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Title: London parks and gardens

Author: Mrs. Evelyn Cecil

Illustrator: Victoria Manners

Release date: May 10, 2025 [eBook #76057]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1907

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PARKS AND GARDENS ***

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(Large)

LONDON PARKS AND
GARDENS

(Large)

ST. KATHARINE’S LODGE, REGENT’S PARK

LONDON PARKS AND
GARDENS
BY

THE HONBLE 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

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 have, 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 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 361
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 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
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 256
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 gradation 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 contrast 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 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, and 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, 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 the 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, Greenwich, 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 London 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.
Wages Police, New Works
Mainte-
Acres. and Park- and Total. Total.
nance.
Salaries. keepers. Alterations.
£ £ £ £ £ £
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
274 138 1,590 50 5,831 7,730 7,804
Gardens
{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 Aggregate Capital Average Cost of Number of
Acres.
Expenditure. Maintenance. Staff.
£ £
Battersea 199 21,042 10,897 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 garden 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 decoration 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

1
“carried the seal with him” to his house, Ely Place, hard by. These small
references show the picturesque side of such events, 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 demesne 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
2
“the greater ditch” formed the fish stew where pike were kept and
artificially fed. Besides all this, there was a considerable vineyard. It 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
3
hedge with wooden gates fitted with keys and locks. 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 St. 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,
4
too, the vintage is in full swing, and the song 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 spite 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 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
5
for their recreation.” 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 beat 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 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 every 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.
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 offenders 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 crowded 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 locality 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 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 the 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 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 in 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, Shoreditch, 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. Princess 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 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 London
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 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 simple, 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 May 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
6
harmonie of Birdes, praising God in their kinde.” 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 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 which
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 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.

“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-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 wch a gravel way, yt would admitt of
twelve if not more rowes of Coaches, wch 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.

“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 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. “Ye 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 wch
are glasses—Cases for Lamps wch are Lighted in ye Evening and appeares
very fine as well as safe for ye passenger. This is only a private roade ye
King had wch reaches to Kensington, where for aire our Great King Wm.
bought a house and filled it for a Retirement wth 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.

(Large)

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 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.

(Large)

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 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.”

(Large)

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 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.

(Large)

AUTUMN BEDS, 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 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:—
Area of Flower Beds. Area of Flower Borders.

Sq. Yds. Sq. Yds.
Hyde Park 1742 2975
Kensington Gardens 345 3564
St. James’s Park 30 2642
Queen Victoria
Memorial in front of 1270 ...
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 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.

“Albert! spare those trees,
Mind where you fix your show;
For mercy’s sake, don’t, please,
Go spoiling Rotten 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 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.

(Large)

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.” 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 George IV. by Chantrey, now in Pall Mall
East, was intended for the top, and cost 9000 guineas, and the bronze gates
are by Samuel Parker. Near that corner of the Park was a stone where
soldiers were shot, and one of the historians of the Park states that it is still
there, only covered over with earth when the new Cumberland Gate was
made in 1822. Apsley Gate at Hyde Park Corner was designed by Decimus
Burton, and put up in 1827, and he planned the arch forming the entrance to
Constitution Hill the following year. The stags, by Bartolozzi, on Albert
Gate, came from the Ranger’s Lodge in Green Park. Grosvenor Gate was
opened about 1724, and Stanhope Gate some twenty-five years later. All the
others are more modern.
Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find such details
more or less accessible in various guide-books. But to every one the Park,
with all its charms, its beauties, and its memories, is open, and it is certain
that the better it is known the more it will be appreciated.

CHAPTER III

ST. JAMES’S AND GREEN PARKS

Near this my Muse, what most delights her, sees
A living Gallery of Aged Trees:
Bold sons of Earth, that thrust their Arms so high,
As if once more they would invade the Sky.

* * * * *
Here Charles contrives the ord’ring of his States;
Here he resolves his neighb’ring Princes’ Fates;

* * * * *
A Prince on whom such diff’rent Lights did smile,
Born the divided World to reconcile.
Whatever Heav’n or high extracted Blood
Could promise or foretel, he’ll make it good,
Reform these Nations, and improve them more
Than this fair Park, from what it was before.
—St. James’s Park: “Poetical Essay,” by Waller.

THE opening history of St. James’s and Green Parks is similar to that of
Hyde Park. They formed part of the same manor in early days, and became
Crown property in Henry VIII.’s time. St. James’s Park was chiefly a marsh.
The Thames overflowed its banks nearly every year, and the low-lying parts
were a swamp and the haunt of wild fowl, and the chief use of the Park was
for the sport the wild birds afforded. The Tyburn flowed through it on its
way from where it crossed the modern Oxford Street to where it joined the
Thames, a little west of where Vauxhall Bridge afterwards stood. It passed

right across Green Park, where the depression of its valley can still be
traced between Half Moon Street and Down Street. The name, St. James’s,
originated with the hospital for lepers, dedicated to St. James, on the site of
the present palace. The exact date of its foundation is lost in the mists of
antiquity, but it was established by the citizens of London, “before the time
of any man’s memorie, for 14 Sisters, maydens, that were leprous, living
chastly and honestly in Divine Service.” Later, there were further gifts of
land and money from the citizens, and “8 brethren to minister Divine
Service there” were added to the foundation. All these gifts were
subsequently confirmed by Edward I., who granted a fair to be held for
seven days, commencing on the eve of St. James’s Day, in St. James’s
Fields, which belonged to the hospital. The letting out of the land for booths
became a source of further income to the lepers. Stowe shortly tells the
subsequent history. “This Hospital was surrendered to Henry the 8 the 23 of
his reigne: the Sisters being compounded with were allowed Pensions for
terme of their lives, and the King builded there a goodly Mannor, annexing
thereunto a Park, closed about with a wall of brick, now called St. James’s
Parke, serving indifferently to the said Mannor, and to the Mannor or Palace
of Whitehall.” At first sight the summary ejection of these helpless creatures
appears unusually heartless, even for those days; but leprosy, which during
the time of the Crusades had grown to a formidable extent, was declining in
the sixteenth century in England. It is probable, therefore, that the poor
outcast sisters, possessed of their pensions, would be able to find shelter in
one of the other leper hospitals, of which there were still a number in the
country.
The space between Whitehall and Westminster, acquired from the
Abbey, was turned into an orchard. The site of Montagu House was the
bowling-green of the Palace, which stretched to the river. A high terrace and
flight of steps led to the Privy Garden of Whitehall, so, except for the
Palace and the Westminster group, there were no buildings between the
river and the Park. It requires some stretch of the imagination to efface the
well-known edifices which now surround it, and to see it in its natural state.
Flights of wild birds would pass from the marshy ground to the river,
unchecked by the pile of Government offices. Behind the Leper Hospital
lay fields and scattered houses. The far-off villages of Knightsbridge and
Chelsea would scarcely come into sight, while beyond the village of
Charing the walls and towers of the City would loom in the distance. Henry

VIII. made some alterations, and may have partially drained the ground and
stocked it with deer. Old maps show a pond at the west end, near the present
Wellington Barracks, called Rosamund’s Pond. The origin of the name is
uncertain, but “Rosemonsbore, or Rosamund’s Bower,” occurs in a lease of
land near this spot from the Abbey of Westminster as early as 1520. Hard by
was a “mount,” such as was to be seen in every sixteenth-century garden,
probably with an arbour and seat on the top to overlook the pond. The first
mention of St. James’s as a Park is in 1539, on an occasion described in
Hall’s Chronicle, when Henry VIII. held a review of the city militia. “The
King himself,” writes the chronicler, “would see the people of the Citie
muster in sufficient nombre....” Some 15,000, leaving the City after passing
by St. Paul’s Churchyard, went “directly to Westminster and so through the
Sanctuary and round about the Park of St. James, and so up into the fields
and came home through Holborne.”
It was not until James I.’s time that the Park began to be esteemed as a
resort for those attached to the Court. Prince Henry, the elder brother of
Charles I., made the tilting-ring on the site of the present Horse Guards’
Parade, and brought the enclosure more into vogue for games. James I.
made use of the Park for his own hobbies, one of which was the
encouragement of growing vines and mulberries in England. He planted
considerable vineyards, and in 1609 he sent a circular letter to the Lords-
Lieutenant of each county, ordering them to announce that the following
spring a thousand mulberry trees would be sent to each county town, and
people were required to buy them at the rate of three-farthings a plant. To
further prosecute his plan, the King set an example by planting a mulberry
orchard at the end of St. James’s Park. The place afterwards became a
fashionable tea garden, and Buckingham Palace is partly built on the site.
The King kept also quite a large menagerie of beasts and birds presented to
him by various crowned heads, or sent to him by friends and favourites.
There are records of elephants, camels, antelopes, beavers, crocodiles, wild
boars, and sables, besides many kinds of birds. The keepers of the animals
received large salaries, and the cost of the care of these beasts would
frighten the Zoological Society of to-day. No expense was spared to give
the best and most suitable surroundings to the animals. For instance, as
much as £286 was expended in 1618 by Robert Wood, the keeper of the
cormorants, ospreys, and otters, “in building a place to keep the said
cormorants in and making nine fish-ponds on land within the vine garden at

Westminster.” Fish were put in for these creatures, and a sluice was made to
bring water from the Thames to fill the ponds. These strange beasts and
birds and their attendants must have been a quaint and unusual sight. The
keepers were dressed in red cloth (which cost nine shillings a yard),
embroidered with “I.R.” in Venice gold, and must have added to the
picturesque appearance of this early Zoological Garden.
Gradually the Park became more and more a favourite place in which
to stroll. Others were admitted besides the Court circle, the privilege being
first accorded to the tenants of the houses at Westminster. Milton, who lived
at one time in Petty France, near where Queen Anne’s Gate now stands,
planted a tree in the garden overlooking the Park, which survived until
recent times, would be one of those to enjoy the advantage. Charles I.
passed this way on his last journey to Whitehall on the fatal 30th of January,
and tradition says he paused to notice a tree planted by his brother Henry.
During the Commonwealth, the Park still was resorted to. In the sprightly
letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple are some vivid little
touches in reference to it. She writes from the country in March 1654: “And
hark you, can you tell me whether the gentleman that lost a crystal box the
1st of February in St. James’s Park or Old Spring Gardens has found it
again or not? I have a strong curiosity to know.” Again, in June of the same
year, she writes from London, where she was paying a visit: “I’ll swear they
will not allow me time for anything; and to show how absolutely I am
governed, I need but tell you that I am every night in the Park and at New
Spring Gardens, where, though I come with a mask, I cannot escape being
known nor my conversation being admired.”
The most brilliant days of its history began, however, in Charles II.’s
reign. He entirely remodelled it, and began the work soon after his return
from exile, imbued with foreign ideas of gardening. It has always been
supposed that Le Nôtre was responsible for the designs, and it has often
been asserted that he himself came to England to see them carried out. But
close investigation has furnished no proof of this, and it is practically
certain that, although invited, and allowed by Louis XIV. to come to
England, he never actually did so. Other “French gardeners” certainly came,
and one of them, La Quintinge, made many English friends, and kept up a
correspondence with them after his return to France. Perrault probably
visited London also, and may have superintended the “French gardeners”

who were employed on St. James’s Park. They transformed the whole place.
Avenues—the Mall and “Birdcage Walk”—were planted. A straight canal
passed down the middle, and at the end, near the present Foreign Office,
was the duck decoy. The “Birdcage Walk” is no fantastic title, for birds
were literally kept there in cages. These were probably aviaries for large
birds, and not little hanging cages, as has been sometimes suggested. A
well-known passage occurs in Evelyn’s Diary, 1664, where he enumerates
some of the birds and beasts he saw during one of his walks through the
Park. The pelican delighted him, although “a melancholy waterfowl,” and
he watched the skilful way it devoured fish; and it is not surprising that he
recorded the strange fact that one of the two Balearian cranes had a wooden
leg, made by a soldier, with a joint, so that the bird could “walk and use it
as well as if it had been natural”; and he speaks with interest of a solan
goose, a stork, a milk-white raven, and “a curious sort of poultry,” besides
“deer of several countries,” antelopes, elk, “Guinea goats, Arabian sheep,
etc.” The duck decoy lay at the south-west end of the long canal, which
formed part of the new French design. This “duck island” was rather a
series of small islands, as it was intersected by canals and reed-covered
channels for catching duck. This was a favourite resort of Charles II., who
has often been described feeding his ducks in St. James’s Park. To be
keeper of the ducks, or “Governor of Duck Island,” was granted to St.
Evremond, an excuse for bestowing a yearly salary on a favourite. The birds
continued after the King, who had found in them a special recreation, had
passed away. In William III.’s time the Park is still described as “full of very
fine walkes and rowes of trees, ponds, and curious birds, Deer, and some
fine Cows.” A Dutch traveller who was in England from 1693–96 notices
the famous old white raven. By that time the ducks were no longer the
fashion, and evidently there was an inclination to despise the former craze
for wild fowl. A Frenchman, named M. de Sorbiere, visited England about
this time, and wrote an account of his impressions. Some of his adverse
criticisms of English people and institutions got him into trouble. A
supposed translation of his book was published in 1698, and until 1709 was
held to be a correct version. In reality it was a clever skit, and not in the
least like the original. In the true version he describes the Park with its rows
of trees and “admirable prospect” of the suburbs, and mentions that the
King had “erected a tall Pile in the Park, the better to make use of
Telescopes, with which Sir Robert Murray shew’d me Saturn and the

Satellites of Jupiter.” Not a word about the ducks. But in the spurious
parody of 1698 there is a humorous description, which shows how the next
generation laughed at the amusements of King Charles II. “I was at St.
James’s Park; there were no Pavillions, nor decoration of Treilliage and
Flowers; but I saw there a vast number of Ducks; these were a most
surprising sight. I could not forbear to say to Mr. Johnson, who was pleased
to accompany me in this Walk, that sure all the ponds in England had
contributed to this profussion of Ducks; which he took so well, that he ran
immediately to an Old Gentleman that sate in a Chair, and was feeding of
’em. He rose up very obligingly, embraced me, and saluted me with a Kiss,
and invited me to Dinner; telling me he was infinitely oblig’d to me for
flattering the King’s Ducks.”
Little attention was paid to the wild fowl in the Park after that date,
until the Prince Consort took an interest in them. In 1841 he became the
Patron of the Ornithological Society, and the cottage on Duck Island was
built for the Bird-keeper. For some thirty years the Society flourished, and
kept up the supply and cared for the birds in the Park. In 1867, however,
their numbers were greatly reduced, and the Society sold their collection of
birds to H.M. Office of Works, which has since then had them under its
charge. It is pleasant to know that the old tradition of the wild fowl in that
part of the Park is maintained. Although the duck pond of King Charles’s
time must have looked somewhat different from that of to-day, the birds can
be made as much at home, and they nest peacefully on the modern Duck
Island, its direct descendant. Moorhens and dabchicks, or little grebes, have
for the last twenty years nested in the Park. They used to leave for the
breeding season, but since 1883, when the first moorhen nested, they have
gradually taken to remaining contentedly all through the year, and bring up
their young there. Birds seem to choose the Park to rest in, and many
migratory ones have been noticed. Kingfishers have recently been let out
near the site of the ancient bird cages, in the hope that they may carry on the
historic association.

(Large)

CROCUSES IN EARLY SPRING, ST. JAMES’S PARK

The cows, which were a part of ancient history, as were the birds, have
not been so fortunate. Although a newspaper clamour in defence of the
cows was raised, the few remaining were finally banished in 1905, when
the alterations in the Mall were made. These survivals standing by the dusty
stalls could scarcely be called picturesque; and although interest
undoubtedly was attached to them as venerable survivals of an old custom,
they hardly suggested the rural simplicity of the days when cows were
really pastured in the Park. For over two centuries grazing was let to the
milk-women who sold milk at the end of the Park, near Whitehall. They
paid half-a-crown a week, and after 1772 three shillings a week, for the
right to feed cattle in the Park. A Frenchman, describing St. James’s at that
time, is astonished at its rural aspect. “In that part nearest Westminster
nature appears in all its rustic simplicity; it is a meadow, regularly
intersected and watered by canals, and with willows and poplars, without
any regard to order. On this side, as well as on that towards St. James’s
Palace, the grass plots are covered with cows and deer, where they graze or
chew the cud, some standing, some lying down upon the grass.... Agreeably
to this rural simplicity, most of these cows are driven, about noon and
evening, to the gate which leads from the Park to the quarter of Whitehall.
Tied to posts at the extremity of the grass plots, they swill passengers with
their milk, which, being drawn from their udders on the spot, is served, with
all cleanliness peculiar to the English, in little mugs at the rate of a penny a
mug.” The combination of the gay crowd in hooped petticoats, brilliant
coats, and powdered wigs, with the peaceful, green meadows and the
browsing deer and cows, forms an attractive picture.
All this had changed long before the final departure of the cattle, when
the last old woman was pensioned off, and the sheds carted away. A use was
found for the fragments of the concrete foundations of the last milkmaid’s
stall. They were made into a sort of rockery, on which Alpine plants grow
well, to support the bank at the entrance to the new frame-grounds at Hyde
Park.
But to return to Charles II.’s time, when the cows were undisturbed.
The great feature of what Pepys calls the “brave alterations” was the canal.
He mentions more than one visit when the works were in progress. In
October 1660 he went “to walk in St. James’s Park, where we observed the
several engines at work to draw up water, with which sight I was very much

pleased.” The canal, when finished, was 2800 feet long and 100 broad, and
ran through the centre of the Park, beginning near the north end of.
Rosamund’s Pond. An avenue of trees was planted on either side, passing
down between the canal and the duck decoy to a semicircular double
avenue near the tilting-ground. Deer wandered under fine old oaks between
the canal and the avenues of “the Mall.” These old trees have gradually
disappeared, as much through gales as from the wanton destruction of the
would-be improver. At the hour of Cromwell’s death, when the storm was
so fierce the Royalists said it was due to fiends coming to claim their own,
much havoc was wrought; and from time to time similar destructions have
taken place, one of the most serious being in November 1703, when part of
the wall and over 100 elms were blown down. Another notable gale was on
March 15, 1752, when many people lost their lives. “In St. James’s Park
and the villages about the metropolis great numbers of trees were
demolished.”
The broad pathway, between avenues on the opposite side of the Park
to the Birdcage Walk, now called the Mall, derives this name from the game
of “paille-maille,” which is known to have been played in France as early as
the thirteenth century, and which was popular in England in the
seventeenth. The locality, however, where it was first played in James I.’s
time was on the northern side of the street, which is still called from it, Pall
Mall. In those days fields stretched away beyond where now St. James’s
Square lies, and a single row of houses lay between the playground and the
Park. As the game became more the fashion, the coaches and dust were
found too disturbing for enjoyment, and a new ground was laid out, running
parallel to the old one, but within the Park. The game is considered by some
to be a forerunner of croquet, as it was played with a ball (= pila) and
mallet, the name being derived from these two words. One or more hoops
had to be passed through, and a peg at the further end touched. The winner
was the player who passed the hoops and reached the peg in the fewest
number of strokes. The whole course measured over 600 yards, and was
kept brushed and smooth, and the ground prepared by coating the earth with
crushed shells, which, however, remarked Pepys, “in dry weather turns to
dust and deads the ball.” Both Charles II. and James II. were much addicted
to the game, and the flattering poet Waller eulogises King Charles’s
“matchless” skill:—

“No sooner has he touched the flying ball,
But ’tis already more than half the Mall.”

The Park was by his time a much-frequented spot, and crowds
delighted to watch the King and his courtiers displaying their dexterity.
Charles II. is more intimately connected with St. James’s Park than any
other great personage. He sauntered about, fed his ducks, played his games,
and made love to fair ladies, all with indulgent, friendly crowds watching.
He stood in the “Green Walk,” beneath the trees, to talk with Nell Gwynn,
in her garden “on a terrace on the top of the wall” overlooking the Park; and
shocked John Evelyn, who records, in his journal, that he heard and saw “a
very familiar discourse between the King and Mrs. Nelly.” Charles’s well-
known reply to his brother, that no one would ever kill him to put James on
the throne, was said in answer to James’s protest that he should not venture
to roam about so much without attendants in the Park. His dogs often
accompanied him, and perhaps, like most of their descendants, these pets
had a sporting instinct, and ran off to chase the deer. Anyhow, they managed
frequently to escape their master’s vigilance, and fell a prey to the
unscrupulous thief, and descriptions of the missing dogs were published in
the Gazette. One, answering to the name Towser, was “liver colour’d and
white spotted”; and a “dogg of His Majestie’s, full of blew spots, with a
white cross on his forehead about the bigness of a tumbler,” was lost on
another occasion.
Charles with his dogs, his ducks, his wit, his engaging manners, his
doubtful morals, is the central figure of many a picture in St. James’s Park,
but it does not often form a background to his Queen. One scene described
by Pepys has much charm. The party, returning from Hyde Park on
horseback with a great crowd of gallants, pass down the Mall; the Queen,
riding hand in hand with the King, looking “mighty pretty” in her white
laced coat and crimson petticoat. Again, on another occasion, the Queen
forms an attractive vision, as she walks with her ladies from Whitehall to
St. James’s dressed from head to foot in silver lace, each holding an
immense green fan to shade themselves from the fierce rays of the June sun,
while a delighted crowd throng round them.

The popularity of the Mall as the rendezvous of all classes lasted for
over a century. Through the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. and II. all
the fashionable world of London congregated there twice daily. In the
morning the promenade took them there from twelve to two, and after
dinner in full dress they thronged thither again, not to play the game of
paille-maille, which was then out of fashion, but simply to walk about
under the trees and be amused with races, wrestlings, or an impromptu
dance. Every well-known person—courtiers, wits, beaux, writers, poets,
artists, soldiers—and all the beautiful and fascinating women, great ladies
as well as more humble charmers, and bold adventuresses, were to be seen
there daily.
The crowds seem to have been very free in their admiration of some of
the distinguished ladies. When the three lovely Misses Gunning captivated
everybody with their wit and beauty, they had only to appear in the Mall to
be surrounded by admirers. On one occasion they were so pressed by the
curious mob that one of these matchless young charmers fainted and had to
be “carried home in a sedan.”
On looking at an old print of the ladies in their thin dresses walking in
the Mall, it is customary to bemoan the change of climate, to wonder if our
great-great-grand-mothers were supernaturally strong and not sensitive to
cold, or to conclude that they only paraded there in fine weather. Apparently
this last is not the correct solution, for in 1765 they astonished Monsieur
Grosley by their disregard of the elements. He is horrified at the fog. “The
smoke,” he writes, “forms a cloud which envelopes London like a mantle; a
cloud which the sun pervades but rarely; a cloud which, recoiling back upon
itself, suffers the sun to break out only now and then, which casual
appearance procures the Londoners a few of what they call glorious days.
The great love of the English for walking defies the badness of other days.
On the 26th April, St. James’s Park, incessantly covered with fogs, smoke,
and rain, that scarce left a possibility of distinguishing objects at a distance
of four steps, was filled with walkers, who were an object of musing and
admiration to me during the whole day.” Few ladies nowadays fear a little
fog or rain, but to walk in it they must be attired in short skirts, thick boots,
and warm or mackintosh coats. It must have been much more distressing in
the days of powdered hair, picture hats, and flimsy garments. No wonder M.
Grosley was astounded at the persistence of the poor draggled ladies.

All foreign visitors to London naturally went to see the Mall. Here is
the account of a German baron, describing the man of the world: “He rises
late, dresses himself in a frock (close-fitting garment, without pockets, and
with narrow sleeves), leaves his sword at home, takes his cane, and goes
where he likes. Generally he takes his promenade in the Park, for that is the
exchange for the men of quality. ’Tis such another place as the Garden of
the Tuileries in Paris, only the Park has a certain beauty of simplicity which
cannot be described. The grand walk is called the Mall. It is full of people at
all hours of the day, but especially in the morning and evening, when their
Majesties often walk there, with the royal family, who are attended only by
half-a-dozen Yeomen of the Guard, and permit all persons to walk at the
same time with them.”
A writer in 1727, waxing eloquent on the charms of the Park, gives up
the task of describing it, as “the beauty of the Mall in summer is almost past
description.” “What can be more glorious than to view the body of the
nobility of our three kingdoms in so short a compass, especially when freed
from mixed crowds of saucy fops and city gentry?” But more often the
company was very mixed, and manners peculiar. This brilliant and motley
assembly indulged in all kinds of amusements. Even the grandest
frequenters afforded diversion sometimes to the “saucy fops.” Wrestling
matches between various courtiers attracted crowds, or a race such as one
between the Duke of Grafton and Dr. Garth, of 200 yards, was the
excitement of the day. There were odd and original races got up, and wagers
freely staked. Some inhuman parents backed their baby of eighteen months
old to walk the whole length of the Mall (half a mile) in thirty minutes, and
the poor little mite performed the feat in twenty-three minutes. What
comments would modern philanthropic societies have made on such a
performance!
A race between a fat cook and a lean footman caused great merriment,
but as the footman was handicapped by carrying 110 lbs., the fat cook won.
Another time it was a hopping-race which engrossed attention—a man
undertook to hop one hundred yards in fifty hops, and succeeded in doing it
in forty-six—and endless variety of similar follies. The crowds who
assembled indulged in every sort of gaiety; “in short, no freedoms that can
be taken here are reckoned indecent; all passes for raillery and harmless
gallantry.”

Although open to all the world for walking, only royal personages or a
few specially favoured people were allowed to drive through. It was one of
the grievances of the Duchess of Marlborough when the Duke was in
disgrace that the privilege of driving her coach and six through the Park was
denied her. The remaining restrictions with regard to carriages have only
passed away in very recent years. The notice board stating that Members of
Parliament during the session might drive through the Park from Great
George Street to Marlborough House was only removed when the road was
opened to all traffic in 1887, and Constitution Hill only became a public
highway in 1889. The use of the road passing under the Horse Guards’
Archway is still restricted to those who receive special permission from the
sovereign.
The Park had never been drained, and had always shown signs of its
marshy origin, and “Duck Island” was really a natural swamp. An unusually
high tide flooded the low-lying end where the Horse Guards’ Parade and the
houses of Downing Street with their little gardens now stand. What state
secrets they could divulge had they the power of speech! The tilting-ground
was often in a condition quite unfit for the exercise of troops, so with a
view to preventing this, it was paved with stone early in the eighteenth
century. It has always been used for military displays, and the trooping of
the colours on the King’s birthday takes place on the same ground which
witnessed the brilliant scene when the colours, thirty-eight in number,
captured at the battle of Blenheim were conveyed to Westminster Abbey.
On the parade-ground now stands the gun cast at Seville, used by Soult at
Cadiz, and taken after the battle of Salamanca. Here many an impressive
ceremony of distributing medals, and countless parades, have taken place
through many generations. Here, with the brutality of old days, corporal
punishment was administered, and offending soldiers were flogged in full
view of the merry-making crowds assembled in the Park. Round the Park
lay other marshy lands, also frequently flooded by the Thames, and it was
not surprising that on one occasion an otter found its way from the river and
settled down on Duck Island and there grew fat on the King’s carp. Sir
Robert Walpole sent to Houghton for his otter-hounds, and an exciting hunt
ensued, in which the Duke of Cumberland took part, and the offending otter
was captured.

Rosamund’s Pond had, in the course of time, become stagnant and
unpleasant, and there were frequent complaints of its unsavoury condition.
About 1736 a machine for pumping out water was invented by a Welshman,
and used successfully to empty the pond, and it was thoroughly cleansed.
Thirty years later the same evil began again to be a nuisance, and it was
decided to drain and fill up the pond entirely, which was accomplished
about 1772. The trees on the island were felled, and those near the bank
died from the lack of water, so at first the absence of the slimy pond must
have been disfiguring. The shady walk near it, known as the Close Walk or
the Jacobites’ Walk, must have disappeared when the trees died. About the
same time the swampy moat round Duck Island was filled up and the canal
cleaned out. When these improvements were completed in 1775 some birds
were put on the canal. One of them was a swan called Jack, belonging to
Queen Charlotte, which was reared in the garden of Buckingham House.
This bird ruled the roost for many a day, and was a popular favourite. It
lived until 1840, when some new arrivals, in the shape of Polish geese,
pecked and ill-treated the poor old bird so seriously that he died.
About 1786 fashion began to desert the Mall for the Green Park, and
the crowds which collected there were no longer intermingled with the
Court circle. In a letter to her daughter Madame Roland describes the
company in the Mall as very different from what it was a few years earlier,
for though it was “very brilliant on a Sunday evening, and full of well-to-do
people and well-dressed women, in general they are all tradespeople and
citizens.” A generation later the Mall seems to have become quite deserted.
Sir Richard Phillips, in his morning’s walk from London to Kew in 1817,
bemoans the absence of the gay throng:—
“My spirits sank, and a tear started into my eyes, as I brought to mind
those crowds of beauty, rank, and fashion which, until within these few
years, used to be displayed in the centre Mall of this Park on Sunday
evenings during spring and summer. How often in my youth had I been the
delighted spectator of the enchanted and enchanting assemblage. Here used
to promenade, for one or two hours after dinner, the whole British world of
gaiety, beauty, and splendour. Here could be seen in one moving mass,
extending the whole length of the Mall, 5000 of the most lovely women in
this country of female beauty, all splendidly attired, and accompanied by as
many well-dressed men. What a change, I exclaimed, has a few years

wrought in these once happy and cheerful personages! How many of those
who on this very spot then delighted my eyes are now mouldering in the
silent grave!”
About 1730 Queen Caroline, who was then busy with the alterations in
Hyde Park, turned her attention to what is now known as the Green Park
also. It had all formed part of St. James’s Park, and was known as the Upper
Park or Little St. James’s Park. It was enclosed by a brick wall in 1667 by
Charles II., who stocked it with deer. In the centre of the Park an ice-house
was made, at that time a great novelty in this country, although well known
in France and Italy. In his poem on St. James’s Park Waller alludes to it:—

“Yonder the harvest of cold months laid up
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup;
There ice like crystal firm and never lost
Tempers hot July with December’s frost.”

No further alterations were made, except that, in 1681, Charles effected
an exchange of land with the Earl of Arlington, on which, a few years later,
Arlington Street was built. The path which runs parallel with the backs of
these houses was Queen Caroline’s idea, and she used it frequently herself,
and it became known as the “Queen’s Walk.” The houses overlooking the
Park went up in value as the occupants could enjoy the sight of the Queen
and the Princesses taking their daily walk. The line of this path is no longer
the same, as a piece was cut off the Park in 1795 and leased to the Duke of
Bridgewater to add to the garden of his house. The Queen also built a
pavilion known as the Queen’s Library in the Park, where she spent some
time after her morning promenades. Although Queen Caroline took to the
Upper Park, the world of fashion did not follow at once, and it was not until
about 1786 that the Green Park for some reason suddenly became the rage.
The only incident of historic interest between this date and the making of
the road was the celebration of the end of the War of Succession in the
spring following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. A great pavilion like a Doric
temple, 410 feet long and 114 feet high, was erected near the wall
separating the Green Park from St. James’s, and on the 27th of April a
grand display of fireworks was arranged. A fire, however, broke out just as

the performance was beginning, when a grand overture composed by
Handel had been performed, and the King and dense crowds were watching
the illuminations. The flames were got under, but not before much of the
temporary building had been destroyed, and the greater part of the
fireworks perished in the flames, and several fatal and serious accidents
further marred the entertainment.
Near the top of the Park was a reservoir or “fine piece of water”
belonging to the Chelsea Waterworks, and the path round it was included in
the fashionable promenade by those who paraded in the Queen’s Walk after
dinner. Lower down, where there is still a depression, was a little pond,
originally part of the Tyburn stream. The “green stagnant pool” was abused
by a writer in 1731, who regretted that trees had just been planted near it,
which probably meant that the offensive pool would “not soon be
removed.” The prophecy was correct, for it was more than a hundred years
later before this was filled up. The Park wall ran along Piccadilly, and here
and there, as was often the case in the eighteenth century, there were gaps
with iron rails, through which glimpses of the Park could be obtained. Some
persons had private keys to the gates leading into the Park from Piccadilly.
Daring robberies were by no means uncommon, and thieves, having done
mischief in the streets near Piccadilly on more than one occasion, were
found to be provided with keys to the gates, through which they could make
their escape into the Park and elude their pursuers. The Ranger’s Lodge
stood on the northern side, and was rebuilt and done up in 1773. It was
made so attractive that there was great competition, when it was completed,
to be Deputy-ranger and live there. The two stags which now stand on
Albert Gate, Hyde Park, once adorned the gates of this Ranger’s Lodge. It is
described in 1792 as “a very neat lodge surrounded by a shrubbery, which
renders it enchantingly rural.” When George III. bought Buckingham
House, then an old red-brick mansion, he took away the wall which
separated the Green Park from St. James’s, and put a railing instead. In this
wall was another lodge, and a few trees near it, known as the Wilderness.
The aspect of the Mall has greatly changed since the days when its
fashion was at its height. Then the gardens of St. James’s Palace ran the
whole length of the north side from the Palace towards Whitehall. Stephen
Switzer, writing in 1715, extols the beauty of the garden, which by his time
was cut up and partly built on. “The Royal Garden in St. James’s Park, part

of which is now in the possession of the Right Honourable Lord Carlton,
and the upper part belonging to Marlborough House, was of that King’s
[Charles II.] planting, which were in the remembrance of most people the
finest Lines of Dwarfs perhaps in the Universe. Mr. London” ... presumed
“before Monsieur de la Quintinye, the famous French gardener, ... to
challenge all France with the like, and if France, why not the whole
World?”
Carlton House, a red-brick building, with the stone portico now in front
of the National Gallery, was built in 1709 on part of this garden. Some
twenty years later, before it was purchased by Frederick, Prince of Wales,
the grounds belonging to the house were laid out by Kent. Until Carlton
House was pulled down in 1827, therefore, the Mall was bounded on the
north by choice gardens. Between the Mall and the walls of these gardens
ran the “Green Walk,” or “Duke Humphrey’s Walk,” as it was also often
called. The origin of the latter name is to be traced to old St. Paul’s. The
monument to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in the centre aisle of old St.
Paul’s Cathedral was where “poore idlers” and “careless mal-contents”
congregated—

“Poets of Paules, those of Duke Humfrye’s messe
That feed on nought but graves and emptinesse.”

