THE ROYAL PARKS

Green Park

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Green Park was enclosed in the 16^thC by King Henry VIII. In the 17^thC King Charles II designated the land a royal park. At 53-acres it is the smallest of the royal parks in central London. It does not have any flowerbeds in it, hence its name.¹

Location: Piccadilly, W1J 7NF (purple, pink)

Website: www.royalparks.gov.uk/parks/green-park

¹. However, in spring numerous daffodils make their presence known.

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Constitution Hill

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Between the wall that runs along the north-eastern side of the Buckingham Palace s grounds and Green Park runs Constitution Hill. The road used to be known as St James's Hill. In almost any other country its new name would refer to a momentous political development. In Britain, with its unwritten, informal constitution, the name refers to King Charles II's (d.1685) partiality for taking a constitutional walk for the sake of his health. (The incline is so slight that Hill is an overstatement. It is barely even a slope.)

Location: Constitution Hill, SW1A 1AA (orange, grey)

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Milkmaids Passage

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Milkmaids Passage is a private alley that runs to the north of Lancaster House. It enters the southern end of the eastern side of Green Park. The passageway s name probably recalls the practice by which people who were promenading in the park or along The Mall could buy a drink of milk that was fresh from the udder.

Location: Milkmaids Passage, SW1A 1BB (orange, brown)

See Also: TEA White

Greenwich Park

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Greenwich Park was laid out in 1433.

In 1675 King Charles II commissioned the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. This was built upon the crest of the hill that occupies the southern portion of Greenwich Park.

In the 18^thC the park was opened to the public.

Location: Greenwich Park, SE10 9NF

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/greenwich-park

Hyde Park

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Together, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens make up the largest of the central London parks. They occupy nearly a rectangular, square mile of greenery.

The land from which Hyde Park was created had belonged to Westminster Abbey until 1536. King Henry VIII then acquired it through an exchange of estates. The monarch turned his new property into a deer park.¹ It is not altogether clear when the land was opened to the public. It was probably King Charles I who was responsible for such during the 1630s.

Its south-western portion hosted the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Location: Hyde Park, The Old Police Station, W2 2UH

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park

¹. Deer remained a feature of the park until the middle of the 18^thC.

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Speakers' Corner

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Lord Robert Grosvenor was the scion of one of the wealthiest of the great aristocratic families. For most of his political career the M.P. was on the progressive wing of the Whig party; when Garibaldi was to visit London in 1864 it was to be Lord Robert who hosted a banquet that was held to honour the Italian. Grosvenor's religious beliefs were an ardent form of Low Church Anglicanism. In Parliament he and the similarly-minded Tory Lord Shaftesbury co-operated with one another on a number of social issues. These included the placing of statutory limits upon the number of hours that people could work in a factory during a single week.

Grosvenor sponsored the Sunday Trading Bill of 1855. The measure sought to prevent shops from opening on Sundays. The passage of the Factory Acts had not been universal in their impact upon the working lives of ordinary people. For many Londoners, Sunday was still the only day during which they could shop for the necessities that sustained them. Therefore, there was popular opposition to the measure. A mass rally was held in the north-eastern corner of Hyde Park. At the time, there was no legal right of assembly. That the crowd gathered where it did was probably so that it could be physically accommodated. However, the site could also be seen and heard from Grosvenor House, the townhouse where the M.P. lived when he was in London. He had taken the precaution of leaving the metropolis. Subsequently, he withdrew the Bill.

In 1866, as part of a popular movement that was demanding a broadening of the electoral franchise, large demonstrations took place in Hyde Park. (The Second Reform Act was passed the following year as a response to a general desire for the right to vote to be extended within the (male) population.)

As a result of the demonstrations Park Lane was widened, its railings were set back within what was then the park's perimeter to make room for the road to be broadened.

In 1872 Parliament passed the legislation that granted the right of public assembly. As a result, Speaker's Corner was established in the north-eastern corner of the park. The Corner has no immunity from any of the laws respecting slander or incitement to cause a breach of the peace.¹

Prior to the 1980s the functioning of Speakers Corner was aided by the prevailing Sabbatarian culture.²

Location: Hyde Park, W2 2EU (purple, blue)

¹. The speakers stepladders and portable platforms give the impression that they have taken a break from papering the parlour.

