London parks and gardens

It would not occur to most people to reckon Greenwich among the London Parks. But it is well within the bounds of the County of London, and now so easy of access that it should have no difficulty in substantiating its claim to be one of the most beautiful among them. Both for natural features and historic interest it is one of the most fascinating.

Its Spanish chestnuts are among the distinguishing characteristics, and although smoke is slowly telling on them, numbers of these sturdy timber trees are still in their prime, and it would be hard to find a more splendid collection in any part of the country. One of the giants is 20 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, and contains 200 feet of timber.

Those who are the ready champions of the rights of the people to the common lands, and who justly inveigh against all encroachments, must feel bound to admit that, in the case of Greenwich Park, what they would call pilfering in other instances is thoroughly justified. The land which forms the Park was part of Blackheath until Henry VI., in the fifteenth year of his reign, gave his uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, licence to enclose 200 acres of the wood and heath “to make a park in Greenwich.”

The modern history of Greenwich Park may be said to begin in Duke Humphrey’s time, but it was a favourite resort long before that. Situated on the high ground above the marshy banks of the river, and near the Watling Street between London and Dover, Greenwich was found suitable for country residence in Roman times. On one of the hills in the Park, with a commanding view over the river, the remains of a Roman villa have been excavated. Over 300 coins were found, dating from 35 B.C. to A.D. 423. Bronzes, pottery, a tesselated pavement, and the remains of painted plaster were discovered, showing that it must have been a villa of “taste and elegance,” and there were indications that the final destruction of this charming abode was by fire. A peep into the past might reveal the last of its Roman occupants flying before the barbarian Jute.

Doubtless in its prime there would be a garden near the villa—perhaps a faint imitation of those Roman gardens like Pliny’s. There, “in front of the portico,” was “a sort of terrace, embellished with various figures and bounded with a box-hedge,” which descended “by an easy slope, adorned with the representation of divers animals in box,” to a soft lawn. There were shady trees and a splashing fountain, and sunny walks to form “a very pleasing contrast,” where the air was “perfumed with roses.” The slopes of Greenwich may have presented such a scene in the days when Roman galleys rowed up the Thames.

In another part of the Park, Roman graves have been found, and other burying-places of a later date suggest a very different picture from that of Roman times. These tumuli are very numerous, and although over twenty remain, a much greater number existed, and have been rifled from time to time, or excavated, as in 1784, when some fifty were opened, and braids of human hair, fragments of woollen cloth, and beads were found. These graves suggest the occupation of these heights by the Danes, who were encamped there for some three years about 1011. Wild and lawless must have been the aspect then, and the incident that stands out prominently is the martyrdom of St. Alphege, the Archbishop, slain here by the Danes in 1012.

There was probably some royal residence at Greenwich from the time of Edward I., but it was not until it came to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, that the Palace much used in Tudor times was built. This building faced the Thames, and went by the name of “Placentia” or “Plaisance,” and round it there was a garden. The royal licence, which gave the Duke leave to enclose a portion of the heath, provided that he might also build “Towers of stone and lime.” The tower stood on the hill now crowned by the Observatory, and was pulled down when Charles II. had the Observatory erected from designs by Wren in 1675. The plan included a well 100 feet deep, at the bottom of which the astronomer Flamsteed could lie and observe the heavens. All through the earlier history of the Park this tower must have been a conspicuous object. During Tudor times Greenwich was much lived in by the Sovereign, and many a gay pageant enlivened the Park. Jousts and tournaments, Christmas games and May Day frolics, were of yearly recurrence in the early days of Henry VIII. The Court moved there regularly to “bring in the May.” A picturesque account is given of one of these merry-makings by the Venetian Ambassador and his Secretary. The Ambassador was charmed with the King. “Not only,” he writes, is he “very expert in arms and of great valour, and most excellent in personal endowment, but is likewise so gifted and adorned with mental accomplishments of every sort.” He joined in the May Day proceedings, which must indeed have presented a brilliant spectacle, with the oaks and hawthorn, and all the wild beauty of Greenwich Park, as a background. Katharine of Aragon, “most excellently attired and very richly, and with her twenty-five damsels mounted on white palfreys, with housings of the same fashion most beautifully embroidered in gold,” and followed by “a number of footmen,” rode out into the wood, where “they found the King with his guard, all clad in a livery of green with bowers [boughs] in their hands, and about 100 noblemen on horseback, all gorgeously arrayed.” “In this wood were certain bowers filled purposely with singing birds, which carrolled most sweetly.” Music played, and a banquet under the trees followed, then the procession with the King and Queen together returned to the Palace. The crowds flocking round them the Venetian estimated “to exceed ... 25,000 persons.”