When Duke Humphrey’s Walk in St. Paul’s was burnt the name became
attached to the walk in St. James’s Park, where idlers also sauntered. Some
writers attribute the transference of the name to the fact that the arched walk
under the trees was like the cathedral aisle. Anyhow the name clung to this
walk in the Park from 1666 and during the eighteenth century.
When Carlton House became the centre of attraction the Park itself was
in a very neglected state. The canal was turbid, the grass long, and the seats
unpainted. How long it would have remained in this condition is uncertain
had not a new impulse of gardening possessed the whole nation, and once
more it was resolved to alter the entire Park.
The rage for landscape gardening was at its height. Capability Brown
had done his work of destruction, and set the fashion of “copying nature,”

and his successors were following on his lines, but going much further even
than Brown. The sight of a straight canal had become intolerable. The
Serpentine was designed when the idea that it might be possible to make the
banks of artificial sheets of water in anything but a perfectly straight line
was just dawning, but the canal in St. James’s Park was transformed when
half the stiff ponds and canals in the kingdom had been twisted and turned
into lakes or meres. Brown had had a hand in the alterations at the time
Rosamund’s Pond was removed, but it was Eyton who planned and
executed the work fifty years later. It was begun in 1827, and a
contemporary writer praises the result as “the best obliteration of avenues”
that has been effected. Although he owns it involved “a tremendous
destruction of fine elms,” he is lost in admiration of the “astounding
ingenuity” which “converted a Dutch canal into a fine flowing river, with
incurvated banks, terminated at one end by a planted island and at the other
by a peninsula.” A permanent bridge was first made across the water about
this time. Previously a temporary one had been made when the Allied
Sovereigns visited London in 1814—a kind of Chinese design by Nash,
surmounted by a pagoda of seven storeys. It was this flimsy edifice which
made Canova say the thing that struck him most in England was that
Waterloo Bridge was the work of a private company, while this bridge was
put up by the Government. It was on the canal in St. James’s Park that
skates of a modern type first appeared in London. Bone ones were in use
much earlier on Moorfields. Both Evelyn and Pepys saw the new pattern
first in the Park in 1662. Two years later Pepys notes going to the canal with
the Duke of York, “where, though the ice was broken and dangerous, yet he
would go slide upon his scates, which I did not like, but he slides very
well.” Just before the alterations began, and the complete change of the
canal was taken in hand, the Park was lighted with gas lamps, an innovation
which caused much excitement. At the same time orders were issued to shut
the gates by ten every evening. A wit on this occasion wrote the following
lines, which were found stuck up on a tree:—

“The trees in the Park
Are illumined with gas,
But after it’s dark
No creatures can pass.

“Ye sensible wights
Who govern our fates,
Extinguish your lights
Or open your gates.”

The same lamps inspired another poet, who wrote, just before the
destruction of the avenues took place:—

“Hail, Royal Park! what various charms are thine;
Thy patent lamps pale Cynthia’s rays outshine,
Thy limes and elms with grace majestic grow
All in a row.”

Yet once more has St. James’s Park been subjected to renovation. The
work, which is a memorial to our late beloved Queen Victoria, is not yet
completed, so its description must be imperfect. The design aims at drawing
together the several quarters of the Park towards Buckingham Palace and a
central group of statuary. The Mall is now the scene of ceaseless traffic, and
the sauntering pedestrian is a thing of the past. A wide road runs at right
angles across the Green Park, and so once again more closely associates the
Upper with the Lower St. James’s Park. Probably the greatest praise of the
alterations would be to say that Le Nôtre would have approved them. They
seem to complete the design in a fitting manner, but they banish once and
for all time, the semi-rural character which for so many centuries clung to
the Park. The design includes a series of formal parterres which are filled
with bedding-out plants raised in Hyde Park. In the summer of 1906 they
were planted with scarlet geraniums with an edging of grasses and foliage
and a few golden privets, and on hot July days there were many people
ready to pronounce the arrangement as extremely bad taste. It seemed a
reversion to the days when a startling mass of colour was the only effect
aimed at. As they appeared all through the mild October days, when a soft
foggy light enveloped the world, and the trees looked dark and dreary, with
their leaves, devoid of autumn tints, still struggling to hold on, the vivid
colouring of the beds gave a very different impression. The charm of the

warm red tone against the cold blue mists must have given a sensation of
pleasure to any one sensitive to such contrasts.

(Large)

A Corner of the Queen Victoria Memorial Gardens, in front of
Buckingham Palace

The Park in spring has nothing of the stiff, early Victorian gardening
left. Under the trees crocuses raise their dainty heads, as cheerily as from
out of Alpine snows, and the slopes of grass spangled with a “host of golden
daffodils” are a delight to all beholders.

The palmy days of St. James’s Park may have passed away—no longer
is the fate of nations and the happiness of lives decided under its ancient
elms—but those days have left their mark. Every path, every tree, every
green-sward, could tell its story. The Park is now more beautiful than it ever
was, even though fashion has deserted it. The last changes are but one more
link in the long historic chain. It brings the Park of the Stuarts, the Mall of
the Queen Anne’s age of letters, down to our own great Queen and the days
of Expansion and Empire. A stroll under its shady trees and by its sparkling
water must be replete with suggestions to the moralist, with thoughts to the
poet, and with an inexpressible charm to the ordinary appreciative
Londoner.

CHAPTER IV

REGENT’S PARK

When Philomel begins to sing
The grass grows green and flowers spring;
Methinks it is a pleasant thing
To walk on Primrose Hill.
—Roxburgh Ballads, c. 1620.

REGENT’S PARK has had but a transitory day of fashion, and history has
not crowded it with associations like the other Royal Parks. It is the largest
and one of the most beautiful, yet there is something cold and less attractive
about it. In spring, with its wealth of thorn trees, it has a delightfully rural
appearance, and it possesses many charms on close acquaintance. Its history
as a Royal Park is as ancient as that of Hyde Park or St. James’s, but it
remained a distant country sporting estate, and only assumed the form of a
Park, in the modern sense of the word, less than a hundred years ago.
In the dim distance of Domesday it formed part of the manor of
Tybourne. Later on the manor became Marylebone or Mary le Bourne, the
Church of St. Mary by the Burn, the brook in question being the Tyburn.
The manor in Domesday is described as part of the lands belonging to the
Abbey of Barking in Essex. In the thirteenth century it was held by Robert
de Vere, and passed by descent through his daughter to the Earls of Arundel.
Later on the manor was divided, and a fourth share came to Henry V. as heir
to the Earls of Derby. The greater part of the manor was bought by Thomas
Hobson, and his son, who was Lord Mayor in 1544, exchanged it with
Henry VIII. for some church lands elsewhere. So it became part of the royal
hunting-ground, and the same enactment concerning the preservation of
game applied to Marylebone Park, situated within the manor, as to Hyde
Park. Queen Elizabeth leased part of the manor to a certain Edward Forset,

and James I. sold him all the manor except the part known as Marylebone
Park, now Regent’s Park. It was again sold by the grandson of Edward
Forset to John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, and passed to his daughter, who
married Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, and through their daughter, who
married the second Earl of Portland, to the Bentinck family. The Park has
always remained Crown property, although it has frequently been let by the
reigning sovereign. Charles I. granted it to Sir G. Strode and J. Wandesford
as a payment of a debt of £2318 for arms and ammunition. It was sold by
Cromwell with all the other royal lands, but after the Restoration it went
back to its former holders till the debt was discharged, and after that to
various other tenants. It was on the expiration of a lease to the Duke of
Portland in 1811 that the laying out of the Park in its present form
commenced.
During the early period incidents connected with it are meagre. It is for
the most part only in royal accounts that references to Marylebone Park are
found, and they are merely a bare statement of facts. But that hunting-
parties, with all the show and splendour attending them, took place
frequently, is certain. Among the Loseley MSS. occur, in 1554, instructions
to Sir Thomas Cawarden, as “Master of the Tents and Toiles,” to
superintend the making of “certaine banquiting houses of Bowes [= boughs]
and other devices of pleasure.” One of these was made in “Marybone
Parke,” and a minute description is given. It was 40 feet long, and “wrought
by tymber, brick, and lyme, with their raunges and other necessary
utensyles therto insident, and to the like accustomed.” Also three
“standinges” were made at the same time, “all of tymber garnished with
boughes and flowers, every [one] of them conteynenge in length 10 foote
and in bredth 8 foote, which houses and standings were so edified, repaired,
garnished, decked, and fynyshed against the Marshall Saint Andrewes
comynge thethere by speciale and straight comandement, as well of the late
King as his counsell to Sir Thos. Cawarden, Knt. Mr. of the said Office of
Revels; and Lawrence Bradshaw, Surveior of the King’s works, exhibited
for the same wt. earnest charge done, wrought and attended between the
27th of June and the 2 of August in the said year” [4th of Edward VI.].
Employed on the above works for 22 days at all hours, a space to eat and
drink excepted, “Carpenters, bricklayers, 1d. the hour; labourers, ½d. p.
hour; plasterers, 11d. a day; painters, 7d. and 6d. a day.” “Charges for
cutting boughs in the wood at Hyde Park for trimming the banquetting

house, gathering rushes, flags, and ivy; painters, taylors for sewing roof,
etc., basket makers working upon windows, total cost, £169, 7s. 8d.” Only
about half of this total was due to the work in Marylebone, as a similar
pavilion, and three other “standings,” were made in Hyde Park at the same
time.
Hall, the chronicler of Henry VIII.’s time, inveighs against the fashion
of making these sumptuous banqueting houses. They were not only a regal
amusement, but the citizens built in their suburban gardens “many faire
Summer houses ... some of them like Mid-summer Pageants, with Towers,
Turrets, and Chimney tops, not so much for use or profit, as for shew and
pleasure, and bewraying the vanity of men’s mindes, much unlike to the
disposition of the ancient Citizens, who delighted in building of Hospitals
and Almes-houses for the poore.” There stood in Marylebone parish a
banqueting house where the Lord Mayor and aldermen dined when they
inspected the conduits of the Tybourne. On one occasion they hunted a hare
before dinner, and after, “they went to hunt the fox. There was a great cry
for a mile, and at length the hounds killed him at the end of St. Giles.”
During this run the hunt must have skirted the royal preserves of
Marylebone. In Elizabeth’s time a hunting-party on 3rd February 1600 is
recorded, in which the “Ambassador from the Emperor of Russia and the
other Muscovites rode through the City of London to Marylebone Park, and
there hunted at their pleasure, and shortly after returned homeward.”
Marylebone was a retired spot for duels, and many took place there
down to the time when duelling ceased. The quarrel which led to one in
Elizabeth’s reign is most typical of that age. Sir Charles Blount, afterwards
Earl of Devonshire, handsome and dashing, distinguished himself in the
lists, and won the approbation of Queen Elizabeth. She presented him with
a chessman in gold, which he fastened on his arm with a crimson ribbon.
This aroused the jealousy of Essex, who said with scorn, “Now I perceive
that every fool must have a favour.” Whereupon Blount challenged him.
They met in Marylebone Park, and Essex was disarmed and wounded in the
thigh.
In Mary’s time the Park witnessed a warlike scene in connection with
one of the organised attempts to dethrone the Queen. The indictment of Sir
Nicholas Throgmorton for high treason, because he, with Sir Thomas Wyatt
and others, “conspired to depose and destroy the Queen,” states that “the

said Sir Nicholas plotted to take and hold the Tower, levy war in Kent,
Devonshire, etc., and, with Sir Henry Isley and others, on 26 January 1554,
rose with 2000 men, marched from Kent to Southwark, and by Brentford
and Marylebone Park to London, the Queen being then at Westminster, but
were overthrown by her army.” The incidents which centre round this Park
are few. Even in the accounts of all the royal lands it does not often occur.
In 1607 one item in the Domestic State Papers, a list of nine parks, from
each of which four bucks were to be taken, includes Hyde Park, but
Marylebone is not mentioned, and in orders to the keepers it does not often
occur.
During the Commonwealth it comes more into notice, from the sad fact
that it was then sold and disparked, and the trees cut down. When Cromwell
sold it to “John Spencer of London, gent.,” the proceeds were settled on
Col. Thomas Harrison’s regiment of dragoons for their pay. The existing
Ranger, John Carey, was turned out, and Sir John Ipsley put in his place.
The price given for the Park was £13,215, 6s. 8d., which included £130 for
deer and £1774 for timber, exclusive of 2976 trees which were marked for
the Royal Navy. Cromwell probably knew the Park and its advantages well,
as some years before, when he was a boy, his uncle had had permission to
hunt in any of the royal forests. The warrant is dated 15th June 1604, “to the
lieutenants, wardens, and keepers of the forests, chases, and parks, to permit
Sir Oliver Cromwell, Knt., Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, to hunt where
he shall think fit.” The work of hewing the timber began at once. On
October 19, 1649, the Navy Commissioner was instructed to “repair the
crane at Whitehall for boating timber, which is to go from Marylebone Park
to the yards to build frigates.” Again, Sir Henry Mildmay was ordered to
“confer with Mr. Carter, Surveyor of Works, for the timber in Marylebone
Park to be brought through Scotland Yard, to be boated there for use of the
navy.” Cromwell converted the Park to other uses, as in June the same year
orders were given to put to grass in Marylebone Park all the artillery horses
“bought by Captain Tomlins for Ireland till Monday week.” That a number
were turned out there for a time is clear from the further warrant, dated July
12, to “permit William Yarvell, Carriage Master, to put all the horses
provided for Ireland, which cannot be accommodated in Marylebone Park,
into Hyde Park to graze.” No doubt they found excellent pasture, in spite of
the game. Still, the deer must have been fairly numerous, considering the
price paid for those left when the Park was sold. One hundred of the “best

deer” were first ordered to be removed from there to St. James’s Park,
“Colonel Pride to see to the business.”
At the Restoration the former tenants were reinstated until the debt was
discharged, and John Carey was compensated for his loss of the rangership;
but the Park was never re-stocked with deer. It is supposed that the Queens,
Mary and Elizabeth, sometimes resided at the Manor House belonging to
the Manor, which stood at the south side of what is now Marylebone Road,
and was built by Henry VIII. A drawing of the house in 1700 exists, and it is
not the same as Oxford House, with which it has sometimes been confused,
belonging to Lord Oxford, which contained the celebrated Harleian
collection of MSS. Henry VIII.’s Manor House was pulled down in 1790. It
is not until after that date that anything further has to be recorded of the
Park; until then it remained let out as farms. In 1793 Mr. White, architect to
the Duke of Portland, the tenant of the Park from the Crown, approached
Mr. Fordyce, the Surveyor-General, with his ideas and plans for the
improvement of the whole of the area. During the previous fifty years the
streets and squares between Oxford Street and Marylebone had been
growing up. Foley House, a large building, stood on the site of the present
Langham Hotel; and in the lease by which the land was held from the Duke
of Portland, it was covenanted that no buildings should obstruct the view of
Marylebone Park from this house. When, in 1772, the Brothers Adam
designed Portland Place, they made it the entire width of Foley House, so
that the agreement was fulfilled to the letter. In those days the street ended
where No. 8 Portland Place now stands; then came the railings which
enclosed Marylebone Fields, with its buttercup meadows and country lanes
and hedgerows. White’s idea commended itself to Fordyce, and he
approached the Treasury on the subject. The total area, according to the
survey in 1794, was 543 ac. 17 p. This was disposed chiefly between three
farms of about 288, 133, and 117 acres respectively. From the first all the
plans embraced extensive buildings, as well as a proportion of park.
Inspired by Fordyce, the Treasury offered a prize, not exceeding £1000, for
the best design, and several were submitted. Fordyce aimed at something
between the most extreme votaries of the landscape school and the older,
debased, formal styles—a compromise which Loudon was at that time
trying to bring into vogue. A “union of the ancient and modern styles of
planting,” he called it, which led by stages to the Italian parterres and
brilliant bedding out of the early Victorian gardens. Fordyce did not live to

see any plan put into execution. At his death the Surveyor-General of Land
Revenues and the Commissioners of Woods and Forests were amalgamated,
and Leverton and Chawner, architects to the former, and Nash, architect to
the latter, submitted designs—Nash’s being eventually accepted. The other
design cut up the whole ground into ornamental villas with pleasure
grounds, with a sort of village green or central square, with a church in the
middle, and a site for a market and barracks. White’s views were more like
Nash’s in some respects, as he had artificial water and a drive round the
Park. The lease held by the Duke of Portland fell in, in 1811, and soon after
the work of carrying out Nash’s design was begun by James Morgan. The
Regent’s Park Canal was included in the same plan, and begun in 1812 and
finished in 1820. Its length from Paddington to Limehouse is 8¾ miles, and
the total fall 84 feet.

(Large)

AUTUMN IN REGENT’S PARK

Although the planting and levelling began in 1812, the buildings rose
up slowly. Of the villas in the Park only two were built in 1820, the rent
demanded for the ground being extremely high. But two or three years later
the whole thing was more or less as it is now, so far as the general outline
and buildings are concerned. The cost by May 1826 was £1,533,582, and
the estimated probable revenue £36,330. The Prince Regent took the
greatest interest in the proceedings, and Nash’s design included a site for a
palace for him, though even contemporary writers condemned the
suggestion, as the situation was damp—“the soil was clay, ... and the view
bad.” It was only natural that the Park should henceforth become the
Regent’s, and not Marylebone Park, and the “new street” to connect it with
Carlton House be called Regent Street.
It is difficult to judge Regent’s Park with an unprejudiced eye. The
exaggerated praise it called forth when just completed is only equalled by
the unmeasured censure of the next generation. Of the houses which
surround it the following are two descriptions. The first, in 1855, calls them
“highly-embellished terraces of houses, in which the Doric and Ionic, the
Corinthian, and even the Tuscan orders have been employed with ornate
effect, aided by architectural sculpture.” Fifty years later the same houses
are summed up with very different epithets: “Most of the ugly terraces
which surround it exhibit all the worst follies of the Grecian architectural
mania which disgraced the beginning of this century”! It may not be a style
which commends itself to modern taste, but one thing is certain, that having
embarked on classical architecture it was best to stick to it and complete the
whole. It is as much a bit of history, and as typical of the age, as
Elizabethan or Tudor architecture is of theirs, and as such it is best to treat
Regent’s Park as an interesting example of early nineteenth-century taste.
This ground was country when building was begun, and when one
thinks of the streets and crescents that grow up when the country touches
the town, and the incongruous ugliness of most of them, there is much to be
said for the substantial uniformity of Regent’s Park. What can be argued
from the surroundings of the other parks? Would Regent’s Park have been
improved by the erection of rows of houses of the Queen Anne’s Mansion
type? One cannot help wondering what Stowe would have thought of such a
production, when he instances “a remarkable punishment of Pride in high
buildings,” how a man who built himself a tower in Lime Street, to

overlook his neighbours, was very soon “tormented with gouts in his joynts,
of his hands and legs”—that he could go no “further than he was led, much
lesse was he able to climbe” his tower! What retribution would he have
thought sufficiently severe for the perpetrators of Park Row Buildings, New
York, with their thirty-two storeys?
Anyhow, Regent’s Park was welcomed by the generation who watched
it grow. A writer in 1823 says: “When first we saw that Marylebone Fields
were enclosed, and that the hedgerow walks which twined through them
were gradually being obliterated and the whole district artificially laid out,
... we underwent a painful feeling or two.... A few years, however, have
elapsed, and we are not only reconciled to the change alluded to, but rejoice
in it. A noble Park is rapidly rising up, and a vast space, close to the
metropolis, not only preserved from the encroachment of mean buildings,
but laid out with groves, lakes, and villas, ... while through the place there is
a winding road, which commands at every turn some fresh feature of an
extensive country prospect.” This enthusiast winds up by saying, “We do
not envy the apathy of the Englishman who can walk through these
splendid piles without feeling his heart swell with national pride.” We may
smile at such high-sounding language, but, after all, it was an innocent form
for national pride to take.
The special feature which the plan of the Park embraced, was the villas,
standing in their own pleasure grounds. These were all built in the same
Grecian style—most of them designed by Decimus Burton, who was also
the architect of Cornwall Terrace, the only one not by Nash. St. Dunstan’s
Villa, now belonging to Lord Aldenham, and containing his precious
library, was his work. It was built by the Marquis of Hertford, and the name
is taken from the two giant wooden figures of Gog and Magog, which
formerly stood by St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street. They had been
placed there in 1671, and struck the hours on a large clock (the work of
Thomas Harrys), one of the curiosities of the City. It was with reference to
them that Cowper’s lines on a feeble, uninspired poet were written:—

“When Labour and when Dullness, club in hand,
Like the two figures of St. Dunstan’s stand,
Beating alternately, in measured time,
The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be,
But such mere quarter strokes are not for me.”

Lord Hertford used to be taken to see them as a child, and had a child’s
longing to possess the monsters. Unlike most childish dreams, he was able,
when the church was rebuilt in 1832, to realise it and to purchase the
figures, and remove them to strike the hours in his new villa. St. John’s
Lodge is another of these detached villas, with a fascinating garden, built by
Burton, for Sir Francis Henry Goldsmid; and also in the inner circle there is
South Villa, with an observatory, erected in 1837 by Mr. George Bishop,
from which various stars and asteroids were discovered by Dawes and
Hinde.
The most interesting of the houses in the park is St. Katharine’s Lodge,
not from any special beauty of its own, but from the sad association of its
history. On the east of the road which encircles the Park is St. Katharine’s
Hospital, built by A. Poynter, a pupil of Nash, in 1827, when the “act of
barbarism” of removing the Hospital from the East End was committed.
The home of the Hospital, with its church and almshouses, was close to the
Tower, and after a peaceful existence of nearly seven hundred years it was
completely swept away to make room for more docks. There is nothing to
redeem the crude look of uselessness that the new buildings in Regent’s
Park present. They seem out of place, and as if stranded there by accident.
Even thirty years after their removal an official report on the revenues of
the hospital shows some signs of repentance. The writers sum up the
increased income, then about £11,000 a year, and wonder if in this far-away
spot it is being put to the best uses; and the report even goes so far as to
suggest its restoration to the populous East End, where the recipients of the
charity would spend their lives in the cure of souls, or as nurses and
mission-women among the poor. Since then, an improvement has set in as it
has become the Central House for Nurses for the Poor, known as the Jubilee

Nurses, as the funds to provide them were raised by the women of England
as a Jubilee Gift to Queen Victoria.
The Hospital of St. Katharine was founded by Queen Matilda, “wife to
King Stephen, by licence of the Prior and Convent of the Holy Trinity in
London, on whose ground she founded it. Elianor the Queene, wife to King
Edward the First, a second Foundresse, appointed to be there, one Master,
three Brethren Chaplaines and three Sisters, ten poore women, and six
poore clerkes. She gave to them the Manor of Clarton in Wiltshire and
Upchurch in Kent, etc. Queene Philip, wife to King Edward the Third,
1351, founded a Chauntry there, and gave to that Hospital tenne pound land
by yeere; it was of late time [1598] called a free Chappell, a Colledge and
an Hospital for poore sisters. The Quire which (of late yeares) was not
much inferior to that of Pauls, was dissolved by Doctor Wilson, a late
Master there.” Such is Stowe’s account of the foundation.
Even in those days the district was becoming crowded, “pestered with
small Tenements,” chiefly owing to the influx from Calais, Hammes, and
Guisnes when those places were lost in Mary’s reign. Many, “wanting
Habitation,” were allowed a “Place belonging to St. Katharine’s.” The
curious name, “Hangman’s Gains,” in that locality was said to be derived
from a corruption of two of the places the refugees came from.
In Henry VIII.’s time a Guild or Fraternity was “founded in the Church
of this Hospital of St. Katharine to the Honour of St. Barbara.” Katharine of
Aragon and Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey belonged to it, and many
other “honourable persons.” The object was to secure a home for any
“Brother or Sister who fell into Decay of worldly Goods as by Sekenes or
Hurt by the Warrys, or upon Land or See, or by any other means.” Those
belonging to the Fraternity who had paid the full sum due, namely 10s. 4d.,
in “money, plate, or any other honest stufe,” were entitled to fourteen pence
a week, house-room and bedding, “and a woman to wash his clothes and to
dresse his mete; and so to continue Yere by Yere and Weke by Weke
durynge his Lyfe,” like a modern benefit society. The fine old church
contained many monuments, some of which were transferred to the new
church when the removal took place. Among them the effigy of John
Holland, Duke of Exeter, and one of his wives, dating from 1447, reposes
under a fine canopy. The stalls and pulpit of the sixteenth century were also
brought to the new building. Thus shorn of all its associations and all its

beauty, the foundation remains, like a flower ruthlessly transplanted too late
to take root and regain its former charm.
The Master’s house makes a most delightful residence, and has always
been let. Mr. Marley, the present tenant, who has filled the house with
works of art, has made a very charming garden also, more like an Italian
than an English villa garden, as the view reproduced in this volume
testifies.
Three Societies occupy pieces of ground within the Park. The most
ancient and least well known is the Toxophilite. Archery has for many
hundred years been practised by the citizens of London. The ground chosen
for shooting was chiefly near Islington, Hoxton, and Shoreditch. To
encourage the use of bows and arrows Henry VIII. ordered Sir Christopher
Morris, Master of Ordnance, to form the “Fraternitye or Guylde of Saint
George” about 1537, and these archers used to shoot in Spital Fields. About
the time of the Spanish Armada the Honourable Artillery Company was
formed, which possessed a company of archers, and for over two hundred
years archery was kept alive by this corps, and, following them, by the
Finsbury Archers. Just at the time when the corps was abolished Sir Ashton
Lever formed the Toxophilite Society in 1781, and the archers of the
Honourable Artillery Company became merged in the new Society, which
then shot on Blackheath. George IV. belonged to it, and it henceforth
became the Royal Toxophilite Society, and settled on ground given to it in
Regent’s Park in 1834, where it remains, as the lineal descendant of the old
historic Guild of Archers. It possesses several interesting relics; a shield
given by Queen Mary, and silver cups of the Georgian period, besides a
valuable collection of bows and arrows. The hall where the members meet,
built when the Society moved to Regent’s Park, and added to since, has
beneath it some curious cellars with underground passages branching off
from them, which it has been suggested may have been part of the
outhouses belonging to the Royal Manor House, which stood not far off, on
ground now outside the Park. The large iron hooks that were until recently
in the cellar walls, seemed suggestive of venison from the Park for the royal
table. The ground of the Society is suitably laid out, with a fine sunk lawn
for the archery practice. By an arrangement with the Toxophilite Society,
“the Skating Club” have their own pavilion, and the lawn is flooded during
the winter for their use. There is so much talk about the change of the

climate of England, and of the so-called old-fashioned winters, that the
record kept by this Skating Club since its foundation in 1830 of the number
of skating days in each winter is instructive. Taking the periods of ten years
during the first decade, 1830–40, there was an average of 10.2 skating days
per winter. In 1833–34 there were none, in 1837–38 thirty-seven days.
Between 1850–60 the average was only 8.5, while the last ten years of the
century it was 16.8. It is difficult to see how any argument could be
deduced from such figures in favour of the excess of cold in the good old
days! When the freezing of the Thames is quoted to prove the case, people
forget that the Thames has completely changed. The narrow piers of old
London Bridge no longer get stopped with ice-floes, and the current is
much more rapid now that the whole length is properly embanked. In the
days when coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple Stairs as in 1684,
or when people dwelt on the Thames in tents for weeks in 1740, all the low
land was flooded and the stream wider and more sluggish. The believers in
the hard winters generally maintain the springs were warmer than now, May
Day more like what poets pictured, even allowing the eleven days later for
our equivalent. But in 1614 there was snow a foot deep in April, and those
who went in search of flowers on May Day only got snowflakes. In 1698,
on May 8th, there was a deep fall of snow all over England, and many other
instances might be quoted. So it seems, though people may grumble now,
their ancestors were no better off.
In the centre of the ground is the Royal Botanical Society of London,
founded in 1839. At one time the Society was greatly in fashion, and the
membership was eagerly sought after. No doubt such will be the case again,
although for some reason the immense advance in gardening during the last
ten years has not met with the response looked for from this Society, and
hence a certain decrease instead of increase in popularity—a phase which
can but be transitory. The botanical portions of the grounds illustrative of
the natural orders were arranged by James de Carle Sowerby, son of the
author of the well-known “English Botany,” assisted by Dr. Frederick Farre
and others, and the ornamental part of the garden, with the lake, by
Marnoch. The designs were severely criticised by Loudon in the first
instance, who prophesied failure to the garden, but was well satisfied when
the modified plans were announced. Some of the earliest flower shows in
the modern sense were held there. And this Society was the pioneer in
exhibitions of spring flowers. The first was held in 1862, and was quite a

novel departure, although summer and autumn floral shows had been
instituted for more than thirty years. These exhibitions and fêtes became
very fashionable, and people flocked to them, and numbers joined the
Society. It is always difficult to combine two objects, and this is the
problem the Botanical Society now has to face. It is almost impossible to
keep up the Botanical side and at the same time make a bid for popular
public support by turning the grounds partly into a Tea Garden. Now that
gardening is more the fashion than it has ever been, it is sad to see this
ancient Society taking a back place instead of leading. It is actual
horticulture that now engrosses people, the practical cultivation of new and
rare plants, the raising and hybridising of florists’ varieties. The time for
merely well-kept lawns and artificial water and a few masses of bright
flowers, which was all the public asked for in the Sixties, has gone by. A
thirst for new flowers, for strange combinations of colours, for revivals of
long-forgotten plants and curious shrubs, has now taken possession of the
large circle of people who profess to be gardeners. Apart from the question
whether the present fashion has taken the best direction for the
advancement of botany and horticulture, it is evident no society can prosper
unless it directs its attention to suit the popular fancy. No doubt this worthy
Society will realise this, and emerge triumphant from its present
embarrassments.
The third and best known of the societies is the Zoological one. What
London child has not spent moments of supreme joy mingled with awe on
the back of the forbearing elephant? And there are few grown persons who
do not share with them the delight of an hour’s stroll through the “Zoo.”
More than ever, with the improved aviaries and delightful seal ponds, is the
Zoo attractive. It was the first of the three Societies to settle in the Park,
having been there since 1826. Some of the original buildings were designed
by Decimus Burton, who, next to Nash, is the architect most associated with
the Park. The Society was the idea of Sir Thomas Raffles, who became the
first President in 1825. In three years there were over 12,000 members, and
the gardens were thronged by 30,000 visitors. A pass signed by a member
was necessary for the admission of every party of people, besides the
payment of a shilling each. An abuse of this soon crept in, and people
waited at the gates to attach themselves to the parties entering, and well-
dressed young ladies begged the kindness of members who were seen
approaching the gates. Now only Sunday admittance is dependent on the

members. A Guide to Regent’s Park in 1829 gives engravings of many of
the animals, and shows the summer quarters of the monkeys—most quaint
arrangements, like a pigeon cot on a pole, to which the monkey with chain
and ring was attached, to race up and down at will.

(Large)

Stone Vase in Regent’s Park

The only alterations of importance after the completion of the Park
were the making of the flower garden, and the filling up of the artificial
water to a uniform depth of 4 feet, after a terrible accident had occurred in
1867, when the ice broke and forty skaters lost their lives. The flower-beds
are now one of the most attractive features in the Park, and were originally
designed by Nesfield in 1863. The centre walk continues the line of the
“Broad Walk” avenue at its southern end. In the middle is a fine stone vase

supported by griffins, and other stone ornaments in keeping with the formal
style.
The frame-ground in Regent’s Park has to be a spacious one, to
produce all that is required in the way of spring and summer plants. The
fogs are the greatest enemies of the London gardener, and more especially
on the heavier soil of Regent’s Park. Not even the most hardy of the
bedding-out plants will survive the winter, unless in frames. Even wall-
flowers and forget-me-nots will perish with a single bad night of fog, unless
under glass. Although, on the other hand, it is surprising how some species
apparently unsuited to withstand the climate will survive. Among the rock
plants growing in a private rock-garden within the Park Azalia procumbens,
that precarious Alpine, is perfectly at home. Clumps of Cypripedium
spectabele come up and flower year after year, and Arnebia echioides, the
prophet flower, by no means easy to grow, seems quite established. But to
return to the frame-ground, from whence all the bedding plants emanate.
Violas are a special feature in the Park, and one which is much to be
commended, as their season of beauty is so protracted. They are all struck
in frames, one row of fifty-three lights being devoted to them, in which
23,750 cuttings are put annually. The green-houses are used for storing
plants not only for the decoration of the Park but for some fourteen other
places outside. The Tower, the Law Courts, Mint, Audit Office, the
Mercantile Marine in Poplar, are all supplied from Regent’s Park. The Tate
Gallery and Hertford House have to be catered for also. Whether the
visitors to the Wallace Collection even notice the plants it is impossible to
say; they might miss their absence. But the gardeners have to give these few
pots considerable care, as they will only stand for a very short time inside
the building, and after three weeks’ visit return to hospital.

(Large)

SPRING IN REGENT’S PARK

Of late years a considerable alteration has been made in the
arrangement of the beds in the flower-garden of the Park, chiefly with a
view to reducing the bedding and yet obtaining a better effect. Long
herbaceous borders have been substituted for one of the rows of formal
beds, requiring a constant succession of plants. This has necessitated the
removal of some of the flowers shown in the view of this garden taken in
the spring. The loss of these is compensated by the new arrangement of
beds, separated from the Park by a hedge and flowering shrubs.
Very few of the old trees remain in Regent’s Park; what became of
them between the time when only a portion were marked for the navy by
Cromwell, and the present day, there is no record as yet forthcoming. Two
elms near the flower-garden are, however, remarkably fine specimens, as
the branches feather on to the ground all round. A Paulownia tomentosa is

well worthy of notice. It must have been one of the earliest to be planted in
this country, and is a large spreading tree. It stands on what is known as the
Mound, near Chester Gate. Nineteen years ago it flowered, and in the
unusually warm autumn of 1906 it was covered with buds of blossom, all
ready to expand, when, alas! the long-delayed frost arrived in October, just
too soon for them to come to perfection. Not far from it is a large tree of
Cotoneaster frigida, which has masses of red berries every year.
The railings of Regent’s Park have always been of timber, but it is now
threatened to alter this survival of the days when it first changed from
Marylebone Farm. The present timber fence has stood for forty years, so
even from an economical point of view iron, which requires painting, could
not be recommended. It is to be hoped the old traditional style of fence of
this delightful Park may be continued.
To the north of Regent’s Park, and only divided from it by a road, lies
Primrose Hill. This curious conical hill, 216 feet high, so well known as an
open space enjoyed by the public, formerly belonged to Eton College, but
became Crown property about the middle of last century, and is now under
the Office of Works, who keep it in order, and have done all the planting
which has of late years improved this otherwise bare eminence. Some of the
guide-books to London refer to the lines of Mother Shipton’s prophecy that
Primrose Hill “must one day be the centre of London.” The passage this is
supposed to be based on, is that which used to be said to foretell railways,
and now people see in it a foreshadowing of motor cars. At one time also
the marriage reference which is in the same poem was applied to Queen
Victoria. The lines are these—

“Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe:
Primrose Hill in London shall be,
And in its centre a Bishop’s see.

* * * * *
The British Olive next shall twine,
In marriage with the German Vine.”