². In taxi slang Speakers Corner is referred to Spouters Corner .

Kensington Gardens

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During the 16^thC Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens became a private royal park.

After the opening of Hyde Park to the public in the 1630s, Kensington Gardens remained the sovereign's private garden. Its current character was in large part determined by Queen Caroline (d.1737), King George II's consort. Her ambitions extended to incorporating Hyde Park within the Gardens and thus closing it to the public. She asked the then prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, whether the scheme would prove to be expensive. He replied that it could be done ... for The price of two Crowns .¹

When the court was at Richmond, George II permitted the Gardens to be opened to respectably dressed people on Saturdays. The Broad Walk became a fashionable promenade where Society could parade itself to itself.

King William IV (d.1837) opened the park to the public throughout the year.

Location: Kensington Gardens, W8 4PX (red, yellow)

Website: www.royalparks.gov.uk/parks/kensington-gardens

¹. A crown was a coin worth 25p in contemporary money.

The Regent's Park

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In the 16^thC King Henry VIII used Marylebone Park as a hunting ground. Subsequently, the Crown granted a long lease on the property so that the land passed out of its direct control.

In 1811 the 4^th Duke of Portland surrendered Marylebone Park back to the Crown. The Prince Regent felt himself to be in need of a summer residence in addition to Carlton House. Therefore, he instructed the architect John Nash to devise a scheme in which the land would be turned into an aristocratic estate at the focus of which would be located the prospective aetile palace. In the original plan, and in accordance with contemporary planning practice, a social range of houses was to be built. This was so that those who helped keep life gracious for the leisured class should be accommodated close at hand.

The prince's palace proved to be only a fancy.

Only eight of the 56 great villas that Nash envisaged were ever built. Some of octet are located along the park s Inner Circle, while the rest stand on its Outer one. One of the conditions of the houses Crown Estate leases is that their grounds should be opened to the public on certain days each year.

On the park's western, southern and eastern peripheries wedding cake cliffs of Regency terraces were built. Nash left its northern side open thereby retaining vistas of Hampstead Hill and Highgate Hill.

Arthur Markham Nesfield designed much of the layout of The Regent's Park.

Location: The Regent's Park, Chester Road, NW1 4NR (orange, turquoise)

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/the-regents-park

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The Crown Estate Paving Commission

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The Crown Estate Paving Commission is a public body that was set up in 1813. It has always been a legally separate entity from the Crown Estate. The Commission has two areas of activity. Firstly, it supervises aspects of The Regent's Park, such as its street furniture and the opening and shutting of its gates. And secondly, in the streets that neighbour the park, that stand upon Crown Estate property, it manages a range of activities such as rubbish collection and vehicle parking.

Location: 12 Park Square East, NW1 4LH (purple, turquoise)

Website: www.cepc.org.uk

Richmond Park

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Location: Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10 5HS

Sheen Gate, SW14 8BJ

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/richmond-park

The Royal Parks

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The Crown Lands Act of 1851 set up the Commissioners of Works to manage the royal parks as public parks.

St James's Park

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St James's Park is the oldest of the royal parks in central London. Originally, it was a marshy meadow that was owned by the Hospital of St James, an institution that housed lepers. In 1532 the land was drained and laid out for King Henry VIII as a deer nursery that linked St James's Palace to Whitehall Palace.

Originally, the park's lake was a set of ponds. The French landscape designer Andr Le N tre joined these up to form a rectangular ornamental body of water. The park was King Charles II's (d.1685) pleasure ground. He used the lake for swimming in. His interest in ornithology is commemorated by the name Duck Island.

In the late 1820s the architect John Nash turned the formal lake into an informal one that dominated the centre of the park.

The bridge that crosses it in St James's Park was designed by Eric Bedford, the Ministry of Works's Chief Architect. (He also designed the Post Office Tower (1964).)¹

Location: Horse Guards Road, St James's Park, SW1A 2BJ (purple, red)

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/st-james-park

¹. Possibly the most picturesque view in London is the eastwards one from the bridge's centre.

David Backhouse 2024