Queen Mary was born at Greenwich, and there she was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. She resided here much during her short and troublous reign; and perhaps her fondness for this Palace came from the association of her early youth, when she was the centre of attraction. Greenwich cannot always have been pleasant for the Princess Mary, for here came Anne Boleyn. From Greenwich she was escorted in state to London by the Lord Mayor, who was summoned by the King to fetch her, and from Greenwich she was taken up the river, her last melancholy journey to the Tower. The oak under which Henry VIII. is said to have danced with her is still standing. It is a huge, old, hollow stem, though quite dead, kept upright by the ivy. The trunk has a hole 6 feet in diameter, and it is known as Queen Elizabeth’s Oak, as tradition also says she took refreshments inside it. It was fitted with a door, and those who transgressed the rules of the Park were confined in this original prison. It was at Greenwich that Queen Elizabeth was born; and to Greenwich Henry brought his fourth bride, when poor Anne Boleyn’s short-lived favour was at an end, and Jane Seymour dead. The less beautiful Anne of Cleves, who so signally failed to please the King, was escorted in state from Calais by thirty gentlemen, with their servants, “in cotes of black velvet with cheines of gold about their neckes.” On January 3, 1540, the King rode up from the Palace to meet her on Blackheath with noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, and citizens, all in velvet with gold chains. The King rode a horse with rich trappings of gold damask studded with pearls, a coat of purple velvet slashed with gold, and a bonnet decorated with “unvalued gems.” Anne came out of her tent on the Heath to meet him, clad in cloth of gold, and mounted on a horse with trappings embroidered with her arms, a lion sable. She rode right through the Park from the Black Heath to the northern gate and round through the town to the Palace, the guns firing from the Tower in her honour.

It was at Greenwich that the boy king, Edward VI., died, and Mary and Elizabeth were constantly there. Their state barges bearing them to and from the Palace must have been no uncommon sight on the Thames. It was on landing on one of these occasions that the famous episode of Sir Walter Raleigh laying his cloak in the mud for the Queen to tread on, happened. One of the many brilliant scenes in the Park took place after Elizabeth’s accession, when the citizens of London, overjoyed, wished to give her a very special greeting. It was on July 2, 1559, that “the City of London entertained the Queen at Greenwich with a muster, each Company sending out a certain number of men-at-arms” (1400 in all), “to her great delight.... On the 1st of July they marched out of London in coats of velvet and chaines of gold, with guns, moris pikes, halberds, and flags; and so over London Bridge unto the Duke of Suffolk’s Park in Southwark; where they all mustered before the Lord Mayor, and lay abroad in St. George’s Fields all that night. The next morning they removed towards Greenwich to the Court there; and thence to Greenwich Park. Here they tarried till eight of the clock; then they marched down into the Lawn, and mustered in arms: all the gunners in shirts of mail. At five of the clock at night the Queen came into the gallery over the Park Gate, with the Ambassadors, Lords, and Ladies, to a great number. The Lord Marquis, Lord Admiral, Lord Dudley, and divers other Lords and Knights, rode to and fro to view them, and to set the two battles in array to skirmish before the Queen: then came the trumpets to blow on each part, the drums beating, and the flutes playing. There were given three onsets in every battle; the guns discharged on one another, the moris pikes encountered together with great alarm; each ran to their weapons again, and then they fell together as fast as they could, in imitation of close fight. All this while the Queen, with the rest of the Nobles about her, beheld the skirmishings.... After all this, Mr. Chamberlain, and divers of the Commons of the City and the Wiflers, came before her Grace, who thanked them heartily, and all the City: whereupon immediately was given the greatest shout as ever was heard, with hurling up of caps. And the Queen shewed herself very merry. After this was a running at tilt. And lastly, all departed home to London.”