The early editions of the prophecy contain none of these lines except
the two last, which are quoted in the 1687 edition, and are there interpreted
to refer to the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and the Elector
Palatine. The Primrose Hill lines first made their appearance in 1877! So,
although now quite surrounded by houses, and well within the County of
London, that this would be so in time to come, was not foretold three
hundred years ago.
The delightfully rural name dates from the time of Queen Elizabeth,
and is said to be derived from the number of primroses which grew there.
The earlier name was Barrow Hill, from supposed ancient burials. After the
mysterious murder of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey in October 1678, his body
was found in a ditch at the foot of the hill. At one time the superstitious
thought his ghost haunted the place, and a contemporary medal has this
inscription—

“Godfrey walks up hill after he was dead;
[St.] Denis walks down hill carrying his head.”

The fresh air and pleasant view from the top of the hill, and the cheery
sounds of games, have long ago dispelled all these gloomy memories.

CHAPTER V

GREENWICH PARK

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
—Milton.

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.

CHAPTER VI

MUNICIPAL PARKS

Let cities, kirks, and everie noble towne
Be purified, and decked up and downe.
—Alexander Hume (1557–1609).

LONDON is almost completely surrounded by a chain of parks. Luckily, as
the town grew, the necessity for fresh air began to be realised, and before it
was too late, in the thickly-populated districts north, south, east, and west,
any available open space has been converted into a public garden, or into a
more ambitious park. Would that this laudable spirit had moved people
sooner, and then there might have been a Finsbury Park nearer Finsbury,
and the circle of green patches on the map might have been more evenly
dotted about some of the intervening parishes. Many of the open spaces are
heaths, or commons, or Lammas Lands, which have various rights attached
to them, and, in consequence, have been saved from the encroachments
which have threatened them from time to time, and have thus been
preserved, in spite of the growth of the surrounding districts. Of late years
the rights have in many instances been acquired by public bodies, so as to
keep for ever these priceless boons. It was not until the middle of last
century that the movement in favour of city parks assumed definite form.
They were in contemplation before 1840, but none were completed until
several years later. Victoria was the first, opened in 1845; Battersea,
although begun then, was not ready for planting till 1857; Kennington,
Finsbury, and Southwark had followed before 1870, and, since then, every
few years new open spaces have been added. They have been purchased by
public bodies for the most part, but a large share of the honour of acquiring
these grounds is due to private munificence and individual enterprise.

Irrespective of the commons which link them together, the principal
parks are the following. Beginning on the extreme north there is Golder’s
Hill, then to the east of Hampstead lies Waterlow, the next going eastwards
is Finsbury, then Clissold and Springfield, and down towards the east
Victoria. In South London, between Woolwich and Greenwich, lies Maryon
Park; then, west of Greenwich, Deptford and Southwark; then a densely
built-over district before Kennington, Vauxhall, and Battersea are reached;
while away to the south lie Camberwell, Ruskin, Brockwell, and Dulwich;
right away into the country, on the south-east, Avery Hill and Eltham; and
back again west, across the river again, in Hammersmith, is Ravenscourt.
These parks of varying sizes, and smaller recreation grounds between, make
up the actual parks, although some of the commons, with playgrounds,
artificial water, and band-stands, can hardly be distinguished from the true
park.
The oldest of the parks now under the London County Council—
Battersea, Kennington, and Victoria—were for many years under the Office
of Works, and on the same footing as the Royal Parks. Government, and no
municipal authority, has the credit of their formation. Then came several
formed by or transferred to the Metropolitan Board of Works. To all these,
already over 2050 acres, the London County Council automatically
succeeded. After the Bill reorganising the disposal of the funds of the
London Parochial Charities in 1883, a part of their money was allotted to
provide open spaces, and they helped to purchase many of the parks—
Clissold, Vauxhall, Ravenscourt, Brockwell, and so on. The acquisition of
parks has, in many cases, been due to private individuals, who helped to
raise the necessary funds, and themselves contributed, and were generally
assisted by the local vestries, and, later on, Borough Councils. Miss Octavia
Hill, by writing and trying to influence public opinion, made many efforts
to secure open spaces. At her instance the Kyrle Society was founded for
the general improvement of homes, of disused burial-grounds, and open
spaces; and from this developed the Metropolitan Gardens Association, of
which the Earl of Meath is Chairman. Immense credit is due to this Society,
both for acquiring new sites and beautifying existing ones, and being
instrumental in having countless places opened to the public. And to private
individuals who have given whole parks, or largely contributed to others,
too much gratitude cannot be expressed. Since they came into office, the
London County Council has had added some 2300 acres of open spaces and

parks to those under its care, which have been purchased, or given in whole
or in part, by private individuals or other public bodies. Some of the last
acquisitions of the London County Council lie quite outside the county
boundary, so are beyond the limit set to this volume. Marble Hill is away at
Twickenham, but half the purchase-money of £72,000 was paid by the
London County Council, and the entire cost of alteration and maintenance
is found by it. The place was bought chiefly to preserve the wooded aspect
of the view from Richmond Hill. The Forest of Hainault is also outside the
bounds, near Epping. The 805 acres there are partly fields, and in part the
remains of the old Forest of “Hyneholt,” as it was often written, a section of
the Royal Forest which covered a large tract of Essex.
The most natural division, when dealing with these open spaces, is the
river, and it is a division which strikes a fairly even balance. Including
Royal Parks, which contain some 1266 acres, the northern side can claim
the larger area, as, irrespective of squares and churchyards and gardens,
there are about 3141 acres of green. The south side has only Greenwich
Park of 185 acres of Royal Park, and, exclusive of that, there are quite 2169
acres, as against 1875 of the municipal areas on the northern side, when the
Crown land is deducted. Besides these, there are 226 acres maintained by
the Borough Councils; so in round numbers London has about 5721 acres
of open space. These figures are only rough estimates, and do not include
all the smaller recreation grounds or gardens of less than an acre.
These parks scattered around London are enjoyed by hundreds of
thousands annually, and yet, to a comparative handful of people who live
near Hyde Park, they are as much unexplored country as the regions of
Timbuctoo. The bicycling craze of ten years ago suddenly brought Battersea
Park into fashion; but the miles of crowded streets, with their rushing trams
and top-heavy omnibuses, put a considerable bar between the “West End”
and those more distant favoured spots. There is much variety in these parks,
both north and south, and the chief difference lies in their origin. When a
suburban manor-house, standing in its own grounds, with well-timbered
park and a garden of some design, has been acquired, a much finer effect is
produced than when fields or market-gardens have been bought up and
made into a park.
Finsbury Park, for instance, was merely fields, while Waterlow has
always been part of a private demesne. It is the same on the south of the

river. Brockwell is an old park and garden. Battersea was entirely made.
Each park has features which give it an individual character, while there is
and must be a certain repetition in describing every one separately.
Many details are of necessity more or less the same in each. The
London County Council is responsible for the greater number, and in every
case they have thought certain things essential. For instance, the band-
stand; no park, large or small, is considered complete without one. It is
hardly necessary to mention each individually, though some are of the
ordinary patterns, others more “rustic” in construction (as in Brockwell
Park), with branching oak supports and thatched or tiled roofs. Every park,
except Waterlow, which is too hilly, furnishes ample area for games. Cricket
pitches by the dozen, and space for numerous goal-posts is provided for, in
each and all of the larger parks. Gymnasiums, too, are included in the
requirements of a fully-equipped park. Swings for the smaller children,
bars, ropes, and higher swings for older boys and girls, are supplied.
Bathing pools of greater or less dimensions are often added, the one in
Victoria Park being especially large and crowded. Then the larger parks
have green-houses, and a succession of plants are on view all the year
round. The chrysanthemum time is one specially looked forward to in the
East End districts. Iron railings and paths, of course, are the inevitable
beginnings in the creation of a park, and more or less ambitious gates. It is
only in the larger ones, such as Finsbury, Victoria, Dulwich, and Battersea,
that carriages are anticipated. Though there is a drive through Brockwell,
and the steep hill in Waterlow might be climbed, and the avenue in
Ravenscourt is wide enough, it is evidently only foot passengers who are
expected, as a rule. Fancy ducks and geese attract the small children on all
the ponds, and some parks have enclosures for deer or other animals. Sand
gardens, or “seasides” for children to dig in, are also frequently included.
The larger parks are self-contained—that is to say, the bedding out and
all the plants necessary for the flower-gardens are reared on the premises.
There is a frame-ground with green-houses attached, where the stock is kept
and propagated. Of course, much depends on the soil and locality. In some
parks the things will stand the winter much better than in others, where fog
and smoke and damp work deadly havoc.
A great deal is now done with simple, hardy flowers, which give just as
good an effect as more elaborate and expensive bedding. Roses in the show

beds will do well for two or even three years; with a few annuals between
they make charming effects. In Finsbury Park, the dark red roses with
Canterbury bells, and fuchsias with a ground of alyssum, were effective and
simple. In some parks the spring plants will thrive all through the winter.
Beds of white Arabis with pink tulips between; forget-me-nots with white
tulips; mixed collections of auriculas, that dear old-fashioned “bear’s ears,”
put in about the end of October, make a little show all the winter, and
produce a mass of colour in spring. There is still room for improvement in
the direction of the planting, but of late years the war waged against the
monopoly of calceolarias, geraniums, and blue lobelias has, fortunately, had
its effect in a marked degree on the London Parks, municipal as well as
royal.
There is apt to be a great uniformity in the selection of plants, more
especially among the trees and bushes. The future should always be borne
in mind in planting, and alas! that is not always the case. Anything that will
grow quickly is often put in, whereas a little patience and a much finer
effect would be the result in the end. Privet grows faster than holly, but can
the two results be compared? There is a very fine old elm avenue in
Ravenscourt; trees which the planter never saw in perfection, but which
many generations have since enjoyed. But will the avenue of poplars in
Finsbury Park have such a future? After thirty-five years’ growth they are
considerable trees, but how long will they last? The plane does grow
remarkably well, there is no denying, but is it necessary for that reason to
exclude almost every other tree? Ash trees thrive surprisingly. Some of the
oaks take kindly to London, yet how few are planted. Richard Jefferies, that
most delightful of writers on nature, bemoans the lack of English trees in
the suburban gardens of London, and the same may be said of the parks to
some extent. “Go round the entire circumference of Greater London,” he
writes, “and find the list ceaselessly repeated. There are acacias, sumachs,
cedar deodaras, araucarias, laurels, planes, beds of rhododendrons, and so
on.” “If, again, search were made in these enclosures for English trees and
English shrubs, it would be found that none have been introduced.”
It would be even more charming in a London Park than a suburban
garden to plant some of the delights of our English country, such as thorns,
crab apples, elder, and wild roses, with horse-chestnuts, and hazel. What
can be more beautiful than birches at all times of the year? That they grow

readily, their well-washed white stems in Hyde Park testify. Birds, too, love
the native trees, and some of the songsters, which till lately were plentiful in
many parks, might return to build if thus encouraged.
There is much monotony in the laying out of all these parks. The
undulating green turf with a wavy line of bushes seems the only recognised
form. A narrow strip of herbaceous plants is put between the smutty bushes
and well-mown turf, and the official park flower-border is produced.
Curving lines of uncertain direction, tortuous paths that carefully avoid the
straight line, are all part of the generally received idea of a correct outline.
It is always more easy to criticise than to suggest, but surely more variety
would be achieved if parks were planted really like wild gardens—the
groups of plants more as they might occur in a natural glade or woodland.
Then let the herbaceous border be a thing apart—a garden, straight and
formal, or curved and round, but not always in bays and promontories
jutting into seas of undulating green. A straight line occasionally is a great
rest to the eye, but it should begin and end at a definite and tangible point.
The small Park in Camberwell has a little avenue of limes running straight
across, with a centre where seats can be put and paths diverge at right
angles. It is quite small, and yet the Park would be exactly like every other
piece of ground, with no particular design, without this. It gives a point and
centre to the meandering paths, and comes as a distinct relief. In Southwark
Park an avenue is growing up into fairly large trees. It seems stuck on to the
Park—it is not straight, but it is not a definite curve, and it ends somehow
by turning towards the entrance at one end and twisting in the direction of
the pond at the other. So it remains a shady walk, but not an avenue with
any pretension to forming part of a design.
It is not for the formal only this appeal is made, it is for less formality
and more real wildness, also a protest against the monotony of the green
banks, and bunches of bushes, and meaningless curves, too often the only
form of design. The aim in every case must be to have as much variety as
possible without incongruity, and to make the utmost use of the ground; to
give the most pleasure at the least expense.
One of the great difficulties must always be the numbers of people who
enjoy these parks. The grass suffers to such an extent that portions must be
periodically enclosed to recover. Then the children have to be kept at a

certain distance from the flowers, or the temptation to gather one over-
masters the fear of the park-keeper.
A green walk between trees would be a pleasing change from gravel
and asphalt in a less-frequented part of some park, but it would doubtless
have to be closed in sections, or there would soon be no turf left; but such
an experiment might well be tried. The attempts in Brockwell, Golder’s
Hill, and Ravenscourt at “old English gardens” are most successful, and a
welcome change in the monotony, and one has only to look at the crowded
seats to see how much they are appreciated.
The effort to make use of the parks to supplement nature-teaching in
the schools is also an advance in the right direction, and one that could be
followed up with advantage.
The trials of the climate of London, and the hurtful fogs, must not be
forgotten when criticising. They are no new thing, and gardeners for two
hundred years have had to contend with the smoke, and wage war against
its effects. But the evil has, of course, become greatly intensified during the
last fifty years. Fairchild, the author of the “City Gardener,” in 1722, regrets
that plants will not prosper because of the “Sea Coal.” Mirabeau, writing
from London in 1784, deplores the fogs in England, and especially “those
of London. The prodigious quantity of coal that is consumed, adds to their
consistence, prolongs their duration, and eminently contributes to render
these vapours more black, and more suffocating—you feel this when rising
in the morning. To breathe the fresh morning air is a sort of happiness you
cannot enjoy in this immense Capital.” Yet in spite of this gloomy picture
there are trees now within the London area, which were getting black when
Mirabeau wrote. Smuts are by no means solely responsible for trees dying.
There are many other contributory causes. The drainage and want of water
is often a serious danger, and bad pruning in the case of the younger trees is
another. When branches begin to die, it is a very safe and salutary
precaution to lop them off, as has lately been done to such a noticeable
extent in Kensington Gardens. But the cutting and pruning of trees by those
employed by various municipal bodies is often lamentably performed. The
branches are not cut off clean, or to a joint, where fresh twigs will soon
sprout and fill in and make good the gaps. Often they are cut leaving a piece
of wood, which decays back to the young growth, and rots into the sound
part of the tree.

Some of the worst enemies of the gardener are the electric power-
stations. The trees suffer terribly from the smoke they emit. Even healthy
young shrubs and bushes, such as laurels, are destroyed by it. In a very
short time they become completely dried up, brown, and shrivelled. In a
memorandum on the Electric Power and Supply Bill of 1906, the First
Commissioner of Works pointed out these disastrous effects. He says, “The
case is not entirely one of the emission or consumption of black or sooty or
tarry matters. The other products of combustion, such as sulphurous and
sulphuric acid, with solid particles of mineral matter or ash, are very
deleterious to vegetation.” It appears from the report of Dr. Thorpe, of the
Government Laboratory, that the production of sulphuric acid could be
“much diminished, if not entirely prevented, by pouring lime-water on the
coal before it goes into the furnaces, but from the look of trees in some
neighbourhoods this precaution does not appear to be taken.” These
hindrances are often very disheartening, and the many and serious
difficulties that have to be contended with, must never be lost sight of in
any review of the parks.
In every case the park is thoroughly appreciated by the inhabitants, and
no one can overestimate the health-giving properties of these lungs of the
city. It would be vain repetition to point out the fact in each case, or to
picture the crowds who enjoy them on Sundays—who walk about, or
lounge, or listen to the bands, or to what appears still more stimulating, to
the impassioned harangue of some would-be reformer or earnest preacher.
The densely-packed audiences, the gesticulations and heated and
declamatory arguments, are not confined to Hyde Park. Victoria Park
gathers just such assemblies, and every park could make more or less the
same boast. The seats are equally full in each and all, and the grass as
thickly strewn with prostrate forms. Perambulators are as numerous and
children as conspicuous in the north, south, and eastern parks as in those of
the west.
In looking round the parks it will be well to take a glance at the smaller
ones, then to consider each of the larger ones more in detail, in every case
missing out some of the obvious appendages which are characteristic of all.
How pathetic some of these little parks are, and what a part they play in
the lives of those who live in the dingy streets near. Take, for instance, one
with a high-sounding name, Avondale Park. It is little more than ten

minutes’ walk from Shepherd’s Bush Station or Notting Hill Gate. Yet, on
inquiry for the most direct road, nobody can give a satisfactory answer. One
man will say, “I have lived here for years and never heard of it”; another, “I
don’t think it can be in this district.” The same would be the result even
nearer to it; but ask for the recreation ground, and any child will tell you.
“Down the first narrow turning and to the right again, by the pawnbroker at
the corner.” It is a melancholy shop, with the plain necessaries of life and
tiny babies’ boots for sale on the trays outside the door—what a volume of
wretchedness and poverty those poor things bespeak. A few yards further,
and the iron railings of the “Park” come in view. The happy shrill voices of
children resound, the swings are in full motion, the seats well filled, and up
and down the asphalt walk, old and young are enjoying themselves. When
the band plays the place is packed. “I’ve calculated as many as nine
hundred at one time,” says the old guardian, who is proud of the place, “and
as for the children, you often can’t see the ground for them.” Yes, this open
space of four and a quarter acres is really appreciated. It is difficult for
those in easier circumstances to realise what a difference that little patch of
green, those few bright flowers, make to the neighbourhood, or the social
effect of the summer evenings, when the band and the pleasant trees offer a
counter-attraction to the public-house. For some twelve years this little Park
has been enjoyed. Formed by the vestry, and kept up by the Royal Borough
of Kensington, it greatly pleases, although it scarce can be called beautiful.
The centre is given over to the children, and the boys have ample room, and
the girls and infants keep their twenty-four swings in constant motion. A
path twists round the irregular plot, and most of the way is bordered by
those London-loving plants, the iris, and the usual groups of smutty bushes.
Along the front runs a wide asphalt walk, well furnished with seats, a band-
stand half way, and a fountain at one end. Some bedding out with gay
flowers is the attraction here. A gardener and a boy keep it in order, while
for about £20 a year a nurseryman supplies all the necessary bedding-out
plants. The old guardian sweeps the scraps of paper up and sees the children
are not too riotous at the swings. Thus, for no great expense, widespread
pleasure is conferred.
The Embankment Gardens, between Westminster and Blackfriars, are
much frequented. At all seasons of the year the seats are crowded, and now,
with the statues, bands playing in summer, refreshment buffet, and
newspaper kiosk, they look more like a foreign garden than the usual

solemn squares of London. During the dinner-hour they are filled with the
printers from the many newspaper offices near, and the band was in the first
instance paid for by the Press.
They are divided into three sections, and measure ten acres in all, not
including the garden beyond the Victoria Tower. The peace has been utterly
destroyed by the din of trams, which are for ever passing and re-passing,
and it is much to be feared that the trees next the river, which were growing
so well, will not withstand the ill-treatment they have received—the cutting
of roots and depriving them of moisture. The Gardens are entirely on the
ground made up when the Embankment was formed, between 1864 and
1870.
The Gardens were opened in 1870, but many improvements have since
been made in the design, and various statues put up to famous men. One is
to John Stuart Mill, and at the Westminster end, one of William Tyndall, the
translator of the New Testament and Pentateuch, to which translation is due
much of the beautiful language of the Authorised Version of the Bible.
Of the old gardens and entrances to the great houses which stretched
the whole length of the river bank, from Westminster and Whitehall to the
City, only one trace remains. It is the Water Gate of York House. The low
level on which it stands, below the terrace end of Buckingham Street,
shows to what point the river rose. York House was so called as it was the
town house of the Archbishops of York, but none of them ever lived there
except Heath, in Queen Mary’s time, who was the first to possess it. It was
let, as a rule, to the Keepers of the Great Seal, and Bacon lived there.
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, pulled down most of the old house,
and commenced rebuilding. Nothing now remains but the Water Gate,
supposed to be by Inigo Jones, although the design is also attributed to
Nicholas Stone, who built it. The house and gardens were sold and divided
in 1672. Buckingham Street and the streets adjoining are built on the site,
and all that is left is the fine old gateway, with most modern-looking
gardens between it and the river, which once flowed up to its arches.
Another Embankment recreation ground is the Island Garden, Poplar,
and it is one that is also much appreciated. It was made on some ground not
required for ship-building or docks on the river front of the Isle of Dogs,
and opened to the public in 1895. The idea of making a garden of it had for

some few years been in contemplation, and as soon as the necessary funds
were found, this space, somewhat less than three acres, was saved from
being built over, and a wide walk of about 700 feet made along the river
embankment. The view from the seats, with which it is plentifully supplied,
over towards Greenwich Hospital and Park makes it a really charming
promenade. The quaint name of this part of London is said to be derived
from the fact that the kennels of the sporting dogs of the royal residents of
Greenwich Palace were kept there, “which usually making a great noise, the
seamen and others thereupon called the place the Isle of Dogs.” This seems
the most plausible of the various definitions of the name of this peninsula—
for it is only an island by means of the dock canal, made in 1800. A
quotation from a play of Middleton and Dekker, in 1611, shows that then, at
any rate, it was associated with actual dogs.
“Moll Cutpurse: O Sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and
can both fawn like a spaniel and bite like a mastiff, as he finds occasion.”
The ground in those days and until much later times was a fertile
marsh, subject to frequent inundations, but affording very rich pasture.
Breaches in the embankment occurred at intervals until a solid pile and
brick wall was made in the last century, above which the “Island Gardens”
were laid.
Further along the north bank of the river there is another and a larger
garden, kept up by the London County Council, although it is in East Ham
and not within the County of London. This was made on the site of the
North Woolwich Tea Gardens, which enjoyed a kind of popularity for some
fifty years. Having been started in 1851, they kept up their reputation for
“Baby Shows,” “Beard Shows,” and such-like attractions, until the ground
became too valuable for building, and too heavily rated for them to exist,
and, but for timely interference, this open space would have been converted
into wharves.
The story of the Bethnal Green Gardens is very different. Although it
was only in 1891 that the present arrangements with regard to keeping up
the Gardens were established, the 15½ acres of which they form part has a
long history. As far back as 1667 the land was purchased by a group of
residents, who collectively subscribed £200, and by a trust-deed dated 1690
conveyed the land to trustees, to be administered for the benefit of the poor.

It had been purchased and enclosed, the deed specified, “for the prevention
of any new building thereon.” Of this ground 9 acres form the present
Garden; on part of the remainder St. John’s Church was built, and in 1872
the Bethnal Green Museum, an offshoot from South Kensington, was
opened on another section. The most exhaustive work on Municipal Parks
says that when the land “came into the possession of the London County
Council” it “consisted of orchard, paddock, kitchen garden, and pleasure
grounds, all in a rough and neglected condition.” Under the levelling hand
of the London County Council it has been made to look exactly like every
other public garden, with “ornamental wrought-iron enclosing fences, broad
walks, shrubberies,” and so on, at a cost of over £5000, and was opened in
1895. There is no trace of its former condition, nothing to point to its
antiquity or any difference in its appearance from the most modern
acquisition. Perhaps after all it is as well, for among the thousands of that
poor and crowded district that use and enjoy it, there is not one to whom a
passing thought of the old weavers who were settled there when the land
was given, or to whom the legend of pretty Bessee the Blind Beggar’s
daughter of Bethnal Green would occur. Though the design is prosaic, the
gardens are made cheerful and gay, and if they add a gleam of brightness to
the lives of toil of those living near them, they must be said to fulfil their
purpose.

Victoria Park

Victoria Park was the first of the modern Parks to be laid out, and it is
the largest. When the advantage of an East End Park was admitted, the
work of forming one was carried out by the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests. An Act passed in 1840 enabled them to sell York House to the
Duke of Sutherland (hence it became Stafford House), for £72,000, and to
purchase about 290 acres of land in the East End in the parishes of
Hackney, Bethnal Green, and Bow. Part of this was reserved for building
improved dwellings, and 193 acres formed Victoria Park, the laying out of
which began in 1842. Thirty years later, when some of the land adjoining
was about to be built on, the Metropolitan Board of Works bought some 24
acres to add to the Park, the whole of which, including the new part, was

under the Office of Works. Other additions have been made from time to
time, chiefly with a view to opening entrances to the Park, so as to make it
as easy of access as possible from the crowded districts in the direction of
Limehouse and the docks, and round Mile End Road.
The ground which the Park covers was chiefly brick-fields and market-
gardens, and Bishop’s Hall Farm. The latter place is the only part with any
historical association. The farm was in the manor of Stepney, which was
held by the Bishops of London, and Bishop’s or Bonner’s Hall was the
Manor House. Many of the Bishops of London resided here in early days.
Stowe, in 1598, referring to Bishop Richard de Gravesend in 1280, writes:
“It appeareth by the Charter [of free] warren granted to this Bishop, that (in
his time) there were two Woods in the Parish of Stebunheth [Stepney],
pertaining to the said Bishop: I have (since I kept house for my selfe)
knowne the one of them by Bishops Hall, but now they are both made
plaine of wood, and not to be discerned from other grounds.” These woods
were on the ground covered by the Park. Stowe notices in his short accounts
of the Bishops of London that Ralph Stratford, who was Bishop from 1339
to 1354, “deceased at Stebunhith.” The name Bonner’s Hall somehow
became attached to the Manor House. The same chronicler also records that
Bishop Ridley gave the manors of Stepney and Hackney to the King in the
fourth year of Edward VI., who granted them to Lord Wentworth. Bonner,
therefore, would be the last Bishop who could have resided there. The old
Manor House was not destroyed till 1800, when part of the material was
taken to build a farm-house, which was cleared away when the Park was
formed.
The first laying out of the Park does not seem to have been altogether
satisfactory. A writer in 1851 criticises it very severely. The roads and paths,
he says, were so badly laid as to require almost reconstruction. The “banks
of the lake must be reduced to something like shape to resist the wash of the
water,” and the remodelling of the plantations will be “a work of time.” Just
then Mr. Gibson assumed the charge of the Park, and even this captious
critic seems to have been well satisfied that he had “begun in real earnest”
to carry out the necessary improvements. Modern gardeners might not
applaud all his planting quite so enthusiastically as his contemporaries. For
instance, the rage for araucarias—monkey puzzles—has somewhat
subsided, though the planting of a number met with great praise in the

Fifties. Most of the Park was planted with discrimination. In a line with the
canal which forms one boundary, an avenue was put, now a charming shady
road with well-grown trees. The artificial water with fancy ducks, in which
is a wooded island with a Chinese pagoda, is a great delight for boating.
The bathing-lake has still greater attraction, and thousands bathe there daily
all through the summer months. It is said, as many as 25,000 have been
counted on a summer’s morning. Bedding out was at its height when
Victoria Park was laid out, so the flower-garden included some elaborate
scroll designs which were suited to the style of carpet-bedding then in
vogue. Now, though less stiff, the formal bedding is well done, and attracts
great attention. Those in the East End have just as keen an appreciation as
the frequenters of Hyde Park, of the display of flowers. The green-house in
winter is much enjoyed, and a succession of bright flowers is kept there
during the dark months of the year. The children’s sand garden is also a
delight.

(Large)

Pagoda on the Island, Victoria Park.

In spite of its situation in a densely-populated district, the feathered
tribes have not quite deserted the Park. The moor-hen builds by the lake and
the ringdove nests in the trees. Though the greenfinch and the wren have
vanished, some songsters still gladden the world. Blackbirds, thrushes, and
chaffinches are by no means uncommon. Some of these latter get caught,
and take part in the popular amusement of singing-matches. Many men in
the district keep chaffinches in cages, and bring them to the Park on a
Sunday morning that they may practise their notes in chorus with their wild
associates, and so beat the caged bird of some rival. Sometimes the
temptation is too great, and the wild birds are kidnapped to join the
competition.

Finsbury Park

Finsbury is second in size, and second in date of construction, of the
Parks of North London. It is far from Finsbury, being really in Hornsey, but
as the idea, first expressed about 1850, was to make a Park for the borough
of Finsbury, the name was retained although the land acquired some years
later was somewhat remote.
The movement was first set on foot when building began to destroy all
the open spaces near Finsbury Fields. Some of these, like Spa Fields, had
been popular places of resort as Tea Gardens, but were being rapidly
covered with houses, and separating Finsbury altogether from the country.
Many delays, owing to changes of Government, occurred before the
necessary legislation was accomplished. When the Metropolitan Board of
Works came into being, it took up the scheme, and it was finally under its
auspices that the land was purchased, and the Park, 115 acres in extent, was
opened in 1869.
On the highest point of the ground there is a lake, which was in
existence before it became a public park. Near there stood Hornsey Wood
House, a Tea Garden of some reputation in the eighteenth century. About
the year 1800 the old house was pulled down, and the new proprietor built
another tavern, and converted part of the remains of Hornsey Wood into an
artificial lake for boating and angling. This second house existed until it
was pulled down in 1866, when the Park was in progress. Hornsey Wood
was part of the forest which bounded London on the north, and the site of
the Park was in the manor of Brownswood, which was held by the See of
London.
Accounts of various incidents which are connected with this spot are
given in histories of Hornsey. The most picturesque is that in which the ill-
fated little King Edward V. is the central figure, overshadowed by his
perfidious uncle. “The King on his way to London [from Ludlow] was on
the fourth of May met at Hornsey Park (now [1756] Highgate) by Edmund
Shaw, the Mayor, accompanied by the Aldermen, Sheriffs and five hundred
Citizens on Horseback, richly accoutered in purple Gowns; whence they
conducted him to the City; where he was received by the Citizens with a joy
inexpressible.... In this solemn Cavalcade, the Duke of Gloucester’s
Deportment was very remarkable; for riding before the King, uncovered, he

frequently called to the Citizens, with an audible voice, to behold their
Prince and Sovereign.” What a scene must the site of Finsbury Park have
presented that May morning. The Londoners, incensed at Gloucester’s
having taken possession of the young King, no doubt meet him with distrust
and anger, and while the procession moves on towards the City he allays
their suspicions, acting a part to deceive them.
The trees in Finsbury are beginning to grow up, and the Park is losing
the new, bare look which made it unattractive in its early years. Poplars
(fast-growing trees) have been largely used. That is very well for a
beginning, but others of a slower growth, but making finer timber, are the
trees for the future. There is nothing very special to notice in the general
laying out of the grounds, as beyond the avenue of black poplars and the
lake, there are no striking features. The view from the high ground, towards
Epping, adds to the attractions of this useful open space but not very
interesting Park. One of the most pleasing corners is the rock garden, not far
from the lake. The plants seem well established and very much at home.
The green-houses, too, are well kept up, and in the gloomy seasons of the
year especially are much frequented.

Clissold Park

Clissold, or Stoke Newington Park, is one of the parks which has the
advantage of having been the grounds of a private house, and enjoys all the
benefits of a well-planted suburban demesne. The old trees at once give it a
certain cachet that even County Council railings, notice-boards, and bird-
cages cannot destroy. It has the additional charm of the New River passing
through the heart of it, and, furthermore, the ground is undulating.
One of the approaches to the Park still has a semi-rural aspect and
associations attached to it. This is Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, with a row of
fine elm trees, under which the Queen may have passed as a girl while
staying in seclusion at the manor-house, then in the possession of the
Dudley family, relations to the Earl of Leicester. Stoke Newington, until
lately, was not so overrun with small houses as most of the suburbs. In 1855
it was described as “one of the few rural villages in the immediate environs
[of London]. Though, as the crow flies, but three miles from the General

Post Office, it is still rich in parks, gardens, and old trees.” The last fifty
years have quite transformed its appearance. “Green Lanes,” which skirts
the west of the Park, though with such a rural-sounding name, is a busy
thoroughfare, with rushing trams; and, but for Clissold Park and Abney
Park Cemetery, but little of its former attractions would remain. The
Cemetery is on the grounds of the old Manor House, where Sir Thomas
Abney lived, and “the late excellent Dr. Isaac Watts was treated for thirty-
six years with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the
attention that respect could dictate.” The manor was sold by direction of Sir
Thomas’s daughter’s will, and the proceeds devoted to charitable purposes.
The old church, with its thin spire, and the new large, handsome Gothic
church, built to meet the needs of the growing population, stand close
together at one corner of the Park, at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s Walk,
and on all sides the towers among the trees form pretty and conspicuous
objects. The house in the Park, for the most part disused, stands above the
bend of the New River, which makes a loop through the grounds. It is a
white Georgian house with columns, and looks well with wide steps and
slope to the water’s edge, now alas! disfigured by high iron railings. The
place belonged to the Crawshay family, by whom it was sold. The daughter
of one of the owners had a romantic attachment to a curate, the Rev.
Augustus Clissold, but the father would not allow the marriage, and kept his
daughter more or less a prisoner. After her father’s death, however, she
married her lover, and succeeded to the estate, and changed its name from
Crawshay Farm to Clissold Place. This title has stuck to it, although it
reverted to the Crawshays, and in 1886 was sold by them.

(Large)

Stoke Newington Church from Clissold Park

The Park measures 53 acres. There is a small enclosure with fallow
deer and guinea-pigs, some artificial water, and wide green spaces for
games; but the special beauty of the Park consists in the canal-like New
River, with walks beside it, and in places foliage arching over it, and the
fine large specimen trees round the house. There are some good cedars,
deciduous cypress, ilex, thorns, and laburnums; a good specimen of one of
the American varieties of oak, Quercus palustris; also acacias and chestnuts
—all looking quite healthy.

Springfield Park

Not very far from Clissold lies Springfield Park, in Upper Clapton,
opened to the public in 1905. It also has the advantage of being made out of
well laid out private grounds. The area, 32½ acres, embraced three
residences, two of which have been pulled down, while the third,
Springfield House, which gives its name to the Park, has been retained, and
serves as refreshment rooms. The view from the front of the house over
Walthamstow Marshes is very extensive. The ground slopes steeply to the
river Lea, and beyond on the plain, like a lake, the reservoirs of the “East
London Works,” now part of the Metropolitan Water Board, make a striking
picture. Springfield House was, until lately, one of those pleasant old-
fashioned residences of which there were many in this neighbourhood,
standing in well-planted gardens overlooking the marshes and fertile flats
below. These delightful houses are becoming more rare every year, and it is
fortunate that the grounds of one of the most attractive should have been
preserved as a public park. The place was well cared for in old days, as the
good specimen trees testify. A flourishing purple beech is growing up, also
a sweet chestnut and several birches. A very old black mulberry still
survives, although showing signs of age. There are other nice timber trees
on the hillside, and among the shrubs an Arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree,
is one of the most unusual. This Park, though small, is quite unlike any
other, and has much to recommend it to the general public, while in the
more immediate neighbourhood it is greatly appreciated.

