Grosvenor’s “Sunday Trading Bill,” when some
150,000 people assembled, and various scenes of disturbance took place.
More or less serious riots were of frequent occurrence, until they
culminated in the Reform League riot in July 1866, when the railings
between Marble Arch and Grosvenor Gate “were entirely demolished, and
the flower-beds were ruined.” The flower-beds had not been long in
existence when they were wantonly damaged by the mob.
[Illustration: AUTUMN BEDS |
86 | , HYDE PARK]
The idea of introducing flowers into the Park began about 1860, and the
long rows of beds between Stanhope Gate and Marble Arch were made about
that time, when Mr. Cowper Temple was First Commissioner of Works.
They were made when “bedding out” was at the height of its fashion,
when the one idea was to have large, glaring patches of bright flowers
as dazzling as possible, or minute and intricate patterns carried
out in carpet bedding. Now this plan has been considerably modified.
The process of alteration has been slow, and the differences in some
cases subtle, but the old stiffness and crudeness has been banished
for ever. The harmony of colours, and variety of plants used, are the
principal features in the present bedding out. It seems right that
the Royal Parks should lead the way in originality and beauty, and
undoubted success is frequently achieved, although even the style of
to-day has its opponents. The chief objection from the more practical
gardeners is the putt |
87 | ing out of comparatively tender plants in
the summer months, when the same general effect could be got with
a less expenditure both of money and plants. But on the other hand
numbers of people come to study the beds, note the combinations, and
examine the use of certain plants which they would not otherwise have
the opportunity of testing. The public who enjoy the results, and
often those who most severely criticise, do not know the system on
which the gardening is carried out. Many are even ignorant enough to
suppose that the whole bedding out is contracted for, and few know the
hidden recesses of Hyde Park, which produces everything for all the
display, both there and in St. James’s Park. The old place in which all
necessary plants were raised was a series of green-houses and frames
in front of Kensington Palace. The erection of these pits and glass
houses completely destroyed the design of the old garden, although even
now the slope reveals the lines of the old terraces; and they en |
88 | tirely
obscure the beauty of the Orangery. A few years ago three acres in
the centre of Hyde Park were taken, on which to form fresh nurseries.
Gradually better ranges have been built, and soon the old unsightly
frames at Kensington will disappear. The new garden is so completely
hidden that few have discovered its whereabouts. The ground selected
lies to the north-west of the Ranger’s Lodge. There, a series of
glass houses on the most approved plan, and rows of frames, have been
erected. The unemployed have found work by excavating the ground to the
depth of some eight feet, and the gravel taken out has made the wide
walk across the Green Park and the alterations in the “Mall.” A wall
and bank of shrubs and trees so completely hides even the highest house
in which the palms--such as those outside the National Gallery--are
stored, that it is quite invisible from the outside. There are
storehouses for the bulbs, and nurseries where masses of wall-flowers,
delphiniums, and all the hardie |
89 | r bedding plants, and those for the
herbaceous borders, are grown. Of late years the number of beds in
the Park has been considerably reduced, without any diminution of the
effect. In 1903 as many as ninety were done away with between Grosvenor
Gate and Marble Arch. There is now a single row of long beds instead
of three rows with round ones at intervals. But even after all these
reductions the area of flower beds and borders is very considerable, as
the following table will show:--
+-----------------------------+----------------+----------------+
| | Area of Flower | Area of Flower |
| | Beds. | Borders. |
+-----------------------------+----------------+----------------+
| | Sq. Yds. | Sq. Yds. |
| Hyde Park | 1742 | 2975 |
| Kensington Gardens | 345 | 3564 |
| St. James’s Park | |
90 | 30 | 2642 |
| Queen Victoria Memorial in | 1270 | ... |
| front of Buckingham Palace | | |
+-----------------------------+----------------+----------------+
| Total | 3687 | 9181 |
+-----------------------------+----------------+----------------+
An event of historic importance which took place in Hyde Park was the
Great Exhibition of 1851. Various sites, such as Battersea, Regent’s
Park, Somerset House, and Leicester Square, were suggested, and the one
chosen met with some opposition, but finally the space between Rotten
Row and Knightsbridge Barracks was decided on. Plans were submitted
for competition, and though 245 were sent in not one satisfied the
committee, so, assisted by three well-known architects, they evolved a
plan of their own. This was to be carried out in brick; the labour of
removing it after the Exhibition would have been stupendous. It was
w |
91 | hen this plan was under consideration that Paxton showed his idea for
the building of iron and glass so well known as the Crystal Palace. It
was 1851 feet long and 408 wide, with a projection on the north 936
feet by 48, and the building covered about 19 acres.