This fête took place on a Sunday, and the time between the muster and the fight was probably mostly spent in refreshment. The account for the supplies of the “Mete and Drynke” for 1st day of July and Sunday night supper is preserved. They were far from being starved, as, among other items, 9 geese, 14 capons, 8 chickens, 3 quarters and 2 necks of mutton, 4 breasts of veal, beside a sirloin of beef, venison pasties, 8 marrow-bones, fresh sturgeon, 3 gallons of cream, and other delicacies were provided for them. Floral decorations in their honour were not forgotten, and appear in the accounts—“gely flowers and marygolds for iii garlands, 7d.; strawynge herbes, 1/4; bowes for the chemneys, 1d.; flowers for the potts in the wyndowys, 6d.”

There is no end to the gay scenes that the Park and even some of the most ancient trees have witnessed. “Goodly banquetting houses” were built of “fir poles decked with birch branches and all manner of flowers both of the field and garden, as roses, gilly flowers, lavender, marigold, and all manner of strewing herbs and rushes” (10th July 1572); and many a brilliant pageant took place under the greenwood tree as well as in the Palace, where Shakespeare acted before the Queen.

Although the days of sumptuous pageantry ended with Elizabeth, much was done for Greenwich by the Stuarts. James I. replaced the wooden fence of the Park by a brick wall, 12 feet high and 2 miles round. At various times sections have been altered or replaced by iron rails, but the greater part of the wall remains as completed between 1619–25.

The “Queen’s House,” which is the only portion of the older building which still exists, was begun under James I., and completed by Inigo Jones for Queen Henrietta Maria. It was called the House of Delight or the Queen’s House, and still bears the latter title. Although the sale does not appear to have been actually completed, Greenwich is among the Royal Parks the Parliament intended to sell. The deer at the time must have been numerous and in good condition, for during the Commonwealth the fear of their being stolen was such, that soldiers were posted in the tower for their preservation. Not any great change, however, took place; the Park remained as it was until completely remodelled by Charles II.

Le Nôtre’s name is associated with the changes at Greenwich, as it is with those in St. James’s Park, and the style was undoubtedly his; but it is not at all likely that he ever actually came to England, but sent some representative who helped to carry out his ideas. The alterations were under the superintendence of Sir William Boreman, who became Keeper of the Park about that date. In March 1644 John Evelyn made a note in his Diary about planting some trees at his house of Sayes Court, Deptford, and adds, “being the same year that the elms were planted by His Majesty in Greenwich Park.” The avenues and all the fine sweet chestnuts were planted about this time, besides coppices and orchards. John Evelyn must have approved of these avenues, as in his “Sylva” he praises the chestnut for “Avenues to our Country-houses; they are a magnificent and royal Ornament.” Their nuts were not appreciated in England. “We give that food to our swine,” Evelyn continues, “which is amongst the delicacies of Princes in other Countries; ... doubtless we might propagate their use amongst our common people ... being a Food so cheap and so lasting.”

A series of terraces sloping down from the tower formed part of the design, and their outline can still be traced between the Observatory and the Queen’s House, which faces the hill at the foot. Each terrace was 40 yards wide, and on either side Scotch firs were planted 24 feet apart. These trees were brought by General Monk from Scotland in 1664, and until forty years ago many were standing, and the line of the avenue was still traceable; some of the trunks measured 4 feet in diameter at the ground. Smoke tells so much more on all the coniferous tribes than on the deciduous trees, that they have all now perished. The last dead stump had to be felled some ten years ago. The old Palace was much gone to decay when Charles II. began the alterations, so he pulled it down with the exception of the Queen’s House, the only part said to be in good repair, and commenced a vast building designed by Wren, one wing of which only was completed in his reign.

Pepys, who always did the right and fashionable thing, of course often went to Greenwich, and mentions many pleasant days there. On one occasion (June 16, 1662) he went “in the afternoon with all the children by water to Greenwich, where I showed them the King’s yacht, the house, and the parke, all very pleasant; and to the taverne, and had the musique of the house, and so merrily home again.” This excursion having been so successful, he soon after escorted Lady Carteret with great pride, “she being very fine, and her page carrying up her train, she staying a little at my house, and then walked through the garden, and took water, and went first on board the King’s pleasure-boat, which pleased her much. Then to Greenwiche Parke; and with much ado she was able to walk up to the top of the hill, and so down again, and took boat....” His wife and servants, unencumbered by the fine clothes and the page, had evidently not minded the steep ascent as did this “fine” lady, who, however, was “much pleased with the ramble in every particular of it.”