Waterlow Park

Undoubtedly the most beautiful of all the parks is Waterlow, the
munificent gift of Sir Sydney Waterlow. Its situation near Highgate, above
all City smoke; its steep slopes and fine trees; its old garden and historic
associations, combine to give it a character and a charm of its own. It is
small in comparison with such parks as Victoria, Battersea, or Finsbury,
being only 29 acres, but it has a fascination quite out of proportion to its
size. There are few pleasanter spots on a summer’s day, and at any season
of the year it would well repay a visit. It is especially attractive when the

great city with its domes and towers is seen clearly at the foot of the hill.
London from a distance never looks hard and sharp and clear, like some
foreign towns. The buildings do not stand up in definite outline like the
churches of Paris looked down upon from the Eiffel Tower: the soft curtain
of smoke, the mysterious blue light, a gentle reminder of orange and black
fog, shrouds and beautifies everything it touches. On a June day, when the
grass is vivid and the trees a bright pale green, Waterlow Park is at its best.
The dome of St. Paul’s, the countless towers of Wren’s city churches, the
pinnacles of the Law Courts, the wonderful Tower Bridge, dwarfing the old
Norman White Tower, all appear in softened beauty behind the fresh
verdure, through well-contrived peeps and gaps in the trees.
Most of the ground is too steep for the cricket and football to which the
greater part of other parks are given over. Only lawn tennis and bowls can
be provided for, on the green lawns at the top of the Park. A delightful old
pond, with steep banks overshadowed by limes and chestnuts, has a feeling
of the real country about it. The concrete edges, the little patches of aquatic
plants and neat turf, are missing. The banks show signs of last year’s leaves,
fallen sticks, and blackened chestnuts, and any green near it, is only natural
wild plants that enjoy shade and moisture. It is the sort of place a water-hen
would feel at home in, and not expect to meet intruding Mandarin ducks or
Canadian geese. Let us hope this quiet spot may long remain untouched.
There are two newer lakes lower down, laid out in approved County
Council style, trim and neat, with water-fowl, water-lilies, and judicious
planting round the banks of weeping willows and rhododendron clumps.
Probably many visitors find them more attractive than the upper pool. There
is no fault to find with them, and they are perhaps more suited to a public
park, but they are devoid of the poetry which raises the other out of the
commonplace. As the slopes towards the lower lakes are the playground of
multitudes of babies, it is necessary to protect them from the water’s edge
by substantial railings, but most of the Park is singularly free from these
unsightly but often necessary safeguards. The trees all through the grounds
are unusually fine. Four hickories are particularly worthy of note. They are
indeed grand and graceful trees, and it is astonishing they should be so little
planted. These are noble specimens, and look extremely healthy.
The most characteristic feature in the Park is the house it contains and
the garden immediately round it. This was built for Lauderdale, the “L” in

the Cabal of Charles II., probably about 1660. When this unattractive
character was not living there himself, he not unfrequently lent it to Nell
Gwynn. The ground floor of the house is open to the public as refreshment
rooms, and one empty parlour with seats has much good old carving, of the
date of the house, over the mantelpiece, also in a recess which encloses a
marble bath known as “Nell Gwynn’s bath.” It is said to have been from a
window in Lauderdale House that she held out her son when Charles was
walking below, threatening to let him drop if the King did not promise to
confer some title upon him. In response Charles exclaimed, “Save the Earl
of Burford,” which title (and later, that of Duke of St. Albans) was formally
conferred upon him.
The terrace along which the King was walking is still there. A little
inscription has been inserted on a sun-dial near the wall, to record the fact
that the dial-plate is level with the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A flight of
steps leads to a lower terrace. This is planted in a formal design consisting
of three circles, the centre one having a fountain. Two more flights of steps
descend, in a line from the fountain, to a broad walk bordered with flowers
leading to one of the entrances to the Park. At right angles to the other steps
a walk leads from the fountain to another part of the garden, which is
planted with old fruit-trees on the grassy slope. It is at the foot of these
steps that the water-colour sketch is taken. The “eagles with wings
expanded” are the supporters of the Lauderdale arms. The whole garden is
delightful, and so much in keeping with the house that it is easy to picture
the much-disliked Lauderdale, the genial King, and fascinating “Nell,”
living and moving on its terraces. Pepys gives a glimpse of one of these
characters at home. He drove up alone with Lord Brouncker, in a coach and
six. No doubt the hill made the six very necessary, as in another place Pepys
talks of the bad road to Highgate. They joined Lord Lauderdale “and his
lady, and some Scotch people,” at supper. Scotch airs were played by one of
the servants on the violin; “the best of their country, as they seemed to
esteem them, by their praising and admiring them: but, Lord! the strangest
ayre that ever I heard in my life, and all of one cast. But strange to hear my
Lord Lauderdale say himself that he had rather hear a cat mew, than the best
musique in the world; and the better the musique, the more sick it makes
him; and that of all instruments, he hates the lute most, and next to that the
baggpipe.” These sentiments may not prove that Lauderdale was “a man of
mighty good reason and judgement,” as Lord Brouncker assured Pepys

when he said he thought it “odd company,” but at least it shows him honest!
How many people who sit patiently through a performance of the “Ring”
would have as much courage of their opinions?

(Large)

WATERLOW PARK

Within the grounds of the present Park, near Lauderdale House, stood a
small cottage in which Andrew Marvel lived, which was only pulled down
in 1869. It was considered unsafe, and no National Trust Society was then
in existence to make efforts for its preservation. In a “History of Highgate”
in 1842 the connection between the place and this curious personage,
political writer, poet, Member of Parliament, and friend of Milton is barely
commented on. “Andrew Marvel, a writer of the seventeenth century,
resided on the Bank at Highgate in the cottage now occupied by Mrs.

Walker.” The reader of these lines is penetrated with a feeling that he ought
to know all about Mrs. Walker, rather than the obscure writer!
The kitchen-garden is large, with charming herbaceous borders, and a
long row of glass-houses and vineries, and the grapes produced have
hitherto been given to hospitals. Let us hope that the same complaint will
not arise here as in another Park, where out-door fruit was distributed, and
caused such jealousies that the practice was discontinued.
With such a high standard set by the existing gardens, it is curious that
the new bedding should be as much out of harmony as possible. The beds
which call forth this remark are those round the band-stand. The shape of
them it is impossible to describe, for they are of uncertain form and
indistinct meaning. The flowers are in bold groups, and yet they look
thoroughly out of place.
Wandering one summer’s day near the statue, erected to Sir Sydney
Waterlow, the writer overheard some girls, who looked like shop-girls out
for a holiday, discussing who it was. The most enterprising went up and
read the inscription. “To Sir Sydney H. Waterlow, Bart., donor of the Park
1889, Lord Mayor of London 1872–73. Erected by public subscription
1900.” “Why, it’s to some chap that was once Lord Mayor,” was the remark
to her friend, following a close scrutiny of this bald inscription. The impulse
to explain the meaning of the word “donor” was irresistible; it was
evidently quite Greek to these two Cockney young ladies. On learning the
meaning they were very ready to join in a tribute of gratitude to the giver of
such a princely present. Surely a few words expressing such a feeling would
have been appropriate on the statue so rightly erected in memory of the gift!
Profound feelings of thanks to the giver must indeed be experienced by
every one who has the privilege of enjoying this lovely Park, one of the
most charming spots within easy reach of the heart of the City.

Golder’s Hill Park

Golder’s Hill Park joins the western end of Hampstead Heath, but its
park-like appearance and house and garden are quite a contrast to the wilder
scenery of the Heath, although Golder’s Hill seems more in the country

than Hampstead, as the houses near are so well hidden from it. The mansion
has a modern exterior, although parts of it are very old, and the fine trees in
the grounds show that it has been a pleasant residence for some hundreds of
years. The estate of 36 acres was bought in 1898 from the executors of Sir
Spencer Wells, the money in the first instance being advanced by three
public-spirited gentlemen, anxious to save the charming spot from the
hands of the builder. The view from the terrace of the house, which now
serves as a refreshment room, is very pretty, with a gently sloping lawn in
front, park-like meadows, and fine trees beyond the dividing sunk fence,
and distant peeps of the country towards Harrow. The approach from the
Finchley Road is by an avenue of chestnuts, and a flat paddock on one side
is a hockey and cricket-ground for ladies. There are some really fine oaks,
good beeches, ash, sycamore, Spanish chestnuts, and Scotch firs; but the
most remarkable tree is a very fine tulip, which flowers profusely nearly
every year. At the bottom of the Park an undisturbed pond, with reedy
margin, is much frequented by moor-hens. The valley above is railed off for
some red deer, peacocks, and an emu, while three storks are to be seen
prancing about under the oak trees in the open Park. The most attractive
corner is the kitchen-garden, which, like the one in Brockwell, has been
turned into an extremely pretty flower-garden. On one side is a range of
hothouses, where plants are produced for bedding out, and a good supply of
fruit is raised and sold to the refreshment-room contractor on the spot. Two
sides have old red walls covered with pear trees, which produce but little
fruit, and the fourth has a good holly hedge. The vines from one of the
vineries have been planted out, and they cover a large rustic shelter, and
have picturesque though not edible bunches of grapes every year. The way
the planting of roses, herbaceous and rock plants, and spring bulbs is
arranged is very good; but the same misleadingly-worded notice with
regard to the plants of Shakespeare is placed here as in the Brockwell “old
7
English garden.” There is a nice old quince and other fruit-tree standards in
this really charming garden. In another part of the grounds there is an
orchard, not “improved” in any way, but left as it might be in Herefordshire,
with grass and wild flowers under the trees, which bear bushels of ruddy
apples every year.
Part of the Park is actually outside London, but it is all kept up by the
London County Council. The parish boundary of Hampstead and Hendon,

which is also the limit of the County of London, is seen in the middle
among the oak trees.

Ravenscourt Park

Ravenscourt is another of those parks the nucleus of which was an old
Manor House, hence the existence of fine old trees, which at once lift from
it the crudeness which is invariably associated with a brand-new Municipal
Park. A bird’s-eye view of the ground is familiar to many who pass over the
viaduct in the London and South-Western trains. These arches intersect one
end of the Park, and cut across the beginning of the fine old elm avenue,
one of its most beautiful features. A bright piece of garden, typical of every
London Park, with raised borders in bays and promontories, jutting into
grass and backed by bushes, lies to the south of the viaduct. Where two
paths diverge there is a pleasing variation to the usual type—a sun-dial—
erected by Sir William Bull to “a sunny memory.” The arches have been
utilised so as to compensate for the intrusion of the railway. Asphalted
underneath, they form shelters in wet weather—one is given over to an
aviary, two to bars for the elder children to climb on, and one is fitted with
swings for the babies. This arch is by far the most popular, and it requires
all the vigilance of the park-keeper to see that only the really small children
use the swings, or the bigger girls would monopolise them. Perhaps the
indulgent and fatherly London County Council will provide swings for the
elders, too, some day, and so remove the small jealousies.
To the west of the long avenue lies the orchard. A stretch of grass,
devoted to tennis-courts and bowling-greens, separates the pear trees from
the walk. These pears and the solitary apple tree are delightful in spring,
and a temptation in autumn. Round the house, which is not by any means as
picturesque as the date of its building (about 1649) would lead one to
expect, are some good trees—planes that are really old, with massive stems,
horse-chestnuts and limes, acacias that have seen their best days, cedars
suffering from age and smoke, and a good catalpa. The Manor House which
preceded the present building was of ancient origin. In early times it was
known as the Manor House of Paddenswick, or Pallenswick, under the
Manor of Fulham, and was the residence of Alice Perrers, the favourite of

Edward III. It was seized in 1378, when she was banished by Richard II.;
but after the reversion of her sentence, she returned to England as the wife
of Lord Windsor, and the King, in 1380, granted the manor to him. It is not
heard of again till Elizabeth’s time, when it belonged to the Payne family,
and was sold by them in 1631 to Sir Richard Gurney, the Royalist Lord
Mayor, who perished in the Tower. After his death it was bought by
Maximilian Bard, who probably pulled down the old house and built the
present one, which is now used as the Hammersmith Public Library. In the
eighteenth century the name was changed from Paddenswick (a title
preserved by a road of that name running near the Park) to Ravenscourt, an
enduring recollection of the device of a black raven, the arms of Thomas
Corbett, Secretary to the Admiralty, who owned the place for a few short
years. Nearly every vestige of the surroundings of the old manor was
obliterated and improved away by Humphrey Repton, the celebrated
landscape gardener. He filled up most of the old moat, except a small piece,
which was transformed into a lake, more in harmony with the landscape
school to which he belonged. This piece of water is a pretty feature in the
Park, and an attempt has been made to recall the older style, by introducing
a little formal garden in an angle of the enclosing wall of the Park. The
square has been completed with two hedges, one of them of holly, and good
iron gates afford an entrance. The “old English garden,” from which dogs
and young children, unless under proper supervision, are excluded, is laid
out in good taste—a simple, suitable design, with appropriate masses of
roses and herbaceous plants, arches with climbers, and an abundance of
seats. It has the same misleading notice with regard to Shakespearian plants,
as in Golder’s Hill and Brockwell, one of the South London Parks, which
must now be looked at.

CHAPTER VII

MUNICIPAL PARKS IN SOUTH LONDON

No fresh’ning breeze—no trellised bower,
No bee to chase from flower to flower;
’Tis dimly close—in city pent—
But the hearts within it are well content.
—Eliza Cook.

OF the South London Parks Battersea is the largest and most westerly, and
the best known to people outside its own district. Battersea is entirely new,
and has no history as a Park, for before the middle of last century the
greater part was nothing but a dismal marsh. The ground had to be raised
and entirely made before the planting of it as a park could begin at all. The
site was low-lying fields with reeds and swamps near the water, and market-
gardens famous for the asparagus, sold as “Battersea bundles,” growing
around it. In the eighteenth century three windmills were conspicuous from
the river. One ground corn, another the colours, and the third served to
grind the white lead for the potteries. This was during the time when
Battersea enamel was at its height, and snuff-boxes were being turned out in
quantities. On the banks of the river stood a tavern and Tea Garden, known
as the Red House for many generations. It was much resorted to, but latterly
its reputation was none of the best. Games of all kinds took place in its
gardens, and pigeon-shooting was one of the greatest attractions there,
during the first half of the nineteenth century. Although for long, crowds
enjoyed harmless amusements there—“flounder breakfasts,” and an annual
“sucking-pig dinner,” and such-like—towards the end of the time of its
existence, it became the centre of such noisy and riotous merrymakings that
the grounds of the Red House became notorious. The Sunday fairs, with the
attendant evils of races, gambling, and drinking, were crowded, and
thousands of the less reputable sections of the community landed every

Sunday at the Red House to join in these revellings. It was chiefly with a
view to doing away with this state of affairs, that the scheme was set on
foot, for absorbing the grounds of the Red House, and other less famous
taverns and gardens that had sprung up round it, and forming a Park.
Battersea, or “Patricesy,” as it is written in Domesday, was a manor
belonging to the Abbey of Westminster until the Dissolution of the
Monasteries. The name is most probably derived from the fact that it was
lands of St. Peter’s Abbey “by the water.” Later on it came into the St. John
family, and Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, was born and died in
Battersea. After his death it was purchased by Earl Spencer, in whose
family it remains. Part of the fields were Lammas Lands, for which the
parish was duly compensated. The gloomy wildness of the fields gave rise
to superstitions, and a haunted house, from which groans proceeded and
mysterious lights were seen at night, at one time scared the neighbourhood,
and enticed the adventurous. The only historical incident, connected with
the fields, is the duel fought there in 1829 between the Duke of Wellington
and the Marquess of Winchelsea; the latter having personally attacked the
Duke during the debates on the Catholic Emancipation Bill. The Duke
aimed his shot through his adversary’s hat, who then fired in the air, and the
affair of honour was thus settled. Battersea Fields were approached, in those
days, by the old wooden Battersea Bridge which had superseded the ferry;
the only means of communication till 1772. The present bridges at either
corner of the Park have both been built since the Park was formed.
Like Victoria Park, Battersea was administered with the other Royal
Parks, in the first instance. The Act of Parliament giving powers to the
“Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Woods” to form the Park was passed in
1846, but so much had to be done to the land, that the actual planting did
not begin until 1857. The ground had all to be drained, and raised, and a
proper embankment made to keep out the river. Just at this time the Victoria
Docks were being excavated, and the earth dug out of them was conveyed
to Battersea. Places were left, to form the shallow artificial lake, mounds
raised, to make the ground round the water undulating, and the rest of the
surface of the Park levelled. Altogether about a million cubic yards of earth
were deposited in Battersea Park. The extent is 198 acres, and from the
nature of the ground, except the artificial elevations near the lake, it is quite
flat. The design was originally made by Sir James Pennethorne, architect of

the Office of Works, and the execution of it completed by Mr. Farrow. The
chief features, are the artificial water (for the most part supplied by the
Thames), and the avenue of elms which traverses the Park from east to
west, and cross walks, with a band-stand and drinking-fountain at the
converging points. Round the Park runs a carriage drive, and, following a
different line, a track for riders—with the usual spaces for games between.
The trees are growing up well, so already any bareness has disappeared.
The absolute flatness, which makes the open spaces uninteresting, is
relieved by the avenue, which will some day be a fine one.
It is an object-lesson to show the advantage of avenues and shady
walks, too often ignored by modern park designers, or only carried out in a
feeble, half-hearted way. The chief variation in Battersea Park was achieved
by John Gibson, the Park Superintendent, who made the sub-tropical garden
in 1864. His experience, gained on a botanical mission to India, which he
undertook for the Duke of Devonshire, well fitted him for the task. This
garden has always been kept up and added to, and specially improved in the
Seventies, while the present Lord Redesdale was at the Office of Works.
A sub-tropical garden was quite a novelty when first started here, and
caused much interest to horticulturalists and landscape gardeners. The
“Sub-tropical Garden,” by W. Robinson, and other writings on the subject,
have since made the effects which can be produced familiar to all
gardeners; but in 1864 to group hardy plants of a tropical appearance, such
as aralias, acanthus, eulalias, bamboos, or fan palms, was a new idea.
During the summer, cannas, tobacco, various palms, bananas, and so on,
were added to the collection, and caused quite an excitement when they first
appeared at Battersea. The garden is still kept up, and looks pretty and cool
in summer, and on a cold winter’s day is sheltered and pleasant. But much
of the charm and originality of the early planting has been lost, in the
present official idea of what sub-tropical gardens should contain, which
carries a certain stereotyped stiffness with it.
In 1887 the Park, at the same time as Victoria and Kennington, was
given up to the Metropolitan Board of Works, and since then the control has
passed to its successor, the London County Council. The gardens are kept
up, more or less, as before, with a few additions. An aviary with a restless
raven, fat gold and silver pheasants, and contented pigeons, delights the
small children, who are as plentiful in Battersea as in all the other London

playgrounds. Like the other parks, Saturdays and Sundays are the great
days. The games of cricket are played as close together as possible, until to
the passer-by the elevens and even the balls seem hopelessly mixed. The
ground not devoted to games is thickly strewn with prostrate forms, and
certainly, in this, Battersea is by no means singular! In autumn, one of the
green-houses, in which the more tender sub-tropical plants are housed is
given up to chrysanthemums. This flower is the one of all others for
London. It will thrive in the dingiest corners of the town, and display its
colours long after the fogs and frosts have deprived the parks and gardens
of all other colour. The shows in the East End testify to what can be
achieved, even by the poorest, with this friendly plant. Every year at
Shoreditch Town Hall the local exhibition takes place, and there are many
similar institutions, where monster blooms, grown on roofs or in small back
gardens, would compete creditably at a national show. The popularity of the
chrysanthemums in Battersea Park is so great, that on a fine Sunday there is
a string of people waiting their turn of walking through, stretching for fifty
yards at least from the green-house to the entrance to the frame-ground.
Certainly the arrangement of the green-house is prettily done. The stages
are removed, and a sanded path with a double twist meanders among groups
of plants sloping up to the rafters, and a few long, lanky ones trained to arch
under the roof. The show is much looked forward to, and the colours and
arrangements compared with former years, praised or criticised, such is the
eager interest of those who crowd to take their turn for a peep. It is
delightful to watch the pleasure on all faces, as a whole family out for their
Sunday walk, press in together. It is only one more instance of the joy the
London Parks bring to millions of lives.
The world of fashion has only attacked Battersea Park spasmodically.
When it was new, and the sub-tropical garden a rarity, people drove out
from Mayfair or Belgravia to see it. Again Battersea became the fashion
when the cycling craze began. In the summer of 1895 it suddenly became
“the thing” to bicycle to breakfast in Battersea Park, and ladies who had
never before visited this South London Park flocked there in the early
mornings. It was away from the traffic that disturbed the beginner in Hyde
or St. James’s Park, and perhaps the daring originality of cycling seemed to
demand that conventions should further be violated; and nothing so
commonplace as Hyde Park would satisfy the aspirations of the newly-
emancipated lady cyclists. What would their ancestors, who had paced the

Mall in powder and crinolines, have said to the short-skirted, energetic
young or even elderly cyclist? No doubt some of that language which
shocks modern ears, used by the heroines in “Sir Charles Grandison,”
would have been found equal to the occasion. The great cycling rage is
over, and Battersea is again deserted by fair beings, who now prefer to fly
further afield in motors, but the Park is just as crowded by those for whose
benefit it was really made—the ever-growing population of London south
of the river.

Vauxhall Park

Going east from Battersea the next Park is Vauxhall, a small oasis of
green in a crowded district. Although only 8 acres in extent, it is a great
boon to the neighbourhood, and hundreds of children play there every day.
It has been open since 1891, the land, occupied by houses with gardens,
having been acquired and the houses demolished, and the little Park is
owned and kept up by Lambeth Borough Council.
It has nothing to do with the famous Vauxhall Gardens, to which the
rank and fashion of the town flocked for nearly two hundred years; and the
country visitor to Vauxhall Park could hardly speak of it in such glowing
terms as Farmer Colin to his wife in 1741 of the famous Vauxhall Spring
Gardens:—

“O Mary! soft in feature,
I’ve been at dear Vauxhall;
No paradise is sweeter,
Not that they Eden call.

“Methought, when first I entered,
Such splendours round me shone,
Into a world I ventured
Where rose another sun.”

The site of these Gardens, which covered some twelve acres with
groves, avenues, dining-halls, the famous Rotunda and caverns, cascades
and pavilions, is now all built over. It lay about as far to the south-east of
Vauxhall Bridge as the little Park is to the south-west. In name Vauxhall
sounds quaint and un-English. In earlier times it was known as Foxhall, or
more correctly Foukeshall, from Foukes de Breant, who married a sister of
Archbishop Baldwin in the latter half of the twelfth century.
8
The land of the present Park was purchased in May 1889. Then it was
covered by houses standing in their own grounds. The largest of these was
Carroun or Caroone House, which had been built by Sir Noel de Caron,
who was Ambassador of the Netherlands for thirty-three years, during the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I.—the others, a row of eight with gardens,
were known as “The Lawn.” In front of them was a long pond, said to have
been fed by the Effra River. This stream, which rose in Norwood and
flowed into the Thames at Vauxhall, has, like most of the other streams of
London, become a sewer, and the pond is no more. In one of these houses
(51 South Lambeth Road) Mr. Henry Fawcett resided, and when the houses
were pulled down to form the Park his was left, the intention being to make
it into some memorial of him. It was found to be too much out of repair to
retain, and had to be pulled down. With the sum which the sale of materials
from the old house realised, it was proposed to erect a memorial drinking-
fountain. This idea bore fruit, as Sir Henry Doulton sold one to the vestry
for less than one-third of its value, and moreover gave a further memorial to
the courageous blind Postmaster-General of a portrait statue by Tinworth,
with appropriate allegorical figures. This fine group recording the
connection of Henry Fawcett with the place is the most conspicuous feature
of the Park. The trees are growing up, and an abundance of seats and dry
walks made it an enjoyable if not beautiful garden. The swings and
gymnasiums are numerous and large, but what gives most pleasure is the
sand-garden for little children. For hours and hours these small mites are
happily occupied digging and making clean mud pies, while their elders sit
by and work. It is touching to see the miniature castles and carefully patted
puddings at the close of a busy baby’s day. In the summer, when the sand is
too dry to bind, some of the infants bring small bottles, which they manage
to get filled at the drinking-fountain, and water their little handfuls of sand.
These children’s sand-gardens, common in parks in the United States, are a

delightful invention for the safe amusement of these small folk, and the
delight caused by this one, which was only made in 1905, shows how
greatly they are appreciated. Many of the parks and some of the commons
now have their “sea-side” or “sand-pit,” and probably not only do they give
immense pleasure, but they act as a safety-valve for small mischievous
urchins, who otherwise could not resist trespassing on flower-beds.
The grass in this, as in all the parks, has to be enclosed at times, to let it
recover, the tramp of many feet. The wattled hurdles which are often used
in the London Parks for this purpose, have quite a rustic appearance. They
are like those which appear in all the agricultural scenes depicted in
fifteenth century MSS. It is much to be hoped that no modern invention in
metal will be found to take their place.

Kennington Park

Not very far from Vauxhall, beyond the famous Oval, lies the larger
and more pretentious Kennington Park of 19½ acres. This has a long history
as Kennington Common. It formed part of the Duchy of Cornwall estates,
having been settled by James I. on Prince Henry, and has since belonged to
each succeeding Prince of Wales. In still earlier times there was a Royal
Palace at Kennington, which fell into decay after Henry VIII.’s reign. Here
as on all similar commons, the people had a right of grazing cattle for six
months of the year. But the moment it was open to them in the spring such a
number of beasts were turned on to the ground, that in a very short time
“the herbage” was “devoured, and it remained entirely bare for the rest of
the season.”
The Common was a great place for games of all sorts, particularly
cricket. When in 1852 it was turned into a Park, and play could not go on to
the same extent, by suggestion of the Prince Consort, a piece of land, then
market-gardens, was let by the Duchy to the Surrey Cricket Club, which
was formed for the purpose of maintaining it. This is the ground that has
since gained such notoriety as the Oval, the scene of many a match
historical in the annals of cricket. The Common, too, was famous for the
masses that collected there to hear Whitfield preach. His congregations
numbered from 10,000 to 40,000 persons, and his voice would carry to the

“extremest part of the audience.” He notes in his diary, Sunday, May 6,
1731—“At six in the evening went and preached at Kennington; but such a
sight I never saw before. Some supposed there were above 30,000 or 40,000
people, and near fourscore coaches, besides great number of horses; and
there was such an awful silence amongst them, and the Word of God came
with such power, that all seemed pleasingly surprised. I continued my
discourse for an hour and a half.” The last time he preached there was a
farewell sermon before he went to America in August 1739.
Two other incidents are connected with Kennington Common, neither
so pleasant—the scenes of the execution for high treason, with all the
attendant horrors, of the “Manchester rebels” after the ’45; and the great
Chartist revolutionary meeting under Feargus O’Connor in 1848. The
precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington saved the situation, and the
200,000 people who it had been proposed should march to Westminster
melted away, and the whole thing was a fiasco.
It was soon after this episode that the Common was converted into a
Park. The ground, including all the Common and the site of the Pound, was
handed over by the Duchy of Cornwall (by Act of Parliament), to be laid
out as “Pleasure grounds for the recreation of the public; but if it cease to be
so maintained” to “revert to the Duchy.”
The transformation has been very successful, and the design was
suitable and well conceived. The large greens are divided by wide paths
shaded by trees, and each section can be closed in turn to preserve the grass.
There is a sunk formal garden, bedded out with bright flowers, which show
up well on the green turf; and at one end there are shrubberies with twisting
walks in the style that is truly characteristic of the English Park, and seems
to appeal to so many people. The whole space is not large, but the most is
made of it, and both the formal and the “natural” sections have their
attractions. At the “natural” end, near the church—which, by the way, was
built as a thank-offering after Waterloo—is a handsome granite drinking-
fountain, designed by Driver, and presented by Mr. Felix Slade; and in the
centre of the Park is a fountain, given by Sir Henry Doulton, with a group
of figures by Tinworth, emblematic of “The Pilgrimage of Life.” The Lodge
was the model lodging-house erected by the Prince Consort in the Great
Exhibition of 1851.

Myatt’s Fields

Myatt’s Fields or Camberwell Park is but a short distance to the south-
west of Kennington. This Park of 14½ acres was one of those princely gifts
which have been showered on the inhabitants of London. It was presented
by Mr. William Minet, in whose family the land has been since 1770. His
ancestors were Huguenots who had come to England at the time of the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

(Large)

Fountain by Tinworth, Kennington Park

It was handed over to the newly-formed County Council in 1889,
having been previously laid out. The way in which this was done with an
avenue, which will some day be one of the great beauties of the
neighbourhood, and which is in the meantime a pleasant shady walk, has
already been commented on. For its size, Myatt’s Fields is one of the most
tasteful of the new parks. Its quaint name is a survival of the time when the
ground was a market-garden leased by a certain Myatt from 1818–69. The
excellent qualities of the strawberries and rhubarb raised there, gave the
Fields such a good reputation in the district, and the name became so
familiar, that it was retained for the Park.
Camberwell Green is a distinct place, not far distant, and is noticed
among the village greens of London.

Ruskin Park

Ruskin Park, the newest of all the parks, is not very far from
Camberwell, and has been formed of a cluster of houses, with grounds of
their own, on Denmark Hill, known as the Sanders’ Estate. The name,
which has an “Art Nouveau” sound about it, and raises an expectation of
something beautiful, was given to it because John Ruskin for many years
lived in the neighbourhood. From 1823, when he was four, to 1843, his
home was 28 Herne Hill, and there he wrote “Modern Painters.” From then
until 1871 he lived even nearer the present Park, at 163 Denmark Hill.
Describing the house, Ruskin wrote of it: “It stood in command of seven
acres of healthy ground ... half of it meadow sloping to the sunrise, the rest
prudently and pleasantly divided into an upper and lower kitchen-garden; a
fruitful bit of orchard, and chance inlets and outlets of wood walk, opening
to the sunny path by the field, which was gladdened on its other side in
springtime by flushes of almond and double peach blossom.” Such might
have been the description of the houses and grounds now turned into a park.
Some of the lines of the villa gardens have been retained, and some wise

and necessary additions and changes have been made to bring the whole
together; but even the inspiration of Ruskin has not kept out the inevitable
edges and backbones of uninteresting evergreens. Some of the green-houses
have been kept, but six dwellings have been demolished, and one of the two
retained will be used as a refreshment room. The outside wall of the garden
front of one, covered with wistaria, has been left, facing its own little
terrace and lawn and cedars, and soon after the opening, in February 1907,
many people found it was possible to get sun and shelter and enjoy the
prospect from the seats in front of the ruined drawing-room windows. The
dividing wall of two houses has been cleverly turned into what will be a
charming pergola, and below, the ground has been levelled to form a
bowling-green. The terraces and steps from one level to another are a
pleasing feature in the design. The ground is not yet finished, and it is
greatly to be hoped that the usual clumps of evergreens will not be
multiplied, but Ruskin’s description borne in mind, and let there be almonds
and double peaches to gladden the spring, and not drooping, smutty
evergreens, or “ever blacks,” as they might be more fittingly called, to jar
on the picture of fresh young growth. The pond, a stiff oval, has had to have
the necessary iron railings, and the trees near it have been substantially
barricaded with rustic seats—a most important addition. The avenue of
chestnuts which crosses the open part of the ground has been left; and there
are other good young trees growing up, and a fine old ilex and mulberry.
There is already a question of adding a further 12 acres to this Park, which
is 24 acres at present, but the scheme is still under consideration.

Brockwell Park

Those who want a change, from the roar and bustle of streets, can attain
their object very quickly by the expenditure of a few pence and fifteen
minutes in the train. Getting out at Herne Hill Station, in a few seconds the
gates of Brockwell Park are reached. The old trees and undulating ground
are all that could be desired, but the chief attraction, and the object that well
repays a visit, is the old walled garden. It is a high brick enclosure, with
fine old trees peeping above, and festoons of climbing plants brightening
the dull red walls. The narrow paths, running in straight lines round and

across, are here and there, spanned by rustic arches covered with roses, or
clematis, or gourds, from which hang glowing orange fruit in autumn. In the
centre of the garden a small fountain plays on to moss-grown stones, and on
a hot summer’s day the seats, shaded by the luxuriant Traveller’s Joy, make
a cool resting-place, though not so sequestered as the arbours in the angles
of the wall, darkened by other climbers. The rest of the garden is a
delightful tangle of herbaceous plants. All the old favourites are there, and a
small notice near the entrance announces to those in search of knowledge
that the garden contains all herbs and garden plants mentioned in
Shakespeare’s works. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the
unwary might not realise that the flowers of Shakespeare’s time, although
undoubtedly there, only form a small portion of the whole display. The
board is literally true, but visitors are apt to go away with the idea that
brilliant dahlias, and gaudy calceolarias, or even the most modern
introduction, Kochia tricophila, were friends of Shakespeare’s! A large
number of the plants, however, are truly of the Elizabethan age, that golden
time of progress in gardening as well as of other arts, when spirited
courtiers and hardened old sailors alike scoured the seas and brought
strange plants from new lands. Many of these now familiar treasures from
east and west flourish in this little enclosure, and recall the romantic days of
the sixteenth century: the Marvel of Peru—the very name tells the delight
that heralded its arrival from the West—the quaint Egg-plant (Solanum
ovigerum) brought from Africa, and the bright-seeded Capsicums from
India. Even the bush, with its wealth of white or purple flowers, the
Hibiscus Syriacus, was known in those days, though not by that name.
Gerard, in describing it, says it was a stranger to England;
“notwithstanding, I have sowen some seedes of them in my garden,
expecting successe.” That delightful confidence, which is the great
characteristic of all these old gardeners, was not abused, apparently, in this
case, for two years later, in the catalogue of plants in his garden, 1599, this
great tree mallow was flourishing. Many of the gourds, which are grown to
great advantage in this little garden, were also known at an early date.
Gerard says of them, “they joy in a fruitful soil, and are common in
England.” Were it not for the conspicuous little notice-board, no fault could
be found with the selection of plants which, from early spring till late
autumn, brighten this romantic little garden. The Solanum jasminoides is
none the less graceful because it has only found a home in sheltered corners

in England, for the last seventy years. Cobæa scandens, which festoons
very charmingly some of the arches, is certainly an old friend, having been
over a hundred years in this country; but it is a new-comer when compared
with the Passion Flower growing in profusion near it, and even that did not
appear until after Shakespeare’s death. It was unknown to Gerard, but his
editor, Thomas Johnson, illustrates it in the appendix to the edition of 1633.
It had then arrived from America, “whence it hath been brought into our
English gardens, where it growes very well, but floures only in some few
places, and in hot and seasonable yeares: it is in good plenty growing with
Mistresse Tuggy at Westminster, where I have some years seene it beare a
great many floures.” Mistress Tuggy and her friend would have rejoiced at
the sight of the house in the centre of Brockwell Park on a warm October
day, thickly covered with the golden fruit as well as star-like flowers of
their precious “Maracoc or Passion-floure.”

