London parks and gardens

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 connected 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, 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 Abbots 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 Palace), 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 pavilion, 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 rising 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, 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.

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-like 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 reserved 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; the 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 one 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 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 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 his 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 gilt 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 taken. 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 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.

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 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 combatants—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 1668, 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. Blücher 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 the 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 danger 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 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 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 the 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 Cromwell’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.

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 studied 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.

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 royal 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 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 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 into 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 size 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.”

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 Withers, 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 19 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 older 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. At 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.

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 putting 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 entirely 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 hardier 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:—

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 when 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.

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—

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 spectacle 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 planted, 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 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 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 public 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. 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 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.