Greenwich Fair was always a great institution, and as a rule it was a riotous and disorderly gathering. Two took place each year, in May and October, and lasted several days. During the seventeenth and following centuries the fairs were notorious, and finally had to be suppressed in the middle of the nineteenth.

When William III. altered the building of Charles II. from a palace to a hospital for seamen in 1694 the Park was kept separate, and the Ranger lived in the “Queen’s House.” It was not until Princess Sophia held the office in 1816 that the residence was changed to the house which still goes by the name of the Ranger’s Lodge, and was lived in by the last Ranger, Lord Wolseley. This Ranger’s House had formerly belonged to Lord Chesterfield, and many of the famous letters to his godson are dated from there. No special feature in the garden, which was thrown open to the public with the Park in 1898, can be attributed to him. He was not, as Lord Carnarvon’s memoir of him points out, fond of the country; though he “took some interest in growing fruit in his garden at Blackheath, he had no love for his garden like Bacon” or Sir William Temple. There are some fine trees in the grounds, especially a copper beech, with a spread 57 feet in diameter, and a good tulip tree. Queen Caroline, as Princess of Wales, was Ranger in 1806, and lived in Montague House, since pulled down, and the “Queen’s House” was appropriated to the Royal Naval School. At the same time the “Ranger’s” was inhabited by the Duchess of Brunswick, her mother, and it was on her death that it was purchased by the Crown, and Princess Sophia, daughter of the Duke of Gloucester, came to live there as Ranger. The last royal personage to stay in the house was the Duke of Connaught, when studying at Woolwich; and now it serves as refreshment rooms for the numberless trippers who enjoy Greenwich Park in the summer.

The most recent changes in the Park have all been improvements, and now it is beautifully kept. There is much that is still wild, and the flora and fauna of the Park would astonish many. Among the wild flowers butcher’s broom, spindle, and the parasites on the heather and the broom, dodder and broom-rape are to be found, and hart’s-tongue, wall rue, polypody and male and lady ferns. The list of birds that breed there still is a long one:—

• Barndoor owl.
• Spotted fly-catcher.
• Missel and the song thrush.
• Blackbird.
• Hedge sparrow.
• Robin.
• Sedge and reed warblers.
• Black-cap.
• White-throat.
• The great, blue, and cole tits.
• Pied wagtail.
• Common bunting.
• House sparrow.
• Greenfinch.
• Linnet.
• Bullfinch.
• Starling.
• Carrion crow.
• Jackdaw.
• Green woodpecker.
• Tree creeper.
• Wren.
• Nuthatch.
• Swallow.
• Ring, turtle, and stock doves.
• Pigeon.
• Moorhen.
• Lesser grebe.

The part of the Park fenced off and known as the Wilderness is quiet and undisturbed; there under the big trees, among long grass and bracken, the young fawns are reared every year. They are most confiding and tame—those in the Park too much so; for they are only too ready to eat what is given them, and tragic deaths from a surfeit of orange-peel or such-like delights are the result.

The lake is prettily planted, and red marliac varieties of water-lilies now float on the surface in the summer. The dell, planted with a large collection of flowering shrubs, is well arranged, and many choice varieties, Solanum crispum, gum cistus, magnolias, Buddlea intermedia, Indigofera gerardiana floribunda, and such-like are doing well. The frame-ground is most unostentatious, and it is satisfactory to see how much can be produced. The climate allows of the spring bedding plants and hardy chrysanthemums for autumn being raised out of doors; and the small amount of glass shelters the standard heliotropes, Streptosolens Jamesoni, and the like for bedding. Lilies do well in the open; superbum, tiger, thunbergium, Henryii, &c., and pots of longifolium flower strongly after doing duty for three years. There is now a fair-sized garden, where these plants are displayed, near the Wilderness, adjoining Blackheath; while the rest of the Park, with the deer wandering under the chestnuts, is still left delightfully wild. Under the shady trees on a summer’s day it would still be possible to dream of Romans and Danes, of pageants and tournaments, and to people the scene with the heroes and heroines of yore.