(Large)

OLD ENGLISH GARDEN, BROCKWELL PARK

This delightful walled garden was the old kitchen-garden. Luckily, the
fashion for the gardens of a past generation was growing at the time the

Park was purchased, and the London County Council must be congratulated
on the good taste displayed in dealing with it. The history of the acquisition
of the ground is soon told. The desire for a park in this neighbourhood led
those interested to try and arrange to buy Raleigh House in the Brixton
Road, with some 10 acres of land, for about £40,000. Having got an Act of
Parliament to allow this, Brockwell Park came into the market with a ready-
made park of 78 acres. The Act of 1888 was repealed, and eventually a sum
of nearly £120,000 was spent on the purchase of Brockwell, which was
opened to the public in 1892. Near the entrance gates, close to Herne Hill
Railway Station, a drinking-fountain, with a graceful figure of
“Perseverance” and portrait bust, has been erected to Mr. Thomas Lynn
Bristowe, M.P. for Norwood, who was chiefly instrumental in obtaining the
Park, and whose death occurred with tragic suddenness at the opening
ceremony. It is quite a steep hill up to the house, which is of no great
antiquity or beauty, having been built at the beginning of last century, when
the older manor-house was pulled down, by Mr. Blades, the ancestor of the
last owner. The view on all sides is extensive, and the timber is fine. There
are good old oaks, as well as elms and limes; and it is satisfactory to see
that, in the recent planting, limes have been given a place, and not only the
overdone plane. As a contrast to the delightful formal garden, some pretty
wild grouping has been carried out beside the artificial water. This series of
ponds are an addition to the Park as originally purchased. It now measures
84 acres, and the extra piece contained water, which has been enlarged into
a big bathing-pool and a so-called “Japanese garden.” These ponds are well
arranged; and although there are various kinds of ducks and geese and black
swans, and concrete edges and wire netting are inevitable, they are not so
aggressive as in many parks. In places tall plants have been put in behind
the railings and allowed to hang over, to break the undue stiffness. In the
late autumn purple Michaelmas daisies nearly touched the water, and the
red berries of the Pyracantha overhung the ducks without apparent
disagreement.
The opening of Brockwell as a public Park has had the effect of
banishing most of the rooks. There was a large rookery, but year by year the
nests decrease. In 1896 there were thirty-five nests, the next year twenty,
while in 1898 there were only eight or ten. Thus every season they are
getting fewer, but still, in the spring of 1907, one pair of rooks were bold
enough to build.

Dulwich Park

Dulwich Park is not very far from Brockwell, but its surroundings are
more open. A few of the roads near it have some feeling of the country left.
The houses that are springing up are of a cheerful villa type, and have
nothing of the monotony and dulness of most of the suburbs. Fine old trees
grow along many of the roads. The chestnuts, for instance, in Half Moon
Lane between Herne Hill and Dulwich are charming, and also on the further
side of the Park, where the celebrated inn, the “Green Man,” was situated,
there is a rural aspect and a delightful walk between trees. It was within the
grounds of the “Green Man” that the Wells of chalybeate water were
situated. The Wells had been discovered in the reign of Charles II., and the
water sold in London, but the “Green Man” did not become a popular resort
until after 1739. A story connected with this popular spa is recorded in the
“Percy Anecdotes” in 1823. A well-known literary man was invited to
dinner there, and wished to be directed. However, he inquired vainly for the
“Dull Man at Greenwich,” instead of the “Green Man at Dulwich.” One of
the entrances to the Park is close to the site of the once famous Wells. The
Park itself, which covers 72 acres, was the munificent gift of Dulwich
College. The gift was confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1885, and the
Park opened to the public in 1890. The College was founded by Edward
Alleyn in 1614, who called it “The College of God’s Gift.” Originally, there
were besides the Master, Warden, and four Fellows, six poor brethren and
six sisters, and thirty out-members. The value of the property has so
enormously increased that the number of scholars has been very greatly
added to, and now hundreds of boys, some quite free, and some for a very
low fee, obtain a sound commercial education. The founder was a friend of
Shakespeare, and one of the best actors of his plays in the poet’s lifetime.
His early biographers go out of their way to refute the alleged reason of his
founding “God’s Gift College,” namely, that when on one occasion he was
personating the devil, the original appeared, and so frightened him that he
gave up the stage to devote himself to good works. Were this story true, the
vision was certainly well timed, and has produced unexpected and far-
reaching results. The educational work, the picture gallery, and the well laid
out estate of Dulwich Manor, including the large public Park, are all the
direct result!

There are a few fine old trees in the Park, particularly a row of gnarled
oaks near the lake. This is a small sheet of water on the side nearest the
College. The carriage road, which encircles the Park, crosses by a stone
bridge the trickling stream, formed by the overflow from the lake. On the
south-east side of the Park there are but few trees, but large masses of
rhododendrons and azaleas have been planted, which make a brilliant show
in the summer. The most distinctive feature is the rock gardening. There is a
very large collection of Alpine and rock plants, which are growing
extremely well and covering the stones with delicious soft green cushions,
which turn to pink, yellow, white, and purple, as the season advances. Even
in the cold, early spring, snowdrops, and the pretty little Chionodoxa, the
“Glory of the Snow,” begin to peep out amongst the rocks, and these are the
harbingers of a succession of bloom, through the spring and summer
months. On either side of one of the entrances, a long and pleasing line of
this rock-work extends, but the plants for the most part are grown on
mounds like rocky islands rising up from a sea of gravel. There are several
of these isolated patches in the middle of the carriage drive. It is certainly
fortunate, for those who only drive round the Park, thus to have a full view
of the charming rock plants; but to compare such a display to the rock
garden at Kew is misleading. There may be nearly as many plants at
Dulwich as at Kew, but the arrangement of that charming little retired
valley at Kew is so infinitely superior that the comparison is unjustified.
The small stream which leaves the lake, and other places in the Park, offer,
just as good a foundation for a really effective rock garden as the one at
Kew. Such an arrangement would give a much better idea of the plants, in
their own homes, than the islands in the roadway, that must suffer from
dust, besides looking stiff and unnatural. It is, however, delightful to see
how well these plants are thriving. This is hardly astonishing, as it is not in
a crowded, smoky district, but in one of the most favoured of suburbs.
Dulwich Park adds greatly to the advantages of the neighbourhood: it has
not hitherto been crowded, and is by no means a playground of the poorest
classes, but now the advent of electric trams and rapid communication may
somewhat lessen its exclusiveness.

Horniman Gardens

There are gardens of a very different character round the Horniman
Museum, not far distant. This collection, as well as the 9¼ acres of ground
adjoining it on Forest Hill, were the gift of the late Mr. J. F. Horniman,
M.P., and the garden, kept up by the London County Council, was opened
in June 1901. The situation is extremely attractive. A steep walk up an
avenue from London Road, Forest Hill, near Lordship Lane Station, leads
to a villa standing in its own grounds, which is utilised for refreshment
rooms and caretaker’s house, &c. The lawns descend steeply on three sides,
and on the western slope there is a wide terrace, with a row of gnarled
pollard oaks. From this walk there is a wide and beautiful view, over the
hills and parks, chimney-pots and steeples of South London, with the lawns
and pond of Horniman Gardens in front. On this terrace a shelter and band-
stand have been put up, and no more favoured spot for enjoying the open-
air town life, so common on the Continent, but until lately so rare in
England, can well be imagined. The country round is still fairly open,
between Forest Hill and Brixton. Near the foot of Horniman Gardens lies
Dulwich Park, with the shady path known as “Cox’s Walk,” from the
proprietor of the “Green Man,” and the roads lined with trees connect
Dulwich with Brockwell Park, Herne Hill, so that this corner of London is
well supplied with trees.

Deptford Park

Deptford Park is a complete contrast to the semi-rural Dulwich. It is in
one of the most densely-populated and poor districts, where it is greatly
needed, and has been open since 1897. The site was market-gardens, and
was sold by the owner, Mr. Evelyn, below its value, to benefit the
neighbourhood. It is merely a square, flat, open space of 17 acres, with only
a few young trees planted round the outskirts. Near the principal entrance in
Lower Road, the approach is by a short walk between two walls. Along
either side of the pathway, and for some little distance to the right and left,
after the open space is reached, a nice border of herbaceous plants has been
made along the wall, and a few beds placed in the grass on either side, and
ornamental trees planted. Thus the entrance to this wide playground is made
cheerful and attractive, and a pleasant contrast to the grimy streets outside.

Telegraph Hill

Between these two extremes lies a small Park known as Telegraph Hill.
It is only 9½ acres, and is cut in two by a road, but it is very varied in
surface. The origin of its name is from its having been a station for a kind of
telegraphy that was invented before the electric telegraph had been
discovered. Two brothers Chappé invented the system, and were so
successful in telegraphing the news of a victory in 1793, that their plan was
adopted in France, and soon throughout Europe. In Russia a large sum was
expended in establishing a line of communication between the German
frontier and St. Petersburg; but so slow was the building that the stations
were hardly at work before they were superseded by electricity. The signals
were made by opening and shutting six shutters, arranged on two frames on
the roofs of a small house, and by various combinations sixty-three signals
could be formed. The Admiralty established the English line, of this form of
telegraphy between Dover and London in 1795, and the first public news of
the battle of Waterloo actually reached London by means of the one on
“Telegraph Hill.” The place was well chosen, for even now, all surrounded
by houses, the hill is so steep and conical, that a very extensive view is still
obtained. The site of the semaphore station is now a level green for lawn
tennis. On the other side of the roadway, the descent is steep into the valley,
and there are two small ponds at the bottom. The cliffs are covered with
turf, interspersed by the usual meaningless clumps of bushes, and a few
nice trees.

Southwark Park

Southwark Park lies far away from Southwark, beyond Bermondsey, in
Rotherhithe. It was in the parliamentary borough of Southwark, hence the
misleading name. The Park is a gloomy enough place when compared with
the more distant or West End Parks, but a perfect paradise in this crowded
district. Between its creation in 1864 and its completion in 1869, a great
reformation was worked in the district. Close to the docks, and intersected
by streams and canals, with the poorest kind of rickety houses so vividly
described by Dickens in “Oliver Twist,” the surroundings were among the

most dismal imaginable. The actual site of the Park was partly market-
gardens, which had for long been established in this locality owing to the
fertility of the alluvial soil. Vines were grown here for wine with success in
the first half of the eighteenth century, when there was a revival in grape-
growing, and vineyards were planted at Hoxton and elsewhere. Over 100
gallons of wine were made in a year in Rotherhithe. Some of the earth
excavated from the Thames Tunnel was put on the ground covered by the
Park before the laying out commenced. When the land, 65 acres, was
bought, only 45 were to be kept for the Park, and the rest were reserved for
building. But when the day of building arrived there was such an outcry that
the whole plan was remodelled, the drives which encircled it done away
with, and tar-paved paths substituted, only one driving road crossing it
being left, and the ponds added. It is more the want of design, than any
special style, that is conspicuous, and a good deal more could have been
done to make the Park less gloomy. An avenue is growing up, but it will
never have the charming effect of the one across Battersea, as the line is
neither straight nor a definite curve. The wild fowl on the pond are such an
attraction, that perhaps it may be that the wire netting and asphalt edges
they apparently require are not drawbacks, but they are not beautiful. The
gateway into the Park, near Deptford Station, has rather the grim look of a
prison, and yet, with the forest of masts behind, all it requires is a climbing
plant or two to make a picture. On the opposite end of the Park runs
Jamaica Road, which perpetuates the name of a well-known Tea Garden,
Jamaica House. Pepys records a visit there, on a Sunday in April 1667.
“Took out my wife, and the two Mercers, and two of our maids, Barker and
Jane, and over the water to Jamaica House, where I never was before, and
there the girls did run for wagers over the bowling-green; and there, with
much pleasure, spent little and so home.” Pepys’ home in Seething Lane
near the Tower would be an easy distance from the Tea Gardens of Redriff,
as Rotherhithe was called then, and in the days when Swift made Gulliver
live there. There were other well-known Tea Gardens near, the “Cherry
Garden,” “Half-way House,” and at a much later date “St. Helena’s
Gardens,” which were only closed in 1881. The disappearance of all the Tea
Gardens and open spaces made the necessity of a Park very obvious, and it
was to meet this want that Southwark Park was made.

Maryon Park

There is one more small Park to complete the line of South London
Parks, for which the public is indebted to Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson, the
lord of the manor of Charlton, in which parish it is situated. It lies between
Greenwich and Woolwich, and the South-Eastern Railway skirts the
northern side. The ground was chiefly large gravel pits, and has a hill in the
middle partly caused by the excavations. This hill has some pretty
brushwood still growing on its slope, showing it was once joined to
Hanging Wood, a well-known hiding-place of highwaymen. It was
conveniently thick, and there are many tales of pursuit from Blackheath
which ended by losing the thieves in Hanging Wood. The hill in the Park is
locally known as Cox’s Mount, having been rented by an inhabitant of that
name in 1838, who built a summer-house there and planted poplars. The
area of the Park is about 12 acres, and except for one or two trees on the
Mount and patches of brushwood, it is open grass. The boys on the Warspite
training ship anchored near are allowed to play cricket there, provision for
this having been made by the generous donor of the Park in the deed of gift
to the London County Council in 1891.
Quite outside these crowded districts, yet within the County of London,
lie three more Parks maintained by the County Council. The one nearest the
heart of London is Manor Park, or Manor House Gardens, between the
High Road, Lee, and Hither Green Station, opened in 1902. There are 8¾
acres here attached to the Lee Manor House, a substantial building in the
Adams style, now used as the Public Library. The Gardens slope gently
away from the house to a large pond—or lake as the Council would prefer
to call it—and beyond to a rapid little stream, the Quaggy, a tributary of the
Ravensbourne. Beyond the Quaggy’s steep banks, well protected by spiked
railings, is a flat green devoted to games. The chief beauty of this little Park
is four magnificent old elms and a few other good trees—beech, chestnut,
Robinia speudo acacia, &c. In the spring of 1907 the pond was in process
of cleaning, so no rooks had ventured to build within the Park, but just at
the gates a large elm in a small garden had been favoured by these
capricious birds, and their hoarse voices were making a deliciously
countrified sound.

The other London County Council Parks are in what is still nearly open
country, although rows of villas are being rather rapidly reared in the
district. Eltham is one of these. It is at present not enclosed with massive
iron railings, but the wide, flat stretch of smooth turf, studded with
patriarchal trees, is left untouched, except that a few spaces have been
levelled for games. This Park of 41 acres was bought in 1902, the Borough
of Woolwich paying half the cost of purchase—£9600—with the Council.
Still further into the country is Avery Hill, with the large house and
grounds, extending over 84 acres, built and laid out by Colonel J. T. North.
The London County Council were offered this estate in 1902, if purchased
within a certain limit of time, for £25,000. Usually the Council, in making a
purchase, have ascertained beforehand what contributions the local
Boroughs were prepared to subscribe towards the total cost, but, on this
occasion, the Boroughs were invited to share the expense after the purchase
had been made, with the result that all those concerned—Camberwell,
Lewisham, Greenwich, Deptford, and Woolwich—refused; so the whole of
the purchase and upkeep devolved on the London County Council. The
large mansion is now used as a teachers’ training college for girls, but the
greater part of the grounds, and the immense winter gardens are open to the
public. It is still so far from the centres of population that the public who
make use of these spacious gardens is very limited. The nearest railway
station, New Eltham, is three-quarters of a mile distant from the Park, and
half-an-hour or more by train from Charing Cross. Although it is now so far
into the country, and some people would deprecate the purchase, it is only
fair to remember that most of the crowded districts were also country not
long ago, and that when land is dear and houses being built is not a
favourable moment to purchase. As a rule it is want of foresight that is the
complaint, and not excess of zeal, as in this case. The garden is made use of
to furnish supplies of plants to some of the smaller parks, and a portion is
being reserved for growing specimens for demonstration in the Council
Schools. On the west side of the house there are three terraced gardens,
prettily planted with roses and fruit-trees. In front of the house a sloping
lawn, with a few large beds, touches the park-like meadows studded with
trees. Sheep feeding with their tinkling bells gives a rural appearance. To
the large, modern, very red brick house is attached a huge winter garden.
This is on a very large scale, with lofty palms, date, dom, and cocoa-nut
growing with tropical luxuriance in the central house, with a large camellia

house on one side and a fernery with rock-work, pools, and goldfish on the
other. All this requires a good deal of keeping up—nearly £3000 a year—
and although it has been open now some five years, it has been enjoyed by
few. It is greatly to be hoped that it has a much-appreciated future before it.
Such is a slight sketch of some of London’s Parks. No doubt there is
much that could be changed for the better, both in design and planting: less
sameness and meaningless formality without true lines of beauty in design
would be an improvement. In planting, there might be more variety of
British trees—alder, oak, ash, and hawthorn; and a wider range of foreign
ones—limes, American or Turkey oaks, and many others; more climbing
plants, such as Virginian creepers, more simple herbaceous borders and
fewer clumps of unattractive bushes, and more lilacs, laburnums, thorns,
almonds, cherries, and medlars in groups on the grass. If greater originality
was displayed and a thorough knowledge of horticulture were shown,
especially by the authorities that supervise the largest number of these
parks, many improvements in existing ones could be easily achieved, and in
forming new parks the same idea need not be so rigidly followed. But, in
spite of small defects, the Parks as a whole are extremely beautiful, and
Londoners may well be proud of them.

CHAPTER VIII

COMMONS AND OPEN SPACES

’Tis very bad in man or woman
To steal a goose from off the common,
But who shall plead that man’s excuse
Who steals the common from the goose?
—An Old Ditty.

IT was only fifty years ago, when the want of fresh air and room for
recreation was being realised, that people began to wake up to the truth that
there were already great open spaces in London which ought to be cared for
and preserved. It was brought home by the fact that over £1000 an acre was
being paid to purchase market-gardens or fields so as to transform them into
parks, while at the same time land which already belonged to the people
was being recklessly sold away and built over. All through the history of
most of the common lands encroachments of a more or less serious nature
are recorded from time to time. The exercise of common rights also was
often so unrestrained as to inflict permanent injury on the commons. The
digging for gravel was frequently carried to excess, whins and brushwood
were cut, and grass over-grazed until nothing remained. At last, in 1865, a
Commons Preservation Society was formed with the view of arousing
public attention to the subject. As is often the case, some people ran to the
opposite extreme, and wished to transform the commons into parks without
giving compensation to the freeholders and copyhold tenants, who thereby
would lose considerable benefits. In some cases after the Metropolitan
Commons Act of 1866 was passed, the Lord of the Manor, on behalf of all
the freeholders, disputed the right of the Metropolitan Board of Works to
take the land without compensation to the owners. The lord of the manor
was considered unreasonable by some of the agitators for the transference
of the common lands to public bodies, but he was fighting the battle of all

the small owners. The freeholders in some cases were as many as fifty for
some 40 acres. Many of the commons were Lammas Lands. The
freeholders, of which there were a large number, had the use of the land
from the 6th of April until the 12th of August, and the copyhold tenants of
the manor had the right of grazing during the remainder of the year. The
number of cattle each could graze was determined by the amount of rent
they paid, and the grazing was regulated by the “marsh drivers,” men
elected annually by the courts of the Manor for the purpose. A curious
incident in connection with these rights happened on Hackney Downs in
1837. The season was late, and the steward of the Manor put up a notice to
the effect that as the freeholders’ crops were not gathered the grazing on the
Downs could not begin until the 25th, instead of the usual 12th of August.
The marshes and other common lands in the parish were open, so there was
actually plenty of pasture available for those entitled to it. There was a fine
crop of wheat on some plots on the Downs, and on the morning of Monday
the 14th August, “a few persons made their appearance and began to help
themselves to the corn.” Summoned before the magistrates, the bench
decided that after the usual opening day the corn “was common property,
and could be claimed by no one parishioner more than another.” On the
strength of this decision the whole parish turned out, and a terrible scene of
looting the crop took place, while the poor owners vainly tried to save what
they could. The freeholder with the most wheat, a Mr. Adamson, lost over
£100 worth, although he worked all night to save what he could. A case
followed, as Mr. Adamson prosecuted Thomas Wright, one of the many
looters who thought they had a right to it, for stealing his wheat. This time
the magistrates fined the man twenty shillings, and half-a-crown, the value
of the wheat he had actually taken, as he had no right to take away the crop,
although he had a right to put cattle on the Downs. Further trials for riot
before the Court of Queen’s Bench resulted in the prisoners being
discharged after they had pleaded guilty. It appeared both the looters and
Mr. Adamson were in the wrong. They had no right to remove the corn,
neither had he, after the 12th August, and those who had grazing rights
could have turned on their cattle to eat the standing corn. This incident just
shows how the right of freeholders and copyholders could not lightly be
trifled with.
The report of the Select Committee on Open Spaces in 1865 pointed
out in the same way, that although the right to these common lands had

been enjoyed from time immemorial, the rights were vague as far as the
public at large were concerned. They were probably limited to a certain
defined area or body of persons, as the inhabitants of a parish, and it was
doubtful if the custom would hold good at law for such a large place as
London. Thousands of people from all parts of London trampling over a
common was a very different thing to the free use of it by the parishioners.
This report led to the passing of the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866.
Both before and after this Act there were several others for the maintenance
and regulation of the commons and all the parks, gardens, and open spaces
9
too numerous to mention.
Under the present system most of the metropolitan commons and
heaths are in the hands of the County Council, and in some cases
considerable sums have been spent on them. Among the smaller ones is
London Fields, Hackney, the nearest open space to the city. This was in a
very untidy state when first taken in hand after 1866. The grass was worn
away, and it was the scene of a kind of fair, and the resort of all the worst
characters in the neighbourhood. It used to be known as Shoulder of Mutton
Fields, and the name survives in a “Cat and Mutton” public-house on the
site of a tavern which gave its name to the fields. It was in the eighteenth
century a well-known haunt of robbers and footpads, and in spite of a
watch-house and special guard robberies were frequent. The watch must
have been rather slack, as about 1732 a Mr. Baxter was robbed about five in
the morning “by two fellows, who started out on him from behind the
Watch-House in the Shoulder of Mutton Fields.” Hackney is rich in open
spaces, as besides London Fields there is Hackney or Well Street Common,
near Victoria Park, Mill Fields, Stoke Newington and Clapton Commons,
Hackney Downs (over 40 acres) on the north, and Hackney Marshes (337
acres) on the east. These were Lammas Lands, and the marshes were used
for grazing until within the last few years, when the rights were bought up
and the land finally thrown open to the public in 1894. The river Lea skirts
the marsh, and used not unfrequently to flood, doing considerable damage.
The London County Council have made four cuts across the bends of the
river, forming islands. The water now can more easily flow in a wet season,
and the periodical inundations no longer occur. The planting of these islands
has not been carried out at all satisfactorily. An utter want of appreciation of
the habits of plants or the localities suited to them has been shown. A stiff

row of the large saxifrage, S. cordifolia, charming in a rock garden or mixed
border, has been put round the water’s edge, and behind it, berberis, laurels,
and a few flowering bushes suited to a villa garden shrubbery. The
opportunity for a really pleasing effect has thus been missed, and money
wasted. A few willows and alders, with groups of iris and common yellow
flags, and free growing willow herb, and purple loosestrife, would soon, for
much less expense, have made the islands worthy of a visit from an artist.
Instead, an eyesore to every tasteful gardener and lover of nature has been
produced. The beauty of the marsh has always been appreciated by the
dwellers in Hackney and Clapton. The view over the fertile fields from the
high land was one of the attractions since the time when Pepys wrote, “I
every day grow more and more in love with” Hackney.
Hackney Downs now form a large open area for recreation, but they
were fruitful fields sixty years ago. An engraving, from a drawing by W.
Walker, dated 1814, represents a “Harvest Scene, Hackney Downs, with a
View of the Old Tower, and Part of the Town of Hackney,” and gives a
delightful picture of harvesters reaping with sickles, and binding up sheaves
of the tall, thick-growing corn. That some of the Downs were arable land
was a grievance to those who had grazing rights, and there was a
considerable agitation to get the freeholders to lay it all down in grass, after
the incident of looting the corn in 1837, already referred to. The Downs
continued rural within the memory of many still living. The Lord of the
Manor remembers that an inhabitant stated that she had, whilst walking
across the Downs, startled a wild hare from her form. This would be about
the year 1845, and for ten or twelve years later there were partridges in the
larger fields of turnip and mangold-wurzel which adjoined the Downs. The
rural character has quite changed, and now the Downs are a large open
space, with young trees growing up to supply shade along the roads which
encircle the wide grassy area.
Highbury Fields, although much smaller than Hackney Downs, being
only 27 instead of 41 acres, play as important a part in the north of London,
as the Downs do in the north-east. They are not, however, Common Lands,
but until recently were actually fields with sheep grazing in them. Tradition
points to Highbury Fields as the site of the Roman encampment during the
final struggle with Boadicea. In the Middle Ages they belonged to the Order
of St. John of Jerusalem, and there the rebels of the Wat Tyler rising, headed

by Jack Straw, camped after leaving Hampstead. There are a few old trees
still standing in the Fields, which were formerly within the grounds of two
detached residences, one of them the Manor House. An old “moated
grange,” or barn, belonging to the ancient Priory, gives its name to the
public-house, Highbury Barn, the goal of motor omnibuses. The moat was
only filled up fifty years ago, and the old buildings pulled down, after
enjoying some notoriety as a Tea Garden for over a century. A part of the
present Fields was called “the Reedmote,” or “Six Acre Field,” and is also
shown on old maps as “Mother Field.” When Islington Spa was a
fashionable resort, and Sadler’s Wells at the height of its prosperity, the
houses facing the Fields were built. On the north-west the row is inscribed
in large letters, “Highbury Terrace, 1789,” and this, according to old guide-
books, “commands a beautiful prospect.” On the east lies another
substantial row of eighteenth-century mansions, and the inhabitants are
proud to point out to strangers No. 25 Highbury Place as the house in which
Mr. Chamberlain lived, from the age of nine until he was eighteen, when he
went to live in Birmingham. His present home, now so well known, was
built in 1879, and was named in remembrance of Highbury Place. In the
early years of the nineteenth century several well-known people were living
in these houses. John Nichols, the biographer of Hogarth, who was for fifty
years editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, died there in 1826. A few years
later a historian of Islington describes Highbury Place as “thirty-nine
houses built on a large scale, but varying in size, all having good gardens,
and some of them allotments of meadow land in the front and rear. The road
is private, and is frequented only by the carriages passing to and from the
several dwellings situated between the village and Highbury House.” This
description draws a very rural picture, of which nothing now remains but
the name. The Fields were turned into a public Park in 1885, and now
consist of wide open spaces for games, with intersecting paths well planted
with limes, elms, chestnuts, and planes, and an abundance of seats. Near the
point where Upper Street, Islington ends and Holloway Road joins it, a
memorial to the soldiers and volunteers of Islington who fell in the Boer
War has been erected, and the figure of Victory stands conspicuously facing
the approach from the city.
By far the most beautiful and the most frequented of all London
Commons is Hampstead Heath. The original Heath measured 240 acres,
but, with the addition of Parliament Hill, there are now over 500 acres of

wild open country for ever preserved for the benefit of Londoners. ’Appy
’Ampstead, the resort not only of ’Arrys and ’Arriets, but poets, artists, and
people of every rank in life, is too well known to demand description. The
view from it seems more beautiful every time the occasional visitor ascends
the hill, and gazes down on London and away over the lovely country of the
Thames valley. The County Council, the present holders of this public trust,
have mercifully refrained from turning it into a park—the original intention
of those who first wished to preserve it. The bracken still flourishes, the
gorse still blooms, and there is yet a wild freshness about it that has not
been “improved” away.
Hampstead has had periods of fashion as a residence. In the eighteenth
century it is described as “a village in Middlesex, on the declivity of a fine
hill, 4 miles from London. On the summit of this hill is a heath, adorned
with many gentlemen’s houses.... The water of the [Hampstead] Wells is
equal in efficacy to that of Tunbridge, and superior to that of Islington.”
These Wells appear to have first attracted notice in the time of Charles II. In
1698, Susanna Noel and her son, third Earl of Gainsborough (then the
owner of the soil), gave the Well, with six acres of ground, to the poor of
Hampstead. For more than thirty years the Wells, with all the attendant
attractions of the pump-room, with balls and music, drew the fashionable
world up to Hampstead. It was said to be “much more frequented by good
company than can well be expected, considering its vicinity to London; but
such care has been taken to discourage the meaner sort from making it a
place of residence, that it is now become ... one of the Politest Public Places
in England.” Here Fanny Burney made her heroine, Evelina, attend dances,
and it plays a part in the fortunes of Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe; and
here all the wits and poets of the time mingled in the gay throng. Many
have been the celebrated residents in Hampstead—Lord Chatham, Dr.
Johnson, Crabbe, Steele, Gay, Keats, William Blake, Leigh Hunt, Romney
and Constable, John Linnell, and David Wilkie among the number. The site
of the pump-room is all built over, but some fine old elm trees in Well
Walk, still have an air of romance and faded glory about them. The houses
near the Heath—such as Shelford, afterwards Rosslyn House, with a
celebrated avenue of Spanish chestnuts, The Grove, Belsize Park, the
residence of Lord Wotton, and then of Philip, Earl of Chesterfield—have all
been consumed by the inroads of bricks and mortar. It is more than likely
that the Heath would have shared the same fate, had not the inhabitants

taken active steps to arouse public attention to preserve this wild heath,
unequalled near any great city. Already aggressive red villas were making
their appearance in far too great numbers. The western side was dotted over
with them. That the purchase of it for the public benefit has been
appreciated it is not difficult to prove, when over 100,000 visit it on a Bank
Holiday. It was the commencement of building operations near the Flagstaff
by the lord of the manor, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, in the heart of the
Heath, that brought things to a crisis in 1866. A case began against the lord
of the manor, but he died before it was ended, and his brother, Sir John,
being willing to compromise, the sum of £47,000 was agreed on for the sale
of the Heath to the Metropolitan Board of Works. The few houses dotted
about on the Heath are those of squatters, who have established their right
by the length of time they have been in possession. The small hamlet or
collection of houses in the “Vale of Health,” those near the “Spaniards” and
round Jack Straw’s Castle, have existed from time immemorial, although
few old houses of interest remain, and large, unsightly buildings have taken
the place of the picturesque ones. In the Vale of Health the houses are
chiefly given up to catering for holiday-makers. The “Spaniards,” at the
most northerly point of the Heath, is a genuine old house, and it still has a
nice garden, although all the alleys and fantastic ornaments which made it
popular, in the eighteenth century, have vanished. The name came from the
fact that the first owner was a Spaniard. The next proprietor was a Mr.
Staples, who “improved and beautifully ornamented it.” The house was on
the site of the toll-gate and lodge to Caen Wood, and its position saved that
house from destruction, at the time of the Gordon riots. The rioters had
burnt and wantonly destroyed Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury
Square. Maddened with drink, and flushed with triumph at the success of
their outrages, they made a bonfire in the square of the invaluable books
collected by Lord Mansfield. Their temper may be imagined as they
marched by Hampstead to commit the same violence at Caen Wood, Lord
Mansfield’s country house. The proprietor of the “Spaniards” invited them
in, and threw open his cellars to the mob. Fresh barrels of drink were sent
down from Caen Wood, and meanwhile messengers were despatched for
soldiers; so that by the time all the liquor had been consumed, and the
drunken rioters began to proceed, they were confronted by a troop of Horse
Guards, who, in their addled condition, soon put them all to flight. The
name of the other inn on Hampstead Heath, which stands conspicuously on

the highest point, 443 feet above the sea, is Jack Straw’s Castle, and has
also some connection with a riot. Jack Straw was one of the leaders in the
Wat Tyler rebellion, and after burning the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem,
he came up to Hampstead and Highgate, though there is no direct evidence
to connect him, in 1381, with any tavern on the spot on which the inn
stands. The addition of Castle to the name is from the fact, that there was
some sort of fortress or earthworks on this commanding point. The inn on
the site was known as the Castle Inn, and not until 1822 is there any
mention of it as Jack Straw’s Castle. The wood of the gallows on which a
famous highwayman was hung behind the house in 1673 was built into the
wall. Jack Straw’s Castle is now quite modernised, but the view from it, on
all sides, is still as lovely as ever. The Whitestone Pond in front is really a
reservoir, and to the south of that lies the Grove, with fine trees and some
old-fashioned houses. The most picturesque walk is that known as the
Judges’ or King’s Bench Walk, from a tradition that justice was
administered under the trees there, when the judges fled from London at the
time of the Great Plague. This walk is on the south-west side of the Heath,
the Well Walk on the south-east. To the east of the highest point with Jack
Straw’s Castle and the road which runs northwards towards the “Spaniards”
is the Vale of Health, and below are a series of ponds. Hampstead has
always furnished a water-supply for the city at its feet. When more water
was required, in the sixteenth century, the Lord Mayor proposed to utilise
the springs there, and convey the water to London by conduits. A pound of
pepper at the Feast of St. Michael annually to the “Bishop of Westminster,”
was the tribute for the use of the water, as the land belonged to the Abbey of
Westminster, having been granted to it by King Ethelred in 986. The
managers of water-supply in 1692 were a company known as the
Hampstead Water Company, which became absorbed in the New River
Company. The lakes are very deep, and dangerous for boating, bathing, and
skating, although used for all those purposes.
The hill which rises beyond the ponds and stretches away to the east, is
part of the land adjoining the true Heath, which was bought in 1887, so as
to double the area of open country, and prevent that side of the Heath being
overlooked by houses. The character is quite a contrast, and lacks the
wildness, but it is pretty, park-like scenery, and Hampstead Heath would
have been greatly spoilt had this further wide space of pasture land not been
saved. The first hill to the east of the Heath is crowned by a mound or

tumulus, which was opened a few years ago; the investigations leading
scientists to believe that it was a British burial-place of the bronze age. This
used to be very picturesque with a group of Scotch firs—now, alas! all
dead. The next hill is Parliament or Traitor’s Hill, and there is no very
definite solution of the name. It may have been a meeting-place of the
British “Moot” or Parliament, or the origin may only be traced to
Cromwell’s time. As if to encourage the tradition being kept up, a stone
suggests that meetings may take place within 50 yards of the spot by
daylight. Below the hill are flat meadows by Gospel Oak, said to be so
named from its being a parish boundary, and the Gospel was read under the
tree to impress the parishioners, with the same object as the other and more
familiar form of beating the bounds. These Gospel Oak fields are the typical
London County Council greens for games, so gradually, after leaving the
summit of the Heath, the descent is made, from the artistic and picturesque,
to the practical and prosaic.
Hampstead was always famous for its wild flowers. The older botanists
roamed there in search of rare plants, and the frequent references in their
works, especially in Gerard’s “Herbal,” show how often they were
successful. Osmundas, or royal ferns, sundew or drosera, and the bog bean
grew in the damp places, and lilies of the valley were among the familiar
flowers. As late as 1838 a work on London Flora enumerates 290 genera,
and no less than 650 species, as found round about the Heath. The soil, the
aspect, the situation, are all propitious. Even now it is so far above the
densest smoke-fogs that much might be done to encourage the growth of
wild flowers. It is true notice-boards forbid the plucking of them, and that is
a great step in advance—but the sowing of a few species, which have
become extinct, would add greatly to the charm of the place. It is also still
the favourite haunt of wild birds, and the more the true wildness is
encouraged, the more likely they are to frequent it. It is much to be hoped
that the London County Council will refrain in their planting, from anything
but native trees and bushes which look at home, and which would attract
our native songsters. Within the last ten or twelve years a very great variety
of birds have been recorded either as nesting there or as visitors. The
following list (taken from “Birds in London” by W. H. Hudson, 1898) may
interest bird lovers:—