One stipulation was made before the design was accepted, and that was
that three great elm trees growing on the site should not be removed,
but included in the building. To effect this, some alterations were
made, and the trees were successfully encased in this Crystal Palace,
and the old trunk of one of them is still standing in Hyde Park. There
is a railing round it, but no tablet to record this strange chapter in
its history. Some smaller trees were cut down, which led to a cartoon
in _Punch_ and lines on the Prince Consort, who was the prime mover in
all pertaining to the Great Exhibition.
“Albert! spare those trees,
Mind where you fix your show;
For mercy’s sake, don’t, please,
Go spoiling Rotte |
92 | n Row.”
The Exhibition was opened by the Queen on May 1st. The enthusiasm it
created in all sections of the population has known no parallel, and in
the success and excitement the few small elm trees were soon forgotten
by the delighted people, who raised cheers and shouted--
“Huzza for the Crystal Palace,
And the world’s great National Fair.”
Hyde Park never saw more people than during the time it was open from
the 1st of May to the 11th of October, as 6,063,986 persons visited the
Exhibition, an average of 43,000 daily. Its success was phenomenal
also from a financial point of view, as after all expenses were
deducted there was a surplus of £150,000, with which the land from the
Park to South Kensington was purchased, on which the Albert Hall and
museums have been built.
It seems to have been the complete originality of the whole structure
that captivated all beholders. In his memoirs the eighth Duke of Argyll
refers to the opening as the most beautiful spectacl |
93 | e he had ever seen.
“Merely,” he writes, “as a spectacle of joy and of supreme beauty,
the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851 stands in my memory as a
thing unapproachable and alone. This supreme beauty was mainly in the
building, not in its contents, nor even in the brilliant and happy
throng that filled it. The sight was a new sensation, as if Fancy had
been suddenly unveiled. Nothing like it had ever been seen before--its
light-someness, its loftiness, its interminable vistas, its aisles and
domes of shining and brilliant colouring.”
It was with the recollection of this world-famous Exhibition fresh in
men’s minds that the site for the Albert Memorial was chosen. The idea
conceived by Sir Gilbert Scott was the reproduction on a large scale of
a mediæval shrine or reliquary. When it was erected an alteration was
made in some of the avenues in Kensington Gardens, so as to bring one
into line with the Memorial. A fresh avenue of elms and planes straight
to the monument was plante |
94 | d, which joined into the original one, and a
few trees were dotted about to break the old line. As first planned,
the avenue must have commanded a view of Paddington Church steeple in
the vista.
There is no better refutation of the theory that only plane trees will
live in London, than an examination of the trees in Hyde Park and
Kensington Gardens. An appendix to this volume gives a list of the
trees and shrubs which have been planted there, and notes those which
are not in existence, having proved unsuitable to London, or been
removed from some other cause. Many people will doubtless be surprised
at the length of the list. A large number of the trees are really fine
specimens, and would do credit to any park in the kingdom. Take, for
instance, some of the ash trees. There is a very fine group not very
far from the Mount Gate inside Kensington Gardens. Two specimens with
light feathery foliage, _Fraxinus lentiscifolia_ and _F. excelsior
angustifolia_, when seen like lace against the |
95 | sky, are remarkably
pretty trees. Not far from them stand a good tulip tree and the last
remaining of the old Scotch firs. The Ailanthus Avenue from the
Serpentine Bridge towards Rotten Row, planted in 1876, is looking most
prosperous. There are a few magnificent ancient sweet chestnuts above
the bastion near the Magazine. The trees planted from time to time have
wisely been grouped together according to species. Near the Ranger’s
Lodge, outside the new frame-ground, some birches grow well, and their
white stems are washed every year. The collection of pavias, which
flower delightfully in the small three-cornered enclosure where the
road divides at the Magazine, are most flourishing. To the south-west
of the fountains at the end of the Serpentine, some very good Turkey
and American oaks are growing into large trees. Several really old
thorns are dotted about. In a walk from the “Round Pond,” by the stone
which marks the boundary of three parishes, towards Bayswater, grand
specimens of |
96 | oak, ash, lime, elm, sweet and horse-chestnuts are met
with. The avenue of horse-chestnuts is just as flourishing as those
of planes or elms. In fact the whole Park shows how well trees will
succeed if sufficient care is taken of them. One feature of the Park in
old days was the Walnut Avenue, which grew nearly on the lines of the
present trees between Grosvenor Gate and the Achilles Statue. They were
decayed and were cut down in 1811, and the best of the wood was used
for gunstocks for the army. It is a pity no walnut avenue was planted
instead, as by now it would have been a fine shady walk. The old elms,
which are of such great beauty in Hyde Park, have, alas! often to be
sacrificed for the safety of passers-by, so that the recent severe
lopping was necessary. Their great branches are the first to fall in
a gale. Yet when one has to be removed there is an outcry, though
people tamely submit to a whole row of trees being ruined by tram lines
along the Embankment, so inconsistent is p |
97 | ublic opinion. It is almost
incredible what narrow escapes from destruction even the beauty of Hyde
Park has had. In 1884 a Metropolitan and Parks Railway Bill was before
Parliament, which actually proposed to cross the Park by tunnels and
cuttings which would have completely disfigured “The Dell” and other
parts of the Park. In this utilitarian age nothing is sacred.