Wryneck, cuckoo, blackcap, grasshopper, sedge, reed and garden
warblers, both white-throats, wood and willow wrens, chiff-chaff, redstart,
stonechat, pied wagtail, tree pipit, red-backed shrike, spotted fly-catcher,
swallow, house martin, swift, goldfinch, wheat-ears in passage, fieldfare in
winter, occasionally redwings, also redpoles, siskin, and grey wagtail.
This list is certainly a revelation to those who only associate dusty
sparrows and greedy wood-pigeons with the ornithology of London. No
better testimony is wanted to prove that Hampstead is still the beautiful
wild Heath that has given pleasure to so many generations.
The only other large space of common land, north of the river within
the London area, is Wormwood Scrubs, of very different appearance and
associations from Hampstead. The manorial and common rights were
purchased by the War Office, and the ground made over to the Metropolitan
Board of Works in 1879, with reservations for the rifle range and military
exercises. The space is altogether over 200 acres. The ground in ancient
times was a wood, adjoining “Old Oak Common,” just beyond the London
boundary, which was covered with patriarchal oaks. The last was felled in
1830. The ground, being flat, is admirably suited for the War Office
purposes; it has gone through a process of draining, and the only part not
downtrodden by soldiers has been “improved” by the London County
Council, so there is little wildness or attraction in the place. The presence of
a prison, erected in 1874, still further diminishes its charm as an open
space.
This completes the open large spaces on the north; the south of the river
is even richer in commons. One of the most thoroughly rural spots within
the London area is Bostall Wood. There is nothing to spoil the illusion, and
for quite a considerable walk it would be easy to imagine that a journey on
the magic horse of the “Arabian Nights” had been taken to some distant
forest land, to forget that the roar of the town was barely out of one’s ears,
and that ten minutes’ walk would take one, out of the enchanted land, back
to suburban villas and electric trams.
Beyond the inevitable band-stand, which attracts thousands on a
summer Sunday evening, there is nothing to jar, and spoil the illusion of
real country. The woods, and Bostall Heath which adjoins them, can be
reached from Plumstead or Abbey Wood Station, in twenty minutes’ walk

up the steep hill. Pine woods crest the summit, and below them stretches a
delightful thicket, chiefly of oaks and sweet chestnut, with an undergrowth
of holly and a pleasant tangle of bracken and bramble, where the
blackbirds, chaffinches, and robins call to each other and flit across the
path. Steep slopes, and valleys, and hollows clothed with trees, give
possibilities of real rambles, in a truly sylvan scene. Under the pines, which
are tall enough to produce that soothing, soughing sound even in the most
gentle breeze, the carpet of pine needles is cushioned here and there with
patches of vivid green moss where the moisture has penetrated. Beyond the
Wood lies the Heath, studded with birch trees, among gorse and bracken.
There are narrow gullies and glades, like miniature “gates” or “gwyles” of
the sea coast, and at the foot of the Heath lie the marshes, often in the soft
light as blue as the sea, and the silver Thames, a bright streak across the
picture, chequered with the red sails of the barges, and tall masts of the
more stately ships.
The whole area of woods and common is only about 133 acres, but the
varied surface, and the distant views from it, make it appear of larger extent.
It is little known to most Londoners, although the Heath was purchased as
far back as 1877, and the Wood bought by the London County Council in
1891. The place, however, is much frequented and duly appreciated by the
neighbouring population. This peaceful country-side could be reached
within an hour, from any point in the City. It is attractive at all times of the
year, especially in spring, when the green is pale and the young brackens,
soft and downy, are uncurling their fronds, and the dark firs stand up in
sharp contrast to the tender greens. Or, perhaps, still more delightful is it in
autumn, when
“Red o’er the forest gleams the setting sun,”
and the oaks have turned a rich russet, and the birches, of brilliant yellow,
shower their tiny leaves on the mossy earth, like the golden showers which
fell on Danaë in her prison.
The attractive wood-clad hills of Bostall are the most remote of all
London’s open spaces. They lie the furthest east on the fringe of the
suburbs. From Bostall westward roofs and chimney-pots become
continuous—Woolwich, Greenwich, Deptford, Bermondsey, Southwark
getting more and more densely crowded. But westward also begins the

chain of commons which circle the town round the southern border—with
breaks, it is true, yet so nearly continuous that from the highest point of one,
the view almost ranges on to the next.
Only a deep valley, with Wickham Lane on the track of a Roman road,
divides Bostall Wood from Plumstead Common. This is open and breezy,
standing high above what was in ancient times the marsh overflowed by the
Thames. The greater part is, however, used by the military, and the trample
of horse artillery makes it look like a desert. It is a curious effect to see this
part of the Common in winter. It has probably been used for manœuvring
all the week, and by Saturday afternoon there are pools of mud, and ruts,
and furrows, and hoofmarks all over it. On this dreary waste hundreds of
boys and young men, sorted according to age, play more or less serious
football matches. The coats of the players, in four little heaps, do duty for
goal-posts, and these are so thickly strewn over the surface, and the players
so closely mingled, that the effect is like bands of savages fighting among
their slain—the ancient barrow in the centre of the ground gives colour to
the supposition.
A sudden deep valley, called “the Slade,” cuts the Common in two. In
the hollow there are ponds, and on the high ground beyond stood a
windmill, the remains of which are embedded in the Windmill Tavern.
The next common west of Plumstead, is Woolwich, maintained by the
War Office and given up to military exercises. The extent is 159 acres. It is
so much absorbed by the requirements of the War Office that it cannot be
classed among London’s playgrounds.
Going westward, the next large space is Blackheath, whose history is
wrapped up with that of Greenwich, the beautiful Greenwich Park having
once been part of the Heath. It is high ground, for the most part bare of
trees, and with roads intersecting it—one of them, the old Roman Watling
Street. The wild, bare summit of the Heath was a dangerous place for
travellers, and many was the highway robbery committed there in times
past. It is of very large extent, some 267 acres, and has been effectually
preserved for public use, for some thirty-five years, since early in the
Seventies.
The Heath has played its part in history—gay scenes, such as when the
Mayor and aldermen of London flocked, with a great assemblage, to

welcome Henry V. after the battle of Agincourt, or more ominous and
hostile demonstrations, as when Wat Tyler collected his followers there, or
when Jack Cade, some seventy years later, did the same thing. A few fine
old eighteenth-century houses still stand on the edge of the Heath, and an
avenue, “Chesterfield Walk,” perpetuates the name of one of the
distinguished residents. Morden College, at the south-east corner of the
Heath, is a fine old building of Wren’s design, founded by Sir John Morden,
for merchants trading with the East who, through unforeseen accidents, had
lost their fortunes.
To the west of Blackheath there was once a Deptford Common, but it
has long since been built over, and, with the exception of the small Deptford
Park, there is a large district of dense population without any open space.
The nearest is Hilly Fields on the south. This is a steep, conical hill, with
little beauty to recommend it, except its breezy height, and views over
chimney-pots to the Crystal Palace. A large, bleak-looking building, with a
small enclosure on the highest point—at present for sale—marked the West
Kent Grammer School, does not improve the appearance of this open space.
There are some 45 acres of turf, and a line of old elms and another of
twisted thorns show that there were once hedgerows. There is some
promiscuous planting of young trees, and iron railings, and of course a
band-stand; otherwise no particular “beautifying” has been attempted since
it was opened to the public in 1896.
In the valley of the Ravensbourne, below the hill stretches the long,
narrow strip of the Ladywell Recreation Ground. It lies on either bank of
the stream between Ladywell and Catford Bridge stations. It is intersected
by railways, and the pathway passes sometimes over, sometimes under the
lines, and constant trains whizz by. But in spite of such drawbacks, the
place has a special attraction in the stream which meanders through the
patches of grass devoted to games. Where the stream has been untouched,
and allowed to continue its course unmolested between iron railings, even
the railings cannot destroy a certain rural aspect it has retained. Alders and
elms, with gnarled and twisted roots, lean over the banks, and hawthorns
dip down towards the rather swiftly flowing water. When the land was
bought for public use in 1889 the stream frequently overflowed its sandy
banks, and one or two necessary cuttings were made across some of the
sharpest curves, to allow a better flow of water. This has stopped all the

objectionable flooding, but the melancholy part is that, having been obliged
to make these imperative but necessarily artificial cuttings, the London
County Council did not plant them with alders, thorns, and willows, like the
pretty, natural stream; but instead, the islands thus formed, and the banks,
were dotted about with box and aucuba bushes. The babbling stream seems
to jeer at these poor sickly little black bushes, as if to say, “What is the good
of bravely playing at being in the country, and trying to make believe trout
may jump from my ripples and water-ousels pop in and out of my banks, if
you dreadful Cockneys disfigure me like that?” Very likely it does not jar
on the feelings of the inhabitants of Lewisham or Catford, but when public
money is spent by way of improvement, it is cruel to mar and deform
instead. Where the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Lewisham, touches the stream
is a pretty spot, but, in places, untidy little back-gardens are the only
adornment; but that is not the fault of the London County Council.
Peckham Rye Common is more or less flat, without any special feature
of interest, except at the southern end, which has been converted into a
Park. The Rye—what a quaint name it is! and there is no very satisfactory
derivation. It may either come from a stream of that name, long since
disappeared, or from a Celtic word, rhyn, a projecting piece of land—
Peckham Rye, the village on the spur of the hill, now known as Forest Hill
and Honor Oak. This “Rye” has been a place of recreation from time
immemorial, and at one time must have extended so as to embrace the
smaller patches of common known as Nunhead Green (now black asphalt),
and Goose Green. The Common was secured by purchase from further
encroachments in 1882.
The Park has much that savours of the country. An enclosure within it,
is not open to the public, and for that very reason is one of the most rural
spots. There is a delightful public road across it, known as “the Avenue.”
The old trees form an archway overhead, and on either side of the fence the
wood is like a covert somewhere miles from London; brambles and fern
and brushwood make shelter for pheasants, and squirrels run up the trees.
The farm-house, and its out-buildings with their moss-grown tiled roofs,
have nothing suburban about them. The front facing the Rye Common has a
notice to say it is the Friern Manor Dairy, but even that is not aggressive, as
the name carries back the history to the time of Henry I., when the manor
was granted to the Earl of Gloucester, and on till it was given by his

descendants to the Priory of Halliwell, which held it until the church
property was taken by Henry VIII. and granted to Robert Draper, and so on
till modern days. There is, besides this attractive farm, a regular piece of
laid-out garden, and a pond and well-planted flower-beds; but the little walk
among trees, beside a streamlet which has been formed into small cascades,
and crossed by rustic bridges, is a more original conception, and is
decidedly a success, and a good imitation of a woodland scene. The contrast
is all the greater as Peckham is so eminently prosaic, busy, and
unpicturesque; the old houses having for the most part given place to
modern suburban edifices.
Due west of Peckham lies Clapham, the largest of the South London
Commons, 220 acres in extent; although, being flat and compact in shape, it
does not appear larger than Tooting, which is really only 10 acres less, but
of more rambling shape. The Common has suffered much less than most of
its neighbours from enclosures. It was shared between two manors,
Battersea and Clapham, and the rival lords and commonalities, each jealous
of their own special rights, were more careful to prevent encroachments
than was often the case. At one time Battersea went so far as to dig a great
ditch to prevent the cattle of the Clapham people coming into its part of the
ground. The other parish resisted and filled up the ditch, and was sued for
trespass by Battersea, which, however, lost its case—this ended in 1718.
The Common has an air of dignified respectability, and is still surrounded
with some solid old-fashioned houses, although modern innovations have
destroyed a great number of them. A nice old buttressed wall, over which
ilex trees show their heads, and suggest possibilities of a shady lawn,
carries one back to the time when Pepys retired to Clapham to “a very noble
house and sweete place, where he enjoyed the fruite of his labour in great
prosperity”; or to the days when Wilberforce lived there, and he, together
with the other workers in the same cause, Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and
Zachary Macaulay, used to meet at the house of John Thornton by the
Common.
There is nothing wild now about the Common, and the numbers of
paths which intersect it are edged by high iron railings, to prevent the entire
wearing away of the grass. The beauty of the ground is its trees. They
proclaim it to be an old and honoured open space, and not a modern
creation. Only one tree has any pretentions to historical interest, having

been planted by the eldest son of Captain Cook the explorer, but only a
stump remains. The ponds are the distinctive feature of the Common, and
there are several of them dotted about, the joy of boys for bathing and boat-
sailing. The origin of most of them has been gravel pits dug in early days.
There is the Cock Pond near the church, the Long Pond, the Mount Pond,
and the Eagle House Pond, some of them fairly large. The Mount Pond was
at one time nearly lost to the Common, as about 1748 a Mr. Henton Brown,
who had a house close by, and who kept a boat on the water, obtained leave
to fence it in for his own private gratification. It was not until others
followed Mr. Brown’s example, and further encroachments began to
frighten the parish, that it repented of having let in the thin end of the
wedge. A committee was formed to watch over the interests of the Common
lands, and took away Mr. Brown’s privileges; but in spite of their vigilance
other pieces were from time to time taken away. A little group of houses by
the Windmill Inn are on the site of one of these shavings off the area, for a
house called Windmill Place. The church was built on a corner of the
Common in 1774, and has a peaceful, solid, dignified appearance, standing
among fine old elms and away from the din of trams, which rush in all
directions from the corner hard by. It was built to replace an older parish
church, which was described as “a mean edifice, without a steeple” by a
writer of the eighteenth century, who admired the “elegant” one which took
its place. The present generation would hardly apply that epithet to the
massive Georgian edifice, but it seems to suit its surroundings: substantial
and unostentatious, recalling memories of the evangelical revival, it seems
an essential part of the Common and its history.
Away to the south-west of Clapham lies Tooting (why does the very
name sound comic, and invariably produce a laugh?), another Common,
nearly as large, and much more wild and picturesque. Clapham is
essentially a town open space, like an overgrown village green; but on
Tooting Common one can successfully play at being in the country. The
trees are quite patriarchal, and have nothing suburban about them, except
their blackened stems. There are good spreading oaks and grand old elms,
gnarled thorns, tangles of brambles, and golden gorse. The grass grows
long, with stretches of mossy turf, and has not the melancholy, down-
trodden appearance of Clapham or Peckham Rye.

Fine elm avenues overshadow the main roads, and no stiff paths with
iron rails, take away from the rural effect. Even the railway, which cuts
across it in two directions, has only disfigured and not completely spoilt the
park-like appearance. The disused gravel-pits, now filled with water, have
been enlarged since the London County Council had possession; and if only
the banks could be left as wild and natural, as nature is willing to make
them, they may be preserved from the inevitable stamp which marks every
municipal park. The smaller holes, excavated by virtue of the former rights
of digging gravel, and already overgrown, assist rather than take away from
the charms of the Common.
Tooting Common consists of two parts, belonging to two ancient
manors. The smallest is Tooting Graveney, which derives its name from the
De Gravenelle family, who held the manor soon after the Conquest, on the
payment of a rose yearly at the feast of St. John the Baptist. The larger half,
Tooting Beck, takes its name from the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, which
was in possession of the Manor from Domesday till 1414, when it came to
the Crown. Both manors can be traced through successive owners until the
rights were purchased in 1875 and 1873 by the Metropolitan Board of
Works. The avenue of elms which runs right across the Common divides the
two. Tooting Beck is more than twice the size of Graveney, and has the
finest trees. One of the oldest elm trees, now encircled by a railing, was
completely hollow, but now has a young poplar sprouting out of its shell.
Tradition associates this tree particularly with Dr. Johnson, and though he
did not compose his Dictionary under it, it is more than likely he often
enjoyed the shade of what must have been a very old tree in his day. For
fifteen years he was a constant visitor at Thrale Place close by. “He
frequently resided here,” says a contemporary guide-book, “and
experienced that sincere respect to which his virtues and talents were
entitled, and those soothing attentions which his ill-health and melancholy
demanded.” The house stood in 100 acres of ground between Tooting and
Streatham Commons, and has since been pulled down and built over.
During these years, no doubt, Tooting as well as Streatham Common was
often trodden by the brilliant circle who drank tea and conversed with the
accomplished Mrs. Thrale—Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Garrick,
Goldsmith—to all of them the woodland scenes of both Commons were
familiar.

To prevent the too free use of the turf by riders, a special track has been
made for them, skirting the Common, and passing down one of the finest
avenues. It may save the grass from being too much cut up, but to those
who don’t feel called to gallop across the Common, the loss of the green
sward under the tall feathery elms is a cause of regret. It is such, perhaps
necessary, alterations which spoil the delusion of genuine country,
otherwise so well counterfeited on Tooting Common. A charming time is
when the may is out and the gorse ablaze with bloom, the chestnuts in
blossom, and birds are singing all around; or if one happens to be there on a
winter’s day, when it is too cold for loungers or holiday-makers, there are
moments when the nearness of streets and trams could be forgotten. The
frosty air, and dew-drops on the vivid green grass, the brown of the fallen
leaves, the dark stems clear against an amber sky, with the intense blue
distance, which London atmosphere produces so readily, combine
harmoniously into a telling picture, which remains photographed “upon that
inward eye, which is the gift of solitude.” The dream is as quickly dispelled.
A sight, a sound, recalls the nearness of London, which makes its presence
felt even when one is trying to play Hide-and-seek with the chimney-pots.
How well Richard Jefferies, that inimitable writer on nature, describes his
feelings in the neighbourhood of London, in spots only a little further from
Hyde Park Corner than Tooting Beck:—
“Though my preconceived ideas were overthrown by the presence of so
much that was beautiful and interesting close to London, yet in course of
time I came to understand what was at first a dim sense of something
wanting. In the shadiest lane, in the still pine-woods, on the hills of purple
heather, after brief contemplation there arose a restlessness, a feeling that it
was essential to be moving. In no grassy mead was there a nook where I
could stretch myself in slumbrous ease and watch the swallows ever
wheeling, wheeling in the sky. This was the unseen influence of mighty
London. The strong life of the vast city magnetised me, and I felt it under
the calm oaks.”
The most remote of London open spaces in this direction is Streatham,
to the south-east of Tooting, close to Norwood, and on the very extremity of
the County of London. Much smaller than the other commons, it possesses
attractions of its own. It is less spoilt by modern buildings than any of these
once country villages, but ominous boards foretell the rapid advance of the

red-brick villa. The houses which now overlook the upper part are
substantial, in the solid, simple style of the eighteenth century, In those days
Streatham possessed a mineral spring, and for a few years people flocked to
drink at it. But long before the end of the eighteenth century other more
fashionable watering-places had supplanted it, and in 1792 Streatham is
described as “once frequented for its medicinal waters.” The spring was in
the grounds afterwards belonging to a house called the Rookery, and near
the house called Wellfield, on the southern side of the Common. The waters
were said to be so strong that three glasses of Streatham were equivalent to
nine of Epsom. Although so near London, the journey to the springs
presented some dangers, as this was one of the most noted localities for
footpads and highwaymen. The woods of Norwood, which came close to
the Common, afforded covert and an easy means of escape. This road from
London, which went on to Croydon and Brighton, had such a bad reputation
that the risk of an adventure must have counterbalanced some of the health-
giving properties to any nervous invalid! The lower part of the Common,
near the road, is flat and open, and not particularly inviting. The charms of
the top of the hill are all the more delightful, as they come as a surprise.
There are fine old trees, and a wealth of fern, thorns, and bramble, and the
short grass is exchanged for springy turf the moment the crest of the steep
hill is reached. But by far the greatest surprise is the glorious view. Away
and away over soft, hazy, blue country the eye can reach. It may or may not
be true that Woolwich, Windsor, and Stanmore can be seen: nobody will
care who gazes over that wide stretch of country bathed in a mysterious
light, perhaps with the rays of the sun, like golden pathways from heaven,
carrying the thoughts far from the prosaic villas or harrowing slums
concealed at one’s feet. Only the wide expanse and the waving bracken and
tangled brushwood fill the picture—while one rejoices that such a beautiful
scene should be within the reach of so many of London’s toilers.
Wandsworth is among the least beautiful and the most cut-up of the
commons. Large and straggling in extent, it has been so much encroached
upon that roads, and houses, and railways cross it. It is narrowed to a strip
in places, and all the wildness and all the old trees have gone. Some young
avenues by the main road have been planted, and no more curtailments can
be perpetrated, as it was acquired for the use of the public in 1871. For
many years the encroachments had roused the inhabitants, and about 1760 a
species of club was formed to protect the rights of the commoners. When

enclosures took place, the members all subscribed and went to law, and
often won their cases. The head was called the “Mayor of Garratt,” from
Garratt Lane, near the Common, where a “ridiculous mock election” was
held. A mob collected, and encouraged by Foote, Wilkes, and others, witty
speeches were made. Foote wrote a farce called “The Mayor of Garratt,”
which for some time gave the ceremony no small celebrity. The rowdyism
becoming serious at the sham elections, they were suppressed in 1796.
When the Common was eventually saved, it was in a bad and untidy state:
quantities of gravel had been dug, and holes, some of them filled with
water, were a danger; the trees had all disappeared, and the whole surface
was bare and muddy. It has improved since then, but there is nothing
picturesque left. The “Three Island Pond,” which is supposed to be its
greatest beauty, is stiff, formal, and new-looking, with a few straggly trees
growing up. Still it is safely preserved as an open space, and makes a good
recreation ground.
All round London, besides the larger commons, smaller greens are to
be found, which are survivals of the old village greens. They recall the time
when London was a walled city, and thickly scattered round it were the
little hamlets which have now been absorbed by the ever-growing, monster
town.
There is little that is distinctive about them. For the most part they are
simply open spaces of well-worn turf without trees. Shepherd’s Bush is one
of these. Brook Green, in Hammersmith, not very far from it, has the
remains of a few fine elm trees. In Fulham there are Parson’s Green and Eel
Brook Common. Away in South London, Goose Green and Nunhead Green
are other examples where grass is even more inconspicuous.

(Large)

Statue of Mrs. Siddons, Paddington Green

On the north lies Paddington Green, which is small in extent, but close
to the large graveyard turned into a public garden. In the centre of the Green
a statue to Mrs. Siddons, by Chevaliand, was erected in 1897, as she lived
in the neighbourhood when Paddington was still rural. There is nothing
beautiful about the asphalt paths between high iron railings surrounding the
small space of grass and trees. Some of the other greens are more of the
ordinary public garden type. Islington Green has been planted with trees,
and outside the railings stands a statue of Sir Hugh Myddelton, who died in
1631, representing him holding a plan of the New River. Stepney was once
a very large green, and has still 3¼ acres of garden cut up into four sections.
Some quaint old houses, wood with tiled roofs, and good seventeenth-
century brick ones, still overlook the gardens. The gardens have been made
exactly like every other, with a slightly serpentine path, a border running
parallel in irregular curves not following the line of the path, and trees
dotted about. One really fine, thick-stemmed laburnum shows how well that
tree will do in smoke, and some curious old wooden water-pipes dug up in
1890, dating from 1570, are placed at intervals in the grass.
Camberwell has one of the large village greens of South London, and
has been made into a satisfactory garden. All the trams seem to meet there,
but in spite of the din it is a pleasant garden in which to rest. The 2½ acres
are well laid out, and the clipped lime-trees round the railings are a
protection from the street which other places would do well to copy. When
the trees are in leaf the garden is partially hidden even from those on the
tops of omnibuses.
These greens scattered round London help to connect the larger areas,
thus forming links in the chain of open spaces which encircles London.
These natural recreation grounds are the admiration of all foreigners, and a
priceless boon to the citizens, ensuring the preservation of green grass and
green trees to refresh their fog-dimmed eyes, at no great distance from the
throng of city life.

CHAPTER IX

SQUARES

Fountains and Trees our wearied Pride do please,
Even in the midst of Gilded Palaces;
And in our Towns, that Prospect gives Delight,
Which opens round the Country to our Sight.
—Lines in a Letter from Sprat to Sir Christopher
Wren on the Translation of Horace.

NOTHING is more essentially characteristic of London than its squares.
They have no exact counterpart in any foreign city. The iron railings, the
enclosure of dusty bushes and lofty trees, with wood-pigeons and twittering
sparrows, have little in common with, say for instance, the Place Vendôme
in Paris, or the Grand’ Place in Brussels, or Madison Square, New York.
The vicissitudes of some of the London Squares would fill a volume, but
most of them have had much the same origin. They have been built with
residential houses surrounding them, and though some have changed to
shops, and in others the houses are dilapidated and forsaken by the
wealthier classes, nearly every one has had its day of popularity.
In some of those now deserted by the world of fashion, the gardens
have been opened to the public, but by far the greater number of squares are
maintained by the residents in their neighbourhood, who have keys to the
gardens. But even though they are kept outside the railings the rest of the
public receive a benefit from these air spaces and oxygen-exhaling trees.
Sometimes the public get more direct advantage, as in such cases as Eaton
Square, where seats are placed down the centre on the pavement under the
shade of the trees inside the rails, and are much frequented in hot weather;
or in Lower Grosvenor Gardens, which are open for six weeks in the
autumn, when most of the residents in the houses are absent.

Squares are dotted about nearly all over London, but they can, for the
most part, be grouped together. There are the older ones, of different sizes,
and varying in their modern conditions. Among such are Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, Charterhouse, Soho, Golden, Leicester, and St. James’s Squares.
Then there is the large Bloomsbury group, and further westward the chain
of squares begins with Cavendish, Manchester, Portman, on the north, and
Hanover and Grosvenor to the south of Oxford Street. Then follow the later
continuations of the sequence—Bryanston, Montagu, and so on to Ladbroke
Square, nearly to Shepherd’s Bush. To the south of the Park lies the
Belgravia group, with more and more modern additions stretching
westward till they join the old village of Kensington, with dignified squares
of its own, or till their further multiplication is checked by the River.
To describe most of these squares would imply a vast amount of vain
repetition. Few have anything original either in design or planting. The
majority have elms and planes mixed with ailanthus, while aucubas,
euonymous, and straggling privet form the staple product of the encircling
borders, with a pleasant admixture of lilac and laburnum, and generally a
good supply of iris facing the gravel pathway. A few annuals and bedding-
out plants brighten the borders in summer, and some can boast of one or
two ferns. Occasionally the luxury of a summer-house is indulged in, and
here and there a weeping ash has been ventured upon by way of shelter; a
secluded walk or seat is practically unknown. The older gardens have some
large trees, and the turf in all of them is good, and when it is with “daisies
pied” it forms the chief delight of the children who play there. It may be
that the distance of Notting Hill Gate from the smoke of the East End has
encouraged more enterprise in gardening; certainly the result of the planting
in Ladbroke Square is satisfactory. Several healthy young oaks are growing
up; and a fountain and small piece of formal gardening round it, on the
highest point of the long, sloping lawn, is effective. In the older squares,
such as Grosvenor Square, the bushes are high, and the openings so well
arranged that the lawns in the centre are perfectly private, and hidden from
the streets. In the less ancient ones, such as Eccleston and Warwick,
Connaught and Montagu Squares, the long, narrow strip leaves little scope
for variation.
An innovation of the usual square is to be seen in Duke Street,
Grosvenor Square. This small square, which was laid out as a garden with

sheltered seats, was made when the new red-brick dwellings replaced the
smaller and more crowded houses. The middle is now the distributing
centre of an electric power-station, but the roof is low and flat, and has been
successfully transformed into a formal garden, with trees in tubs and boxes
of flowers.

(Large)

Winter Garden, Duke Street, Grosvenor Square

Some of the squares have finer trees than others, and in many a statue
is a feature. Originally these statues formed the central object towards
which the garden paths converged, but most of the central statues have been
moved, though in a few, like St. James’s and Golden Squares, they are still
in the middle. These statues were evidently a good deal thought of by
Londoners, but they did not strike foreigners as very good. In one of
Mirabeau’s letters he writes in 1784 from London: “The public monuments

in honour of Sovereigns, reflect little honour on English Sculpture.... The
Statues of the last Kings, which adorn the Squares in the new quarters of
London, being cast in brass or copper, have nothing remarkable in them but
their lustre; they are doubtless kept in repair, cleaned and rubbed with as
much care as the larger knockers at gentlemen’s doors, which are of similar
metal.” The usual plan now is to place the statue facing the street, where a
background of green shows it off to the passer-by. Thus Lord George
Bentinck is prominent in Cavendish Square, from which the equestrian
central statue of the Duke of Cumberland has gone; and from Hanover
Square, built about the same time as Cavendish (between 1717–20),
Chantrey’s statue of Pitt gazes down towards St. George’s Church. In
Grosvenor Square no statue has replaced the central one of George I. by
Von Nost, which was placed there in 1726, and is described by Maitland as
a “stately gilt equestrian statue.” This Square is older than the two last
mentioned, having been built in 1695. In those days each of the spacious
houses had its large garden at the back, with a view of the country away to
Hampstead and Highgate. The garden was designed by Kent, but a plan of it
about 1750 shows a considerable difference between the arrangements then
and now, although some details are the same. The raised square of grass in
the centre where the statue stood has now a large, octagonal, covered seat,
apparently formed with the old pedestal. The walk round and the four wide
paths to the centre are retained, but the smaller intersecting paths are
replaced by lawns on which grow some fine old elms. The railings with
stone piers and handsome gates, shown in the engraving, have given place
to much less ornamental iron rails.

(Large)

STATUE OF PITT, HANOVER SQUARE

Manchester Square is of later date. It was an open space approached by
shady lanes from Cavendish Square for some fifty years after that was built.
The houses in Manchester Square were not begun till 1776—some ten years
after the commencement of Portman Square. This district was all very semi-
rural and unfinished until much later. Southey, in a letter, writes of Portman
Square as “on the outskirts of the town,” and approached “on one side by a
road, unlit, unpaved, and inaccessible by carriages.” The large corner house,
now occupied by Lord Portman, was built for Mrs. Montagu, “Queen of the
Blue Stockings,” and during her time “Montagu House” was the salon to
which the literary celebrities of the day flocked. When Mrs. Montagu
moved there from Hill Street she wrote to a friend, “My health has not been
interrupted by the bad weather we have had; I believe Portman Square is the
Montpellier of England.” In the centre of the Square garden was planted a
“wilderness,” after the fashion of the day, and early in the nineteenth
century, when the Turkish Ambassador resided in the Square, he erected a
kiosk in this “wilderness,” where he used to smoke and imagine himself in
a perfumed garden of the East. It is still one of the best kept-up of the
squares.
Berkeley Square dates from nearly the same time as Grosvenor, having
been begun in 1698, on the site of the extensive gardens of Berkeley House,
which John Evelyn so much admired, and where flourished the holly
hedges of which he advised the planting. The central statue here was one by
Beaupré and Wilton of George III., which was removed in 1827, and the
base of the statue made into a summer-house. In the place of the usual
statesman, a drinking fountain, with a figure pouring the water—the gift of
the Marquess of Lansdowne—has been placed outside the rails at the
southern end. The plane trees are very fine, and were planted at the end of
the eighteenth century, it is said, by Mr. Edward Bouverie in 1789. The
plane has been so long grown in London these cannot be said with certainty
to be the oldest, as is so often stated. Some in Lincoln’s Inn Fields are
decidedly larger. In 1722 Fairchild writes in praise of the plane trees, about
40 feet high, in the churchyard of St. Dunstan-in-the-East. Loudon mentions
one at the Physic Garden, planted by Philip Miller, which was 115 feet high

in 1837 (a western Plane—not the great oriental Plane which fell down a
few years ago). The western Plane (Platinus occidentalis) was introduced to
this country many years after the eastern Plane (Platinus orientalis). The
tree most common in town is a variety of eastern Plane called accrifolia,
known as the “London Plane”: this must have been a good deal planted all
through the eighteenth century, so it is difficult to assign to any actual tree
the priority.
St. James’s Square is older than any of the squares already glanced at,
having been built in the time of Charles II. It was known as Pall Mall Field
or Close, originally part of St. James’s Fields, and the actual site of the
Square was a meadow used by those attached to the Court as a sort of
recreation ground. Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, leased it in 1665 from
Charles II., and began to plan the Square or “Piazza,” as it was called at
first. The deadly year of the Plague, followed by the Great Fire, delayed the
building, and the houses were not finished and lived in till 1676. No. 6 in
the Square, belonging to the Marquess of Bristol, has been in his family
since that time. Every one of the fine old houses has its story of history and
romance. Here Charles II. was frequently seen visiting Moll Davis, Sir
Cyril Wyche, and the Earl of Ranelagh. The Earl of Romney, and the Duke
of Ormond, and Count Tallard the French Ambassador, are names
connected with the Square in William III.’s time, and Josiah Wedgwood
lived at No. 7. But these and many other historical personages did not look
from their windows on to a well-ordered garden, and the Court beauties did
not wander with their admirers under the spreading trees. The centre of the
Square was left open, and merely like a field. The chief use to which the
space seems to have been put was for displays of fireworks. One of the
great occasions for these was after the Peace of Ryswick, but unfortunately
they were not always very successful. An eye-witness, writing to Sir
Christopher Hatton, says of Sir Martin Beckman, who had the management
of them, that he “hath got the curses of a good many and the praises of
nobody.” The open space eventually became so untidy that the residents in
1726 petitioned Parliament to allow them to levy a special rate to “cleanse,
adorn, and beautify the Square,” as “the ground hath for some years past
lain, and doth now lie, rude and in great disorder, contrary to the design of
King Charles II., who granted the soil for erecting capital buildings.” So
badly used was it that even a coach-builder had erected a shed in the middle
of it, in which to store his timber. Strong measures were taken, and any one

“annoying the Square” after May 1, 1726, was to be fined 20s., and any one
encroaching on it, £50. No hackney coach was allowed to ply there, and
unless a coachman, after setting down his fare, immediately drove out of
the Square, he was to be fined 10s. The whole place was levelled and
paved, and a round basin of water, which was intended to have a fountain in
it, and never did, was dug in the centre. Round it ran an octagon railing with
stone obelisks, surmounted with lamps at each angle. A road of flat paving-
stones with posts went round the Square in front of the houses; the rest was
paved with cobble stones. As early as 1697 it was proposed to place a statue
of William III., and figures emblematical of his victories, in the Square, but
nothing was done. In 1721 the Chevalier de David tried to get up a
subscription for a sum of £2500 for a statute of George I. to be done by
himself and set up, but, as he only collected £100 towards it, that scheme
also fell through. Once more an effort was made which bore tardy fruit, for
in 1724 Samuel Travers bequeathed a sum of money by will “to purchase
and erect an equestrian statue in brass to the glorious memory of my master,
King William III.” Somehow this was not carried out at the time, but in
1806 the money appeared in a list of unclaimed dividends, and John Bacon
the younger was given the commission to model the statue, which was cast
in bronze at the artist’s own studio in Newman Street, and put up in the
centre of the pond. Thus it remained until towards the middle of last century
the stagnant pool was drained. In the 1780 riots the mob carried off the keys
of Newgate and flung them into this basin, where years afterwards they
were found. It was 150 feet in diameter, and 6 or 7 feet deep. When the
pond was drained, the garden was planted in the form it now is, and the
statue left standing in the centre. St. James’s is still one of the finest
residential squares in London, and the old rhyme, picturing the attractions
in store for the lady of quality who became a duchess and lived in the
Square, might have been written in the twentieth instead of the eighteenth
century.

“She shall have all that’s fine and fair,
And the best of silk and satin shall wear;
And ride in a coach to take the air,
And have a house in St. James’s Square.”

(Large)

STATUE OF WILLIAM III. IN ST. JAMES’S SQUARE

Less cheerful has been the fate of Golden Square, which has a forsaken
look, and the days when it may have justified its name are past. Originally
Gelding Square, from the name of an inn hard by, the grander-sounding and
more attractive corruption supplanted the older name. Another derivation
for the word is also given—“Golding,” from the name of the first builder;
but anyhow it was called Golden Square soon after it came into being. The
houses round it were built about the opening years of the eighteenth
century, when the dismal memories of the Plague were growing faint. For
the site of Golden Square, “far from the haunts of men,” was one of the
spots where, during the Plague, thousands of dead were cast, by scores
every night. These gloomy scenes forgotten, the Square was built, and at
one time fashionable Lord Bolingbroke lived here, while Secretary for War.
It is still “not exactly in anybody’s way, to or from anywhere.” The garden
is neat, with a row of trees round the Square enclosure, and a path following
the same lines. In the centre stands a statue of George II., looking
thoroughly out of place, like a dilapidated Roman emperor. It was bought
from Canons, the Duke of Chandos’s house, near Edgware, when the house
was pulled down and everything sold in 1747. There are a few seats, but
they are rarely used, and it has a very quiet and dreary aspect when
compared with the cheerful crowds enjoying the gardens in its larger
neighbour, Leicester Square. This was known as Leicester Fields, and was
traversed by two rows of elm trees; and even after the houses round it were
begun, about 1635, the name of Fields clung to it. The ground was part of
the Lammas Lands belonging to the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and
Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who built the house from which the
Square takes its name, paid compensation for the land, to the poor of the
parish £3 yearly. The house occupied the north-east corner of the Square,
and in after years became famous as a royal residence. It has been called
“the pouting-place” of princes, as it was to Leicester House that the Prince
of Wales retired when he quarrelled with his father, George I.; and there
Caroline the Illustrious gathered all the dissatisfied courtiers, and such wit
and beauty as could be found, round her. When he became George II., and
quarrelled in his turn with his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the latter

came to live in Leicester House. The statue of George I. which stood in the
centre of the garden was, it was said, put up by Frederick, with the express
purpose of annoying his father. A view of the Square in 1700, shows a
neatly-kept square garden with four straight walks, and trees at even
distances, and Leicester House standing back, with a forecourt and large
entrance gates, and a garden of its own with lawns and statues at the back.
Savile House, next door to Leicester House, on the site of the present
Empire Theatre, was also the scene of many interesting incidents, until it
was practically destroyed during the Gordon Riots. The list of great names
connected with the Square is too long to recite, but four of the greatest are
commemorated by the four busts in the modern garden—Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Hogarth, John Hunter, the eminent surgeon, and Sir Isaac
Newton. But before these monuments were erected Leicester Square
Garden had gone through a period of decay. It was left unkept up and
uncared for; the gilt statue was tumbling to pieces, and was only propped up
with wooden posts. The garden from 1851 for ten years, was used to exhibit
the Great Globe of Wylde, the geographer, who leased the space from the
Tulk family, then the owners of the land. Leicester House, after it ceased to
be a royal residence, was in the hands of Sir Ashton Lever, who turned it
into a museum, which was open from 1771 to 1784, but failed to obtain
much popularity. The collection was dispersed, and soon after the house
was pulled down and the site built over, and the Square was allowed to get
more and more untidy. Several efforts were made to purchase it for the
public, but the price asked was prohibitive, as the owners wished to build
on it. When, however, after much litigation, the Court of Appeal decided it
could not be built on, but must be maintained as an open space, they were
more ready to come to terms. A generous purchaser came forward, Mr.
Albert (afterwards Baron) Grant, who bought the land, laid it out as a
garden, and presented it to the public, to be kept up by the Metropolitan
Board of Works. The plans for the newly-restored garden, were made for
Mr. Grant by Mr. James Knowles, and the planting done by Mr. John
Gibson, who was then occupied with the sub-tropical garden in Battersea
Park. The statue of Shakespeare in the centre, and the four busts, were also
the gift of the same public benefactor, who presented the Square complete,
with trees, statues, railings, and seats, in 1874.
Soho Square was another of the fashionable squares of London, now
gloomy and deserted by its former aristocratic residents. The gardens are

kept up for the benefit of those living in the Square only, and are not
enjoyed by the masses, like Leicester Square. Maitland describes the
building and consecration of St. Anne’s, Soho, or, as he calls it, St. Anne’s,
Westminster, which was in 1685 separated from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields,
and a new parish created, just in the same way as scores of parishes have to
be treated nowadays, to meet the needs of the much more rapidly-growing
population. Of the new parish, he says the only remarkable things were “its
beautiful streets, spacious and handsome Church, and stately Quadrate,
denominated King’s-Square, but vulgarly Soho-Square.” Various
suggestions have been made as to the origin of the name, and the most
popular explanation is that it was a hunting-cry used in hunting hares,
which sport was indulged in over these fields. The word Soho occurs in the
parish registers as early as 1632. When first built the Square was called
King Square, from Geoffrey King, who surveyed it, not after King Charles
II. But the old name of the fields became for ever attached to the Square, to
the entire exclusion of the more modern one, after the battle of Sedgemoor.
Monmouth’s supporters on that occasion took the word Soho for their
watchword, from the fact that Monmouth lived in the Square. In 1690 John
Evelyn notes that he went with his family “to winter at Soho in the Great
Square.” Monmouth House was built by Wren, when the Square was begun
in 1681, and it was pulled down, to make room for smaller houses on the
south side of the Square, in 1773. There are some fine old trees in the
garden, and a statue of Charles II. used, till the middle of last century, like
the one in St. James’s Square, to stand in a basin of water, with figures
round it, emblematic of the rivers Thames, Severn, Tyne, and Humber,
spouting water. Nollekens, the sculptor, who was born in 28 Dean Street,
Soho, in 1738, recalled how he stood as a boy “for hours together to see the
water run out of the jug of the old river-gods in the basin in the middle of
the Square, but the water never would run out of their jugs but when the
windmill was going round at the top of Rathbone Place.” The centre of the
Square was in 1748 “new made and inclosed with iron railings on a stone
kirb,” and “eight lamp Irons 3 ft. 6 in. high above the spikes in each of the
Eight corner Angles”: the “Channell all round the Square” was paved with
“good new Kentish Ragg stones.”
Beyond Oxford Street are collected a great number of squares in the
district of Bloomsbury. They are all surrounded by solid, well-built houses,
which seem to hold their own with dignity, even though fashion has moved

away from them westward. Before the squares arose, this was the site of
two great palaces with their gardens. One of them, Southampton House,
afterwards known as Bedford or Russell House, was where Bloomsbury
Square now is. In 1665, February 9, Evelyn notes that he “dined at my Lord
Treasurer’s the Earl of Southampton, in Bloomsbury, where he was building
a noble square or piazza, a little town; his own house stands too low—some
noble rooms, a pretty cedar chapel, a naked garden to the North, but good
air.” This house was pulled down in 1800, and Russell Square was built on
the garden. Both Bloomsbury, or Southampton Square, as it was sometimes
called, and Russell Square have good trees, and in each garden there is a
statue by Westmacott. Charles James Fox, seated in classical drapery,
erected in 1816, looks down Bedford Place, where stood Southampton
House, towards the larger statue, with elaborate pedestal and cupids, of
Francis, Duke of Bedford, in Russell Square. This is one of London’s
largest Squares, being only about 140 feet smaller than Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
and included most of the garden of Southampton House, with its fine limes,
and a large locust-tree, Robinia pseudo acacia.
The laying out is more original in design than most of the squares,
having been done by Repton in 1810. In Repton’s book on Landscape
Gardening he goes fully into his reasons for the design of Russell Square.
“The ground,” he said, “had all been brought to one level plain at too great
expense to admit of its being altered.” He approves of the novel plan of
placing the statue at the edge instead of in the usual position in the centre of
the Square. “To screen the broad gravel-walk from the street, a compact
hedge is intended to be kept clipt to about six feet high; this, composed of
privet and hornbeam, will become almost as impervious as a hedge of
laurels, or other evergreens, which will not succeed in a London
atmosphere.” He says he has not “clothed the lawn” with plantation, so that
children playing there could be seen from the windows, to meet “the
particular wishes of some mothers.” “The outline of this area is formed by a
walk under two rows of lime-trees, regularly planted at equal distances, not
in a perfect circle, but finishing towards the statue in two straight lines.” He
imagines that fanciful advocates of landscape gardening will object to this
as too formal, and be “further shocked” by learning that he hoped they
would be kept cut and trimmed. Within were to be “groves in one quarter of
the area, the other three enriched with flowers and shrubs, each disposed in
a different manner, to indulge the various tastes for regular or irregular

gardens.” He ends his description by saying: “A few years hence, when the
present patches of shrubs shall have become thickets—when the present
meagre rows of trees shall have become an umbrageous avenue—and the
children now in their nurses’ arms shall have become the parents or grand-
sires of future generations—this square may serve to record, that the Art of
Landscape Gardening in the beginning of the nineteenth century was not
directed by whim or caprice, but founded on a due consideration of utility
as well as beauty, without a bigoted adherence to forms and lines, whether
straight, or crooked, or serpentine.”
Repton always put forth his ideas in high-sounding language, often not
so well justified as in the present case. The lime-trees have been allowed to
grow taller than he desired, and yet are not fine trees from having at one
period been kept trimmed; but they certainly form an attractive addition to
the usual design, and looking at them, after nearly a hundred years, from the
outside, where they form a background to the statue, the effect in summer is
very attractive.
Bedford Square is on the gardens of the other great house—Montagu
House, built by the Duke of Montagu. Evelyn also notes going to see that.
In 1676, “I dined,” he says, “with Mr. Charleton and went to see Mr.
Montagu’s new palace near Bloomsbury, built by Mr. Hooke of our Society
[the Royal] after the French manner.” This house was burnt down ten years
later, and rebuilt with equal magnificence; but when the Duke moved to
Montagu House, Whitehall, in 1757, it became the home of the British
Museum. The old house was pulled down and the present building erected
in 1845. The Square was laid out at the end of the eighteenth century on the
gardens and the open fields of the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields beyond.
Lord Loughborough lived in No. 6, and after him Lord Eldon from 1804 to
1815. At the time of the Gordon Riots in 1780, when Lord Mansfield’s
house was plundered, troops were stationed near, and a camp formed in the
garden of the British Museum. That garden was also of use when, in March
1815, Lord Eldon’s house in Bedford Square was attacked by a mob, and he
was forced to make his escape out of the back into the Museum garden.
Of Queen’s Square, built in Queen Anne’s time, but containing a statue
of Queen Charlotte, and all the other squares of this district there is little of
special interest to record directly connected with their gardens. They all
have good trees, and are kept up much in the same style.

Red Lion Square is an exception. It has a longer history, and now its
garden differs from the rest, as it is open to the public, and a great boon in
this crowded district. It takes its name from a Red Lion Inn, which stood in
the fields long before any other houses had grown up near it. It was to this
inn that the bodies of the regicides Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were
carried, when they were exhumed from Westminster Abbey and taken, with
all the horrible indignities meted out to traitors, to Tyburn. A tradition,
probably without foundation, was for long current that a rough stone
obelisk, which stood afterwards in the Square, marked the spot where
Cromwell’s body was buried by friends who rescued the remains from the
scaffold. The houses were built round it at the end of the seventeenth
century, but the space in the middle seems, like all other squares at this
time, to have been more or less a rubbish heap, and a resort of “vagabonds
and other disorderly persons.” In 1737 the inhabitants got an Act of
Parliament to allow them to levy a rate to keep the Square in order. A
contemporary, in praising this determination to beautify the Square, “which
had run much to decay,” hopes that “Leicester Fields and Golden Square
will soon follow these good examples.” The “beautifying” consisted in
setting up a railing round it, with watch-houses at the corners, while the
obelisk rose in the centre out of the rank grass.
The present garden, when first opened to the public, was managed by
the Metropolitan Gardens Association, but since 1895 the London County
Council have looked after it; the inhabitants having made a practically free
gift of it for the public benefit. The nice old trees, flowers, seats, and
fountain make it a much less gloomy spot than during any time of its
history since the Red Lion kept solitary watch in the fields.
The largest of all the squares is Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The garden, which
is 7¼ acres in extent, was, after many lengthy negotiations, finally opened
to the public in 1895. The fine old houses which survive, show the
importance and size of Inigo Jones’s original conception. It has been said
that the Square is exactly the same size as the base of the Great Pyramid,
but this is not the case. The west side, which was completed by Inigo Jones,
was begun in 1618, but the centre of the Square was left an open waste till
long after that date. The Fields, before the building commenced, were used
as a place of execution, and Babington and his associates met a traitor’s
death, in 1586, on the spot where it was supposed they had planned some of

their conspiracy. The surrounding houses had been built, and the ground
was no longer an open field when William, Lord Russell, was beheaded
there in 1683. The scaffold was erected in what is now the centre of the
garden. The Fields for many years bore a bad name, and were the haunt of
thieves and ruffians of all sorts. When things reached such a climax, that the
Master of the Rolls was knocked down in crossing the Fields, the centre
was railed in. This was done about 1735, with a view to improving their
condition, and they remained closed, and kept up by the inhabitants, until a
few years ago. The chief feature in the pleasant gardens now are the very
fine trees. There are some patriarchal planes, with immense branches, under
which numbers of people are always to be seen resting. The houses, Old
Lindsay House, Newcastle House, the College of Surgeons, Sir John
Soane’s Museum, with long histories of their own, and all the lesser ones,
with a sleepy air of dingy respectability and ancient splendour, now look
down on a most peaceful, well-kept garden, and Gay’s lines of warning are
no longer a necessary caution:—

“Where Lincoln’s Inn wide space is rail’d around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone,
Made the walls echo with his begging tone;
That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.”

Adjoining the Fields is New Square, which used to be known as Little
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and earlier still as Fickett’s Field or Croft. It was built
in 1687. Fickett’s Fields occupied a wider area, and until 1620 they, like the
larger Fields, were a place of execution. The site of New Square was
planted and laid out in very early days. The Knights of St. John in 1376
made it into a walking place, planted with trees, for the clerks, apprentices,
and students of the law. In 1399 a certain Roger Legit was fined and
imprisoned for setting mantraps with a “malicious intention to maim the
said clerks and others,” as they strolled in their shaded walks. This Square,
like all others, went through phases of being unkept and untidy, but was
finally remodelled, into its present neat form, in 1845.

Eastwards, into the heart of London there are the squares which are the
remains of the open ground without the City walls. Charterhouse Square,
which is now a retired, quiet spot with old houses telling of a former
prosperity, has a history reaching back to the fourteenth century. In the days
of the Black Death, when people were dying so fast that the Chronicler of
London, Stowe, says that “scarce the tenth person of all sorts was left
alive,” the “churchyards were not sufficient to receive the dead, but men
were forced to chuse out certaine fields for burials: whereupon Ralph
Stratford, Bishop of London, in the yeere 1348 bought a piece of ground,
called No man’s land, which he inclosed with a wall of Bricke, and
dedicated for buriall of the dead, builded thereupon a proper Chappell,
which is now enlarged, and made a dwelling-house: and this burying plot is
become a faire Garden, retaining the old name of Pardon Churchyard.” It
was very soon after this purchase, that the Carthusian monastery was
founded hard by; but although the land was bought by the Order, Pardon
Churchyard was maintained as a burial-ground for felons and suicides.
After the dissolution of the monasteries, when Charterhouse School and
Hospital had been established by Thomas Sutton, the houses round the other
three sides of the Square began to be built. One of the finest was Rutland
House, once the residence of the Venetian Ambassador. It is still a quiet,
quaint place of old memories; and the garden, with two walks crossing each
other diagonally, and some fair-sized trees, has a solemn look, as if, even
after all the centuries that have passed, it had some trace of its origin.
Finsbury Circus and Finsbury Square are very different. They are more
modern, bustling places which have entirely effaced the past. That they
were, for long years, the most resorted to of open spaces, where Londoners
took their walks is well-nigh forgotten, except in the name Finsbury, or
Fensbury, the fen or moor-like fields without the walls. Bethlehem Hospital,
known as Bedlam, was, for many generations, the only large building on the
Fields. Finsbury Square was begun more than a hundred years ago, and but
for the few green trees, nothing suggests the former country origin. Trinity
Square, by the Tower, is so unique in aspect and association that it must be
mentioned. In the sixteenth century the “tenements and garden plots”
encroached on Tower Hill right up to the “Tower Ditch,” and from the
earliest time some kind of garden existed at the Tower. When it was a royal
residence, frequent entries appear in the accounts of payments for the
upkeep of the garden. Although so much has changed, and the wild animals

that afforded amusement for centuries are removed, it is pleasant to see the
moat turned into walks, and well planted with iris and hardy plants, and
making quite a bright show in summer, in contrast to the sombre grey walls.
Away in the East End there are numbers of other gloomy little squares
whose gardens are the playground of the neighbourhood. They are useful
spaces of air and light, and the few trees and low houses surrounding them
give a little ventilation in some of the very crowded districts. They are all
much alike; in some more care has been taken in the planting and selection
of the trees than in others. There is De Beauvoir Square, Dalston; Arbour
Square, off the Commercial Road; York Square, Stepney; Wellclose, near
the Mint and London Docks; Trafalgar Square, Mile End; and many others
dotted about among the dismal streets. Turning to the West End again, the
largest of the square spaces is Vincent Square, which forms the playground
of the Westminster boys. It derives its name from Dr. Vincent, the head-
master who was chiefly instrumental in obtaining it for the use of the boys.
It was first marked out in 1810, and enclosed by railings in 1842. The 10
acres of ground were part of Tothill Fields, and the site was a burial-place in
the time of the Great Plague.
There is nothing of historical interest in the Squares of Belgravia. The
ground covered by Belgrave Square was known as Five Fields, which were
so swampy that no one had attempted to build on them. It was the
celebrated builder, Thomas Cubitt, who in 1825 was able by draining, and
removing clay, which he used for bricks, to reach a solid foundation, and in
a few years had built Belgrave and Eaton Squares and the streets adjoining.
The site of the centre of Belgrave Square was then a market-garden. Ebury
Square, the garden of which is open to the public, and tastefully laid out,
was built about 1820. The farm on that spot, which in 1676 came to the
Grosvenor family, was a farm of 430 acres in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and is
mentioned as early as 1307, when Edward I. gave John de Benstede
permission to fortify it. There was only one road across the swampy ground
from St. James’s to Chelsea, and that was the King’s Road, which followed
the line of the centre of Eaton Square. There were, however, numerous
footpaths, infested by footpads and robbers at night, and bright with wild
flowers and scented by briar roses by day. There is a great sameness among
all the squares between Vauxhall Bridge and the Pimlico Road. Of this latter
original-sounding name there seems no satisfactory explanation. The space

between Warwick Street and the river, was in old times occupied by the
Manor House of Neyte, and in later days by nurseries and a tea garden,
known as the Neat House. The ground near Eccleston Square was an osier
bed. The whole surface was raised by Cubitt, with soil from St. Katherine’s
Docks in 1827, and the houses built, and square gardens laid out; Eccleston
in 1835, Warwick 1843, St. George’s 1850, and so on until the whole was
covered. The gardens are all in the same style, and have no horticultural
interest. The garden in front of Cadogan Place varied most from the usual
pattern, having been designed by Repton. “Instead of raising the surface to
the level of the street, as had usually been the custom, by bringing earth
from a distance,” he “recommended a valley to be formed through its whole
length, with other lesser valleys flowing from it, and hills to be raised by
the ground so taken from the valleys.” The original intention was to bring
the overflow of the Serpentine down Repton’s valley, but this was never
done, and the gardens now only show the variation of level in one part.
There is a good assortment of trees, and a group of mulberries which bear
fruit every year.
Further west again, the old hamlet of Brompton has small, quiet
squares of its own. The trees of Brompton Square, that quiet cul-de-sac, and
the way through with a nice row of trees to Holy Trinity Church (built in
1829), with Cottage Place running parallel with it, is rather unlike any other
corner of London. Before it was built over Brompton was famous for its
gardens—first that of London and Wise, in the reign of William III. and
Anne, and then that of William Curtis, the editor of the Botanical Magazine.
A guide-book of 1792, describes Brompton as “a populous hamlet of
Kensington, adjoining Knightsbridge, remarkable for the salubrity of its air.
This place was the residence of Oliver Cromwell.” Kensington Square is
older than any of the Brompton Squares, having been begun in James II.’s
reign, and completed after William III. was living in Kensington Palace.
From the first it was very fashionable, and has many celebrated names
connected with it—Addison, Talleyrand, Archbishop Herring, John Stuart
Mill, and many others. The weeping ash trees and circular beds give the
gardens a character of their own. Edwardes differs from all other London
Squares. The small houses and large square garden are said by Leigh Hunt,
who lived there at one time, to have been laid out to suit the taste of French
refugees, who it was thought might take up their quarters there. The small
houses were to suit their empty pockets, and the large garden their taste for

a sociable out-of-door life. Loudon was an admirer of the design of the
garden, which he says was made by Aiglio, an eminent landscape painter, in
1819. The arrangement is quite distinct from other squares—small paths,
partly hidden by groups of bushes and larger trees, all round the edge, and
from them twisting walks diverge towards the centre. At their meeting-point
now stands a shell from the battle of the Alma. The Square with its nice
trees, standard hollies, and even a few conifers and carefully-planted beds,
is further original in possessing a beadle. This gentleman, who lives in a
delightful little house, with a portico in which the visitors to the Square can
shelter from the rain, looks most imposing in his uniform and gold-braided
hat, and adds greatly to the old-world appearance of the place. It is sad to
think the leases all fall in within the next few years, and this quaint
personage and vast garden (it is 3¼ acres) and funny little houses may all
disappear from London.
It is impossible in such a hasty glance to give more than a very faint
sketch of the story of the squares, or a mere suggestion of the romance
attached to them. Though the gardening in many leaves much to be desired,
it is well to appreciate things as they are, and enjoy to the full the pleasure
the sight of the huge planes in Berkeley or Bedford Squares, or Lincoln’s
Inn Fields, can bring even to the harassed Londoner. When the sun shines
through the large leaves, and the chequered light and shade play on the
grass beneath, and sunbeams even light up the massive black stems, which
defy the injurious fogs, they possess a soothing and refreshing power. They,
indeed, add to the enjoyment, the health, and the beauty of London.

CHAPTER X

BURIAL-GROUNDS

Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent,
A man’s good name is his best monument.
—Epitaph in St. Botolph, Aldersgate.

THE disused burial-grounds within the London area must now be counted
among its gardens. There are those who would not have the living benefit
by these hallowed spots set apart for the dead, but the vast majority of
people have welcomed the movement which has led to this change. In some
instances there is no doubt the transformation has been badly done. Here
and there graves have been disturbed and tombstones heedlessly moved, but
on the whole the improvement of the last fifty years has been immense. It is
appalling even to read the accounts of many of the London graveyards
before this reaction set in. The hideous sights, the foul condition in which
God’s acre was often allowed to remain, as revealed by the inquiry held
about 1850, together with the horrors of body-snatchers, are such a
disagreeable contrast to the orderly graveyards of to-day, that the removal
of a few head-stones is a much lesser evil.
Loudon, in the Botanical Magazine, was one of the first to write about
the improvement of public cemeteries, and to point out how they could be
beautified, and the suggestion that the smaller burial-grounds could be
turned into gardens was made as early as 1843 by Sir Edwin Chadwick. But
the closing of them did not come until ten years later, and it was many years
after that, before any attempt was made to turn them into gardens. By 1877
eight had been transformed, and from that time onwards, every year
something has been done. The Metropolitan Gardens Association, started by
Lord Meath (then Lord Brabazon) in 1882, has done much towards
accomplishing this work. One of the earliest churchyards taken in hand was

that of St. Pancras, and joined to it St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The Act
permitting this was in 1875. Perhaps because it was one of the first, it is
also one of the worst in taste and arrangement. The church of St. Pancras-
in-the-Fields is one of the oldest in Middlesex. “For the antiquity thereof” it
“is thought not to yield to St. Paul’s in London.” In 1593 the houses
standing near this old Norman church were much “decaied, leaving poore
Pancras without companie or comfort.” The bell of St. Pancras Church was
said to be the last tolled in England at the time of the Reformation, to call
people to Mass. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, adjoining to the
south side of the churchyard, was “a good spaw, whose water is of a sweet
taste,” very clear, and imbued with various medicinal qualities. These
“Pancras Wells” had a large garden, which extended from the Spa buildings
by the churchyard, between the coach road from Hampstead, and the
footpath across the meadows to Gray’s Inn. As late as 1772 the coach was
stopped and robbed at this corner, and the footpads, armed with cutlasses,
made off through the churchyard. It was of this then lonely, rural
churchyard that it was said the dead would rest “as secure against the day of
resurrection as ... in stately Paules”; but, alas for modern exigencies, the
Midland Railway now spans the sacred ground by a viaduct, and the would-
be improvers, in turning what remained into a garden, have moved the
tombstones, levelled the undulating ground, and heaped the head-stones
into terrible rocky mounds, or pushed them in rows along the wall.
Numerous were the interesting monuments it contained; many a courtly
French emigré here found a resting-place, such as the Comte de Front, on
whose tomb was the line, “A foreign land preserves his ashes with respect.”
Although a monumental tablet put up to record the opening, and the names
of the designers of the garden, proclaims it to be “a boon to the living, a
grace to the dead”; it is doubtful how that respect to the dead was shown.
The lines go on to say it was “not for the culture of health only, but also of
thought.” Surely health and thought could have been equally well
stimulated by making pretty paths, lined with trees and flowers, wind
reverently in and out among the tombs, and up and down the undulating
ground, with seats in shade or sun, arranged with peeps of the old church;
and there might even have been room for the fine sun-dial (the gift of
Baroness Burdett-Coutts) without levelling the whole area and laying it out
with geometrically straight asphalt walks. The asphalt paths are in
themselves a necessity in most cases, as the expense of keeping gravel in

order is too great, and the majority of the renovated disused burial-grounds
suffer from this fact.
Westward from St. Pancras the next large churchyard is that of
Marylebone, and further to the north is St. John’s Wood burial-ground. Its
large trees and shaded walks are familiar to the thousands who go every
year to Lord’s Cricket Ground. Another large one, still more westward, now
used as a garden, is Paddington. The small green patch round St. Mary’s
Church, and a large cemetery beyond, together make over 4 acres. All round
London these spaces are being used, and in most cases little has been done
to upset the ground—among the more prominent are St. George’s, Hanover
Square, in Bayswater; St. John’s, Waterloo Road; Brixton Parish Church,
with a row of yew trees; Fulham Parish Church, with Irish yews, and tall,
closely clipped hollies; St. Mary’s, Upper Street, Islington, and many
others. Some are large spaces, such as St. John-at-Hackney, which covers 3
acres, and in it stands the tower of the old church, the present very large
church which dominates it being in the Georgian style of 1797.
Stepney is the largest of all these disused churchyards, and covers 7
acres. It was opened as a public garden in 1887. The beautiful old
Perpendicular church of St. Dunstan, with its carved gargoyles and fine old
tower, which escaped the fire that destroyed the roof, stands on a low level,
with the large square stone graves, of which there are a great quantity, on
higher mounds round it. The central path, the old approach to the church,
has trees on either side, and runs straight across the graveyard, and is as
peaceful-looking as the walk in many a country churchyard. The way the
laying out as a garden has been carried out is unfortunate in many respects.
The number of the big, stone, box-like monuments made it difficult to carry
intersecting paths across between them, so a plan hardly to be commended
has been followed, of half burying a number of these, and planting bushes
in the earth thus thrown about, and putting the necessary frames for raising
plants in the centre. To place the frames against the wall, and make a raised
path or terrace among the tombs, and not to have banked them up with a
kind of rockery of broken pieces, might have been more fitting. The part of
the ground which is less crowded is well planted. Birch and alder (Alnus
cordifolia) are doing well, and a nice clump of gorse flourishes.
One of the best-arranged of these old East End graveyards is that of St.
George’s-in-the-East, near Ratcliffe Highway. It is kept up by the Borough

of Stepney, having been put in order under the direction of the rector, Rev.
C. H. Turner (now Bishop of Islington), at the expense of Mr. A. G.
Crowder, in 1866. The tombstones have for the most part been placed
against the wall, or left standing if out of the way, as in the case of the one
to the Marr family, whose murder caused horror in 1811. In the centre
stands the obelisk monument to Mrs. Raine, a benefactress of the parish,
who died in 1725. The whole of the ground is laid out with great taste and
simplicity, and is thoroughly well cared for. The flowers seem to flourish
particularly well, and the borders in summer are redolent with the scent of
old clove carnations, which are actually raised and kept from year to year
on the premises. A small green-house supplies the needs of the flower-beds,
The superintendence of the garden is left to Miss Kate Hall, who takes
charge of the Borough of Stepney Museum in Whitechapel Road, and also
of the charming little nature-study museum in the St. George’s Churchyard
Garden. What formerly was the mortuary has been turned to good account,
and hundreds of children in the borough benefit by Miss Hall’s instruction.
Aquaria both for fresh-water fish and shells, and salt-water collections, with
a lobster, starfish, sea anemones, and growing sea weeds are to be seen, and
moths, butterflies, dragon-flies, pass through all their stages, while toads,
frogs, and salamanders and such-like are a great delight. The hedgehog
spends his summer in the garden, and hibernates comfortably in the
museum. The bees at work in the glass hive are another source of
instruction. Outside the museum a special plot is tended by the pupils, who
are allowed in turn to work, dig, and prune, and who obtain, under the eye
of their sympathetic teacher, most creditable results. The charm of this East
End garden, and the special educational uses it has been put to, shows what
can be achieved, and sets a good example to others, where similar
opportunities exist. A less promising neighbourhood for gardening could
hardly be imagined, which surely shows that no one need be disheartened.
Some of the burial-grounds were in such a shocking state before they
were taken in hand, that very few of the head-stones remained in their right
places, and many had gone altogether, while some even reappeared as
paving-stones in the district. Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, had a very chequered
history. The site was first a tea garden, near the famous Sadler’s Wells. For
a few years, from 1770, its “little Pantheon” and pretty garden, with a pond
or “canal” stocked with fish, and alcoves for tea drinkers, was thronged by
the middle class, small tradesmen, and apprentices, while the more

fashionable world flocked to Ranelagh or Almack’s. It was the sort of place
in which John Gilpin and his spouse might have amused themselves, on a
less important holiday than their wedding anniversary. Twenty years later
the scene had changed. The rotunda was turned into a chapel, by the
Countess of Huntingdon, who took up her residence in a jessamine-covered
house that had been a tavern, near to it. The gardens had already been
turned into a private burial-ground, which soon became notorious for the
evil condition in which it was kept. There every single gravestone had
disappeared long before it was converted into the neat little garden, the
delight of poor Clerkenwell children. The rotunda was at length pulled
down, and in 1888 a new church was erected on the site. The same
disgraceful story of neglect and repulsive overcrowding, can be told of the
Victoria Park Cemetery, although the ground had not such a strange early
history. It was one of those private cemeteries which the legislation with
regard to other burial-places did not touch. It was never consecrated, and
abuses of every kind were connected with it. It is a space of 9½ acres in a
crowded district between Bethnal Green and Bow, a little to the south of
Victoria Park. After various difficulties in raising funds and so forth, it was
laid out by the Metropolitan Gardens Association, opened to the public in
1894, and is kept up by the London County Council, and is an extremely
popular recreation ground, under the name of “Meath Gardens.”
One of the quiet spots near the City is Bunhill Fields. This has for over
two hundred years been the Nonconformist burial-ground. The land was
enclosed by a brick wall, by the City of London in 1665 for interments “in
that dreadful year of Pestilence. However, it not being made use of on that
occasion,” a man called “Tindal took a lease thereof, and converted it into a
burial-ground for the use of Dissenters.” As late as 1756 it appears to have
been known as “Tindal’s Burial-ground.” The name Bunhill Fields was
given to that part of Finsbury Fields, on to which quantities of bones were
taken from St. Paul’s in 1549. It is said “above a thousand cartloads of
human bones” were deposited there. No wonder the ghastly name of “bone
hill,” corrupted into Bunhill, has clung to the place. At the present time the
gravestones here are undisturbed, and more respect has been shown to them
than to the bones in the sixteenth century. Asphalt paths meander through a
forest of monuments, and a few seats are placed in the shade of some of the
trees. Those who live in this poor and busy district no doubt make much use
of these places of rest, but the visitor is only brought to this depressing,

gloomy spot on a pilgrimage to the tomb of John Bunyan. He rests near the
centre of the ground, under a modern effigy. Not far off is the tomb of Dr.
Isaac Watts, whose hymns are repeated wherever the British tongue is
spoken, and near him lies the author of “Robinson Crusoe,” Daniel Defoe.
This quaint old enclosure opens off the City Road, opposite Wesley’s
Chapel, and on the western side it is skirted by Bunhill Row. But a few
yards distant is another graveyard of very different aspect, as it contains
only one stone, and that a very small one, with the name of George Fox,
who died in 1690. The other graves in this, the “Friends’ Burial-ground,”
never having been marked in any way, it has the appearance of a dismal
little garden, like the approach or “gravel sweep” to a suburban villa. But it
is neatly kept.
Of all the churchyards, that of St. Paul’s is best known, and least like
the ordinary idea of one. But this was not always so. It was for centuries an
actual burying-place. When the foundations of the present cathedral were
dug, after the Great Fire, a series of early burials were disclosed. There
were Saxon coffins, and below them British graves, where wooden and
ivory pins were found, which fastened the woollen shrouds of those who
rested there, and below that again, between twenty and thirty feet deep,
were Roman remains, with fragments of pottery, rings, beads, and such-like.
The original churchyard was very much larger, as the present houses in
“St. Paul’s Churchyard” are actually on part of the ground included in it. It
extended from Old Change in Cheapside to Paternoster Row, and on the
south to Carter Lane, and the whole was surrounded by a wall built in 1109,
with the principal gateway opening into “Ludgate Street.” This wall seems
to have been unfinished, or else part of it became ruinous in course of time,
and the churchyard became the resort of thieves and ruffians. To remedy
this state of things, the wall was completed and fortified early in the
fourteenth century. It had six gates, and remained like this until the Great
Fire, although long before that date houses had been built against the wall
both within and without. Round here were collected the shops of the most
famous booksellers, such as John Day, who came here in 1575.