The Dell had not been ten years in its present form when the proposal
was made. The site of the Dell was a receiving lake, about 200 yards
by 70, which had been made in 1734. This was done away with in 1844,
and the overflow of the Serpentine allowed to pass over the artificial
rocks which still remain. It was enveloped in a dark and dirty
shrubbery, the haunt of all the ruffians and the worst characters who
frequented the Park at night. The place was not safe to pass after
dark, neither had it any beauty to recommend it. It was in this state
when the present Lord Redesdale became Secretary of the Office of
Works in 1874 |
98 | . He conceived the idea of turning it into a sub-tropical
garden, designed the banks of the little stream, and introduced
suitable planting, banishing the old shrubs, and merely using the best
to form a background to the spireas, iris, giant coltsfoot, osmundas,
day lilies, and such-like, which adorned the water’s edge in front. The
dark history of the Dell is quite forgotten, and watching the ducks and
rabbits playing about this pretty spot is one of the chief delights of
Hyde Park.
The monolith which stands near was brought from Liskeard in Cornwall
by Mr. Cowper Temple, when First Commissioner of Works, and set up in
its present place as a drinking-fountain in 1862. In 1887 the water was
cut off it, the railings altered, and the turf laid round it, joining
it on to the rest of the Dell. To Lord Redesdale are due also the
rhododendrons which make such a glorious show on either side of Rotten
Row. He contracted with Messrs. Anthony Waterer for a yearly supply, as
they only look their |
99 | best for a short time exposed to London air. In
his time, too, many of the small flower-beds which were dotted about
without much rhyme or reason were done away with, and the borders at
the edge of the shrubs substituted.
The latest addition to Hyde Park is the fountain presented by Sir
Walter Palmer and put up near the end of the “Row” in 1906. The
sculpture and design are the work of Countess Feodore Gleichen. The
graceful figure of Artemis, with bow and arrow, and the supporting
cariatides, are of bronze, the upper basin of Saravezza marble, and the
lower of Tecovertino stone. The whole is most light and elegant, and
shows up well against the dark trees.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN BY COUNTESS FEODOR GLEICHEN, HYDE PARK]
It has only been possible to glance at the history and beauties of
Hyde Park; many more pages could be written without touching on half
of the incidents connected with it, between the days when it was
monastic lands to the days of the modern Sunday “Church Parade.” |
100 | It
is interesting to trace the origin of the little customs with which
every one is now familiar, but which once were new and original. For
instance, the naming of trees and flowers in the Parks was first done
about 1842, the idea having been suggested by Loudon, and carried out
by Nash the architect, and George Don the botanist. Then the system
of paying a penny for a seat began in 1820, but when some of the free
seats were removed in 1859 there was a great outcry, and they were
immediately put back. Then the meets of the Four-in-hand and Coaching
Clubs, which are quite an institution in Hyde Park, only continue the
tradition of the “Whip Club,” which first met in 1808. The history of
the various gates calls for notice. The Marble Arch, designed by Nash,
with ornaments by Flaxman, Westmacott, and Rossi, in Carrara marble,
was moved from Buckingham Palace to its present position in 1851.
Over £4000 was expended on the removal, while the original sum spent
was £75,000. The statue of Geo |
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