(Large)

ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD

On the north side was a plot of ground known as Pardon’s Churchyard,
and here was built a cloister in Henry V.’s time, decorated with paintings to
illustrate Lidgate’s translation of “The Dance of Death.” Here, too, was a
chapel and charnel-house, and the whole was pulled down by order of the
Protector Somerset, who used some of the material in building Somerset
House. It was on that occasion that the cartloads of bones were removed to
Finsbury Fields. There, covered with earth, they made a solid, conspicuous
hill on which windmills were erected. It was part of this same ground which
has already been referred to as Bunhill Fields. Great as was the damage
done by the Fire, perhaps no site has been so completely altered as that of
St. Paul’s. The modern cathedral, dearly loved by all Londoners, stands at
quite a different angle from the old one, the western limit of which is
marked by the statue of Queen Anne. Nestling close to the south-west
corner of the great Gothic cathedral with its lofty spire, was the parish
church of St. Gregory, and the crypt was the parish church of St. Faith’s.
Both these parishes were allocated a portion of the churchyard for their
burials.
To the north-east of the cathedral stood Paul’s Cross, the out-door
pulpit whence many notable sermons were preached. It is described by
Stowe. “About the middest of this Churchyard is a pulpit-crosse of timber,
mounted upon steps of stone, and covered with Lead, in which are Sermons
preached by learned Divines, every Sunday in the fore-noone. The very
antiquity of which Crosse is to me unknowne.” The earliest scene he
records as taking place at this “crosse,” was when Henry III., in 1259,
commanded the Mayor to cause “every stripling of twelve years of age and
upward to assemble there,” to swear “to be true to the King and his heires,
Kings of England.” In later times, the most distinguished preachers of the
day were summoned to preach before the Court and the Mayor, Aldermen
and citizens, and the political significance of such harangues may well be
imagined. It was here Papal Bulls were promulgated; here Tyndal’s
translation of the New Testament was publicly burnt; here Queen Elizabeth
listened to a sermon of thanksgiving on the defeat of the Armada—only to
mention a few of the associations that cling round the spot, which, until
within the last fifty years, was marked by an old elm tree which kept its
memory green. Now it is treated with scant respect. There is, indeed, a little
wooden notice-board, like a giant flower-label, stuck into the ground by an
iron support, which records the fact that here stood Paul’s Cross, destroyed

by the Fire of 1666. The notice is not so large or conspicuous as the one a
few feet from it, beseeching the kindly friends of the pigeons not to feed
them on the flower-beds! It is to be hoped that before long the bequest of
£5000 of the late H. C. Richards, for the re-erection of the Cross, may be
embodied in some visible form.
What a picture such recollections call up!—the excited crowds with all
the colour of Tudor costumes, the eager, fanatical faces of the “defenders of
the Faith,” the sad and despondent faces of the intensely serious Reformers,
as they see the blue smoke curl upwards, and the flames consume the sacred
volumes.
Picture the churchyard once more in still earlier times, when strange,
fantastic customs clung round the cathedral services. One of the most
original seems to have arisen from the tenure of land in Essex granted to Sir
William Baud by the Dean and Chapter. The twenty-two acres of land were
held on the condition that “hee would (for ever) upon the Feast day of the
Conversion of Paul in Winter give unto them a good Doe, seasonable and
sweete, and upon the Feast of the Commemoration of St. Paul in Summer, a
good Buck, and offer the same at the high Altar, the same to bee spent
amongst the Canons residents.” On the appointed days the keeper who had
brought the deer carried it through the procession to the high altar. There the
head was severed, and the body sent off to be cooked, while the horns,
stuck on a spear, were carried round the cathedral. The procession consisted
of the Dean and Chapter in their copes—special ones for the two occasions
—one embroidered with does, the other with bucks, the gift of the Baud
family, and on their heads garlands of roses. Having performed the
ceremony within the church, the whole procession issued out of the west
door, and there the keeper blew a blast upon his horn, and when he had
“blowed the death of the Bucke,” the “Horners that were about the City
presently answered him in like manner.” The Dean and Chapter paid the
blowers of horns fourpence each and their dinner, while the man who
brought the venison got five shillings and his food and lodgings, and a
“loafe of bread, having the picture of Saint Paul upon it,” to take away with
him. What a strange picture of mediæval life and half-pagan rites! yet all
conducted with perfect good faith, in all seriousness. It is just one of the
great charms of knowing London and its traditions, that one is able to clear
away in imagination the growth of centuries, and throw back one’s mind to

the past—to stand at the top of Ludgate Hill and to remove Wren’s building
and to see the Gothic pinnacles; to blot out the garden and fountain and
modern seats, and see Paul’s Cross; on the left to see the arches of the
cloisters, and on the right the high wall and timbered houses; then to open
the western door and see this strange procession issue forth, with the antlers
borne aloft, and hear the bugle-blast and answering notes.
Surely no place can be more crowded with memories than busy,
“roaring London,” and nowhere are the past and present so unexpectedly
brought together. The City is full of surprises to those who have leisure to
wander among its narrow, crowded streets. The quiet little graveyards
afford many of these telling contrasts. Suddenly, in the busiest
thoroughfares, where a constant stream of men are walking by every
weekday, come these quiet little back-waters. In many cases the churches
themselves have vanished, or only remain in part. St. Mary’s Staining is one
of these, so hidden away that one might walk along Fenchurch Street
hundreds of times and never find it. The approach is by a very narrow alley,
at the end of which is this quiet little graveyard, where, among other
worthies, reposes Sir Arthur Savage, knighted at Cadiz in 1596. The church,
all except the tower, was destroyed in the Great Fire, and never rebuilt. The
picturesque old tower stands in the centre of this little plot, which now
forms the garden of the Clothworkers’ Company, whose hall opens on to
one side of it.
Another church which perished in the Fire and was never rebuilt is St.
Olave’s, Hart Street, but its churchyard remains, and a few large tombs
stand in a small garden with seats, where at all times of the year some
weary wayfarers are resting.
Another such graveyard where the burnt church was not restored is at
the corner of Wood Street and Cheapside. The old tree inside the closed
railings may have inspired the lark to carol so joyously as to call up the
“vision of poor Susan.”
St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate, has one of the largest churchyards in the City,
but it really consists of four pieces of land thrown into one in 1892, by a
scheme under the London Parochial Charities, which contributed part of the
purchase-money of some of the land, and gives £150 a year for the upkeep
—£100 being paid to them by the General Post Office, which has the right

of light over the whole space. One-half of the churchyard is St. Botolph’s,
and the rest is made up of the burial-grounds of St. Leonard, Foster Lane,
and Christ Church, Newgate Street, and a strip of land which might have
been built on, but which, under the revised scheme in 1900, became
permanently part of this open space. The garden is carefully laid out; there
are nice plane trees and a little fountain, regular paths and numerous seats.
A sheltered gallery runs along one side, and in it are tablets to
commemorate deeds of heroism in humble life—Londoners who lost their
lives in saving the lives of others. The church of St. Botolph was one which
escaped the Fire, but had fallen into such disrepair that it was rebuilt, by Act
of Parliament, in 1754. The Act specially stipulates that none of the
gravestones were to be removed, but where some of them are, now that it is
a trim garden, it would be hard to say. Being not far from the General Post
Office, this garden is so much used by its officials during the middle of the
day, it has earned the name of the “Postman’s Park.”

(Large)

Sun-dial, St. Botolph’s

Another much-frequented but much smaller churchyard is that of St.
Katharine Coleman. Suddenly, in a corner of crowded Fenchurch Street,
comes this retired shade. The church, with its old high pews, and tiny
graveyard, devoid of monuments, is a peaceful oasis. These surprises in the
densest parts of the City are very refreshing, and they are too numerous to
mention each individually. Most of them now are neatly kept, though some
look dreary enough. None of them recall the neglect of half a century ago.
St. Olave’s, Hart Street, in Seething Lane, is perhaps among the most
gloomy. It is the church Pepys speaks of so often as “our owne church,” and
was one of the churches that escaped the Fire. The archway with the skulls
over it, leads from Seething Lane to the dismal-looking churchyard.
Nothing is done to alter or brighten this place of many memories. One
shudders to think of what it must have been like when Pepys crossed it for
the first time after the Great Plague, when he went to the memorial service
for King Charles I., on 30th January 1666. No wonder he says it “frighted
me indeed to go through the church more than I thought it could have done,
to see so many graves lie so high upon the churchyard, where people have
been buried of the Plague. I was much troubled about it, and do not think to
go through it again a good while.” The parish registers show that no less
than 326 were interred in this very small place, during the previous six
months, so Pepys’ feelings were well justified. The old church has a special
interest to lovers of gardens, as in it is the tomb of William Turner, the
author of the first English Herbal.
In more than one City churchyard a portion of the old wall makes its
appearance. There is St. Alphage, London Wall, and Allhallows-in-the-Wall,
where the little gardens by the wall have been formed with a view to
preserving it. The most picturesque is St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, where Milton
is buried. The graveyard is large, and the ground rises above the footpath,
which was made across it some thirty years ago, to a bastion of the wall, of
rough stones and flint, which is in its old state, although part of the wall was
rebuilt in 1803. There has been no attempt here to make it a resting-place
for the living, although it is used as a thoroughfare.

(Large)

THE BANK GARDEN

Few people who have not entered the Bank of England would suspect it
of enclosing an extremely pretty garden. There the inner courtyard
possesses tall lime trees, gay rhododendrons, and a cool splashing fountain,
with ferns and iris glistening in the spray. It is quite one of the most
delightfully fresh and peaceful corners on a hot summer’s day, and carries
one in imagination to Italy. Yet this is but another of the many old City
churchyards. The parish of St. Christopher-le-Stocks was absorbed, with
five other parishes, into St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, in 1781. Some of the
tombs, and pictures of Moses and Aaron, were removed from it, and are still
to be seen in St. Margaret’s, which is crowded with monuments from all six
churches. The Bank was already in possession of most of the land within
the parish, and by the Act of Parliament of 1781, the church and churchyard
became part of the Bank premises, which cover nearly three acres. The
church site was built over, but the graveyard became the garden. This

enclosure at first was a simple grass plot, as shown in an engraving dated
1790. The lime trees may have been planted soon after, as they appear as
large trees sixty years later, and are spoken of in 1855 as two of the finest
lime trees in London. The fountain was put up in 1852 by Mr. Thomas
Hankey, then the governor. The water for it came from the tanks belonging
to the Bank, supplied by an artesian well 330 feet deep, said to be very
pure, and free from lime. Perhaps that is why the rhododendrons look so
flourishing. Most of the Bank, as is well known, was the work of the
architect Sir John Soane, but some of the portions built by Sir Robert
Taylor, before his death in 1788, when Soane was appointed to succeed
him, are to be seen in the garden court. It is said that the last person buried
there was a Bank clerk named Jenkins, who was 7½ feet in height. He was
allowed to rest there, as he feared he might be disinterred on account of his
gigantic proportions.
Very different is the churchyard of St. Martin’s, on Ludgate Hill. It
belongs to Stationers’ Hall, and although it boasts of one fine plane tree, is
an untidy, grimy, dingy little square. By permission of all the necessary
authorities, the coffins (480 in number) were removed and reverently buried
in Brookwood Cemetery in 1893, a careful register of all the names and
dates, that could be deciphered, being kept. This having been done, the
earth was merely left in an irregular heap round the tree, and no attempt has
been made to improve in any way the forsaken appearance of the place.
This sketch does not aim at being a guide-book, and it would only be
tedious to enumerate the many churchyards, without as well as within the
City, which of late years have been made worthy “gardens of sleep.” St.
Luke’s, Old Street; St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch; St. Anne’s, Soho; St.
Sepulchre, Holborn, and many others in every part of the town, from being
dreary and untidy, have become orderly and well kept; and instead of being
unwholesome and unsightly, have become attractive harbours of refuge in
the sea of streets and houses.

CHAPTER XI

INNS OF COURT

Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.
At length they all to mery London came,

* * * * *
There when they came, whereas those brickly towers
The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde
Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers,
There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,
Till they decayed through pride:

* * * * *
Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.
—Spenser: “Prothalamion, or a Spousall Verse.”

THERE are no more peaceful gardens in all London than those among the
venerable buildings devoted to the study of the law. There is a sense of
dignity and repose, the moment one has entered from the noisy
thoroughfares which surround these quiet courts. They may be dark, dull,
and dingy, as seen by a Dickens, and sombre and serious, to those whose
business lies there; but to the ordinary Londoner, who loves the old world
of the City, and the links that bind the present with the past, there are no
more reposeful places than these gardens. The courts and buildings seem
peopled with those who have worked and lived there. If stones could speak,
what tales some of these could tell!

The best-known, perhaps, of the gardens are those belonging to the
Inner and Middle Temple, as their green lawns are visible from the
Embankment. They add greatly to the charm of one of London’s most
beautiful roadways, now, alas! desecrated by the rush of electric trams, and
its fine young trees sacrificed to make yet more rapid the stream of beings
hourly passing between South London and the City. The modern whirl of
business life can leave nothing untouched in this age of bustle, money-
making, ceaseless toil, and care. Even pleasures have to be provided by
united effort, and partake of noise and hurry. Thought and contemplation
are hardly counted among the pleasures of life; yet to those who value
them, even to look through the iron railings on the smooth turf brings a
sense of relief. Even to those who scarcely seem to feel it, the very
existence of these haunts of comparative peace, which flash on their vision
as they hurry by, leaves something, a subtle influence, a faint impression on
the brain. It must make a difference to a child who knows nothing beyond
the noisy streets and alleys in which its lot is cast, to hear the rooks caw and
the birds sing in the quiet gardens of Gray’s Inn. It must come as a welcome
relief, even though unperceived and unappreciated, from the din and clatter
in which most of its days are passed. One cannot be too grateful that it has
not been thought necessary to change and modernise “our English juridical
university.”
Although the four great Inns of Court are untouched, the lesser Inns
have vanished or are vanishing. Clement’s Inn has gone. The garden there
was small, but had a special feature of its own—a sun-dial upheld by the
kneeling figure of a blackamoor. This is now preserved in the Temple
Garden, where it appeared soon after Clement’s Inn was disestablished in
1884. Clement’s Inn, which appertained to the Inner Temple, was so named
from the Church of St. Clement Danes and St. Clement’s Well, where “the
City Youth on Festival Days used to entertain themselves with a variety of
Diversions.” The sun-dial is said to have been presented to the Inn by a
Holles, Lord Clare, and some writers state that it was brought from Italy. It
was, however, more probably made in London by John Van Nost, a Dutch
sculptor, who came to England in William III.’s time, and established
himself in Piccadilly. When he died in 1711 the business was continued by
John Cheere, brother of Sir Henry Cheere, who executed various
monuments in Westminster Abbey. Similar work is known to have issued
from this studio. At Clifford’s Inn, which was also attached to the Inner

Temple, there is still a vestige of the garden, but it looks a miserable
doomed wreck, a few black trees rising among heaps of earth and rubbish.
It was described in 1756 as “an airy place, and neatly kept; the garden being
inclosed with a pallisado Pale, and adorned with Rows of Lime trees, set
round the gravel Plats and gravel walks.” Its present forlorn appearance is
certainly not suggestive of its past glories. Barnard’s Inn has been converted
into a school by the Mercers’ Company; it also has its court and trees on a
very small scale. Staples Inn, so familiar from the timbered, gabled front it
presents to Holborn, carefully preserved by the Prudential Assurance
Company, its present owners, still has its quiet little quadrangle of green at
the back. It was of that Dickens wrote such an inimitable description. “It is
one of those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing streets
imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in his
ears and velvet soles on his boots.” Furnival’s, Thavies’, and all the other
Inns famous in olden days, have disappeared, and their quiet little gardens
with them.
The Temple Gardens are larger now than in the earlier days of their
history, as then there was nothing to keep the Thames within its channel at
high tide. The landing steps from the river were approached by a causeway
of arches across the muddy banks. It was not until 1528 that a protecting
wall was built, and a pathway ran outside the wall between it and the river.
Gardens must have existed on this site from a very early date. When the
Templars moved there from Holborn and built the church in 1185, it was all
open country round, with a few great houses and conventual buildings
standing in their own orchards and gardens. After the suppression of the
Order, it was in the hands of Aimer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and in
1324 the land was given to the Knights of St. John. As they had their own
buildings and church not far off, they granted it “to the Students of the
Common Lawes of England: in whose possession the same hath sithence
remained.” All the consecrated land, and all within the City, was included in
the grant to the Knights of St. John: besides this there was some land
outside the City, or the Outer Temple, part of which remained in secular
hands, and in later times was covered by Essex House, with its famous
gardens. The section belonging to the Law Societies, beyond the City, is
spoken of in early records as the Outer Garden, and from time to time
buildings were erected on it—at first under protest, as in 1565 there was an
order “for the plucking down of a study newly erected,” and again in 1567,

“the nuisance made by Woodye, by building his house in the Outer Garden,
shall be abated and plucked down, or as much thereof as is upon Temple
ground.” All this garden has long ago been completely built over, and the
large spaces now forming the Temple Gardens are those anciently known as
the “Great Garden,” belonging to the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple
Garden. The Outer Temple (never another Inn) was merely the ground
outside the limits of the City.
The long green slopes down to the Embankment, are much larger than
the older gardens, as the wall which was built in 1528 to keep out the river,
cut across from where No. 10 King’s Bench Walk now stands. The wall
must have been a vast improvement, and was greatly appreciated. In 1534 a
vote of thanks was passed by the “parliament” of the Inner Temple to the
late Treasurer, John Parkynton, who had “takyn many and sundrie payns in
the buylding of the walle betwene the Thamez and the garden,” for which
“greate dyligens” they gave unto him “hartey thankes.” And, indeed, the
garden must sorely have needed this protection. It is difficult to picture the
Temple in the sixteenth century, and the little gardens must have been as
bewildering as the present courts and buildings. In the records there are
references to various gardens, no doubt small enclosures like the present
courts, besides the Great Garden and the kitchen-garden. There was the nut
garden, perhaps adorned with nut trees, as Fig-tree Court probably was with
figs. There is more than one record of payments for attending to the fig-tree
or painting rails round it. In 1610, just at the time James I. brought them
into notice, a mulberry was “set in Fairfield’s Court.” In 1605 seats were set
“about the trees in Hare’s Court”; thus all the courts were more or less little
gardens. In 1510 a chamber is assigned to some one “in the garden called le
Olyvaunte.” This was probably the Elephant, from a sign carved or painted
to distinguish a particular house facing it. There was similarly “le Talbott,”
probably from a greyhound sign, in another court. The houses facing the
Great Garden apparently had steps descending into it from the chief rooms,
and it was a special privilege to have your staircase opening on to it. Thus,
“May 1573, Mr. Wyott and Mr. Hall, licensed to have ‘a steeyrs’ (stairs)
from their chamber into the garden.” The Great Garden was constantly
being encroached on as new chambers were built. Entries in the records
with regard to permission to build into the garden often occur; for
instance—

“1581. Thomas Compton ... to build ... within the compass of the
garden or little Court ... from the south corner of the brick wall of the said
garden ... 57 feet ... and from the said wall into the garden 22 feet.”
On one occasion a license to build was exceeded, and the offence
further aggravated by cutting down “divers timber trees.” The offender was
at first put out of commons, and fined £20, which was afterwards mitigated
to £5, with the addition of a most wise proviso, that “he shall plant double
the number of trees he caused to be cut down.” Would that the fault of
felling timber always met with the same punishment!
When houses were put on the site of the present Paper Buildings in
1610, the Great Garden was cut in two, and the eastern portion went to form
the broad stretch with its trees known as King’s Bench Walk. Elm trees
were planted, and the walks and seats under them repaired from time to
time, and kept in good order. The part to the west was carefully tended, and
became from that year the chief garden. In James I.’s reign, that age of
gardening, when every house of any pretensions was having its garden
enlarged, and Bacon was laying out the grounds of Gray’s Inn, the Temple
was not behind-hand. The accounts show constant repairs and additions and
buying of trees. The items for painting posts and rails are very frequent.
Probably they do not always refer to outer palings, but it may be that the
Tudor fashion of railing round the beds, with a low trellis and posts at the
angles, still prevailed. One of the largest items of the expenses was for
making “the pound” in 1618. This, it is said, was a pond, but no record of
digging it out, or filling it with water occurs, while all the payments in
connection with it went to painters or carpenters, and therefore it was more
probably a kind of garden-house, much in favour at that time, made by the
wall, to command a view over the river. The chief items with regard to it
are:—
“1618, To John Fielde, the carpenter, for making ‘the pound’ in the
garden, £19.”
“To Bowden, the painter, for stopping and ‘refreshing’ the rails in the
‘wakes’ (walks), the posts, seats and balusters belonging to the same, and
for stopping and finishing the ‘pound’ by the waterside, £9, 10s.”
Again in 1639 the entry certainly implies some kind of summer-house
and not “a pond”: “Edward Simmes, carpenter, for repairing ‘the pound’

and other seats in the garden and walks, &c., £15, 8s.” There must have
been another summer-house at the same time, unless the sums paid to a
plasterer “for work done about the summer-house in the garden,” in 1630,
refers to the same “pound.”
A great deal seems to have been done to the Garden during the first few
years of the Commonwealth, and large sums were expended in procuring
new gravel and turf: “392 loads of gravel at 2s. 6d. the load” is one entry.
But the chief work was the re-turfing. An arrangement was made, by
payment of various small sums to the poor of Greenwich, to cut 3000 turfs
on Blackheath, and convey them in lighters to the Temple Stairs. A second
transaction procured them 2000 more, each turf being a foot broad and a
yard long. These amounts would cover a third of an acre with turf. The head
gardeners seem to have been particularly unruly people. Although they
remained in office many years, there were frequent complaints. On one
occasion this official had cut down trees, another time he had the plague,
and his house was frequented by rogues and beggars. At first the gardener’s
house was on the present King’s Bench Walk side of the Garden, near the
river; later on, near where Harcourt Buildings are now. In 1690 the house,
then in Middle Temple Lane, was turned into an ale-house, and evidently
none of the quietest, for the occupier was forbidden to sell drink, and the
“door out of the gardener’s lodge towards the water gate” was ordered to be
bricked up, so as to prevent all the riffraff from the river rioting in his
rooms. Yet the post descended from father to son. In 1687 Thomas Elliott
succeeded his father, Seth Elliott, who had been there some years, and when
in 1708 Charles Gardner had taken the second Elliott’s place, his daughter
Elizabeth’s name occurs as a recipient of money, and Elliott himself
received a pension of £20 a-year, although he was the culprit of the riotous
ale-house. During the years succeeding the Restoration, the Garden seems
to have been little touched. The kitchen-garden would still be maintained,
and either it was farmed by the gardener, or its supplies were inadequate, as
on fast-days there was always a special payment to the gardener for
vegetables. Such items as the following are of frequent occurrence:
“Sallating for the hall in grass week, strewings and ‘bow pots’ for the hall in
Easter and Trinity terms.”
Though the French fashions in gardening of Charles II.’s reign do not
seem to have affected the Temple precincts, yet the Dutch influence that

came in with William and Mary made itself felt. A small garden was
specially set apart for the Benchers, and done up entirely in the prevailing
style. A piece of ground between King’s Bench Office and Serjeants’ Inn
was made use of for this. It had been let to the Alienation Office, but after
the Great Fire the Temple resumed the control of it, and finally did it up and
replanted it for the use of the Benchers. It was known as the “Benchers’,”
the “Little” or the “Privy” Garden, and great care, attention, and money
were expended on it. Turf, gravel, and plants were bought; a sun-dial put on
the wall; orange trees set out in tubs; and a fountain erected in the middle.
This fountain must have been the chief feature of the Garden, and from the
immense amount of care it required to keep it in order, it seems that it was
one of those elaborate “waterworks,” without which no garden was then
complete. Such fountains were made with secret arrangements for turning
on the water, which dropped from birds’ bills, or spurted out of dolphins or
such-like, with an unpleasant suddenness which gave the unwary visitor a
shower-bath. Other fountains played tunes or set curious machinery in
motion, or otherwise surprised the beholder. From the descriptions, this one
in the Benchers’ Garden doubtless concealed some original variation. It
consisted of a lion’s face with a copper scallop shell, and a copper cherry-
tree with branches, and perhaps the water dropped from the leaves. One
payment in 1700 occurs for “a new scallop shell to the fountain, for a cock
and a lion’s face to draw the water out of the fountain, and for keeping the
fountain in repair, £12.” The copper cherry-tree was painted, and perhaps
the Pegasus—the arms of the Inner Temple—figured in the strange medley,
as the cost of painting the tree and “gilding the horse” are together paid to
the man “Fowler,” who had charge of the fountain. The “best way to bring
the water” had to be carefully considered for these “waterworks” which
Fowler was designing and carrying out, and it evidently was brought up to
the pitch of perfection required of a fountain in those days. There was also a
summer-house with a paved floor, and an alcove with seats. Altogether,
even without the glories of the strange fountain, the little enclosed Dutch
garden must have been an attractive place.

(Large)

THE INNER TEMPLE GARDEN

While the Benchers’ Garden was being made, the Great Garden was not
neglected. Its form was altered to suit the prevailing taste. This remodelling
must have begun in the winter of 1703, as it was then resolved that “the
trees in the Great Garden be cut down, and the Garden to be put in the same
model as the gardener hath proposed.” The delightful terrace, which is still
one of the most beautiful features in the Garden, existed before these
alterations began, but the sun-dial which still adorns it was added during
these changes. The payment for it was made to Strong, who was contractor
for St. Paul’s under Wren: “To Edward Strong, for the pedestal for the dial
in the Great Garden steps, &c., £25.” The beautiful gates of wrought iron
were put up in 1730. The design shows the arms of Gray’s Inn, as well as
the winged horse of the Inner Temple, in compliment to the other learned

society, its close ally. In the same way the Pegasus occurs at Gray’s Inn. It
was probably along this terrace that some of the orange trees in pots were
placed during the summer. The pots in which these oranges and other
“greens” were grown seem to have been specially decorative. It was a
serious offence when Allgood, a member of the Inn, broke some, and was
obliged to “furnish other pots of like fashion and value,” otherwise he
would “be put out of commons.” After this others were purchased, as the
payment of £8 was made “for a large mould, carved in wood, for casting of
earthen pots for the Garden”; and in other years further similar expenses
occur, one in 1690 “to the potter for a large pot made for the Garden,
painted in oil, £1, 5s.” Some of the plants grown would stand the winter in
the open, but after the oranges made their appearance a shelter had to be
provided. Green-houses owed their origin to this necessity, and as they were
only used in winter, and merely sheltered the large pots of “greens,” these
green-houses or orangeries were built like rooms, and used as summer-
houses during warm months. All the larger gardens had their green-houses,
but the smaller proprietors frequently sent their plants away to a
nurseryman to be housed during the winter. Even the “greens” at
Kensington Palace were kept by London and Wise, until the new orangery
was built. The Temple orange trees were first sent to the house of Cadrow at
Islington. In 1704 the green-house seems to have been made, and used as a
garden-house in summer. Such items in the accounts as “a chimney-glass
and sconces for the green-house” show that it was in the usual solid
architectural style then in fashion. That the “panierman,” an officer, one of
whose duties was to summon members to meals by blowing a horn, was
appointed to take charge of it as well as of the library, is a further proof that
it bore the character of a room, and was more or less outside the gardener’s
department. The panierman also had the care of the elaborate fountain, after
it had been supervised for some years by the maker. This green-house stood
at the end of the terrace, which still runs parallel with Crown Office Row,
and near the site of Harcourt Buildings, behind the gardener’s house. This
gardener’s house was pulled down two or three years later to make way for
Harcourt Buildings, which was joined to the summer-house. The first or
ground floor opened on to the garden below the “paved walk” or terrace, on
which level stood the summer-house.
The most fascinating feature of a garden ought to be its flowers, and of
these also some particulars can be gleaned from the accounts. There is

enough to show that the Temple Garden was quite up to date in its
horticulture, and that it followed fashion as closely in its plants as in its
design. It is not surprising to find Dutch bulbs, and especially tulips, being
bought when such a lover of those flowers as Sir Thomas Hanmer was a
member. He was one of those who devoted much time to the culture of that
flower, when the tulip mania was at its height, and raised new varieties,
which were known by his name, “the agate Hanmer.” In 1703 the list of
bulbs purchased is carefully noted. There were “200 ‘junquiles’ at 6s. a
hundred; for 200 tulips at 5s. a hundred; for 100 yellow Dutch crocus, for
50 Armathagalum.” The spelling of “junquiles” is much more correct than
our modern “jonquil,” and all the old writers would have written it so.
Parkinson, in 1629, describes them as “Narcissus juncifolius” or the
“Junquilia or Rush Daffodill”; but “Ornithogalum” was too much for the
Temple scribe. The “Ornithogalum” or “Starre of Bethlehem,” and probably
one of the rarer varieties, must be meant by “Armathagalum.” The Arabian
variety was then “nursed in gardens,” but it should be “housed all the
winter, that so it may bee defended from the frosts,” wrote Parkinson, and
sadly admitted that the two roots sent to him “out of Spain” had “prospered
not” “for want of knowledge” of this “rule.” There was also the “Starre
flower of Æthiopia,” which “was gathered by some Hollanders on the West
side of the Cape of Good Hope”; and this is more likely to have been the
variety bought for the Temple with the other Dutch bulbs. Among the other
purchases were various shrubs, on which the topiary art was then
commonly practised. There were “15 yew trees for the Great Garden in
pots, ... 4 box trees for the grass plots, ... 12 striped ‘fillerayes’”—this latter
being variegated phillyreas (most likely angustifolia), which were largely
used for cutting into quaint shapes. Another account is for “28 standard
laurels, 4 ‘perimic’ (laurels), 6 junipers, 4 hollies, and 2 perimic box trees.”
These “perimetric” trees had already gone through the necessary clipping
and training, to enable them to take their place in the trim Dutch garden.
Another year flowering shrubs are got for the Benchers’ Garden: “2
messerius at 2s., and 2 lorrestines at 2s.” The Daphne mezereum had been a
favourite in English gardens from the earliest times, and the laurestinus
(Viburnum tinus) came from South Europe in the sixteenth century.
Parkinson, the most attractive of all the old gardening authors, has a
delightfully true description of the “Laurus Tinus,” with its “many small
white sweete-smelling flowers thrusting together, ... the edges whereof have

a shew of a wash purple or light blush in them; which for the most part fall
away without bearing any perfect ripe fruit in our countrey: yet sometimes
it hath small black berries, as if they were good, but are not”! Fruit-trees
were also to be found—peaches, “nectrons,” cherries, and plums, besides
figs and mulberries. That the walls were covered with climbing roses and
jessamine is certain, from the oft-recurring cost of nailing them up. “Nails
and list for the jessamy wall,” and the needful bits of old felt required to
fasten them up, was another time supplied by “hatt parings for the
jessamines.”
Thus it is easy, bit by bit, out of the old accounts, to piece together the
Garden, until the mind’s eye can see back into the days of Queen Anne, and
take an imaginary walk through it on a fine spring evening. The Bencher
walks out of the large window of the “green-house” on to the terrace, where
the sun-dial points the hour: the orange trees, glossy and fresh from their
winter quarters, stand in stiff array, in the large artistic pots. Down the steps,
a few stiff beds are bright with Dutch bulbs in flower. The turf, well rolled
(for a new stone roller has just been purchased), stretches down to the river
between straight lines of quaintly cut box, yews, and hollies. He sees Surrey
hills clear in the early evening light, and the barges sail by, and boats pass
up and down the river. He may linger on one of the seats in the garden-
house overlooking the river, or wander back under the stately elms of
King’s Bench Walk, to rest awhile in the Privy Garden, where the air is
scented with mezereum, and cooled by the drops that fall from the metal
leaves hanging over the basin of the fountain.
The Middle Temple, too, had its Benchers’ Garden, and part of it
survives to this day in the delightful Fountain Court. The Benchers’ Garden
was larger, covering the ground where Garden Court now stands, up to the
wall of the famous gardens of Essex House. A garden covered the space
where the library has been built, and the terrace and steps in front of the
fountain reached right across to the Essex House wall. Below the beautiful
old hall which Queen Elizabeth opened in person, and where Shakespeare’s
contemporaries witnessed “Twelfth Night,” lay the rest of the Garden, with
green lawns and shady trees down the water’s edge. The fountain, once the
glory of the Benchers’ private garden, is still one of the most delightful in
all London. Sir Christopher Hatton, whose garden of Ely Place—wrung by
Queen Elizabeth from the unwilling Bishop—was not far off, was an

admirer of the Middle Temple fountain. It was kept, he says, “in so good
order as always to force its stream to a vast and almost incredible altitude. It
is fenced with timber palisades, constituting a quadrangle, wherein grow
several lofty trees, and without are walks extending on every side of the
quadrangle, all paved with Purbeck, very pleasant and delightful.” In an
eighteenth-century picture, with groups of strollers and a lady passing the
gay company in her sedan chair, the palings are superseded by fine iron
railings enclosing the lofty jet, its marble basin, and shady trees. The
pavement ended with the terrace wall overlooking the garden below, and the
Thames covered at high tide what is now the lower part of the lawn. The
Fountain Court has inspired many a thought which has found expression in
prose and verse, but no picture is more vivid or well known than the figure
of Ruth Pinch, in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” waiting for her brother “with the
best little laugh upon her face that ever played in opposition to the
fountain,” or the description at the end, of that crowning day to her
happiness, when she walks there with John Westlock, and “Brilliantly the
Temple Fountain splashed in the sun, and laughingly its liquid music
played, and merrily the idle drops of water danced and danced, and peeping
out in sport among the trees, plunged lightly down to hide themselves, as
little Ruth and her companion came towards it.” The fountain has suffered
some modernising changes since Dickens wrote those lines; but in spite of
them there is still music in its sound, which calls up dreams of other ages
and of brighter gardens as it tosses its spray into the murky air.

“Away in the distance is heard the vast sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains or ocean’s deep call:
Yet that fountain’s low singing is heard over all.”
—Miss Landon.

Of all the incidents that are associated with particular places, none
stands out more vividly than the scene told by Shakespeare, of the first
beginning to the Wars of the Roses in the Temple Garden.

(Large)

THE FOUNTAIN COURT, MIDDLE TEMPLE

Richard Plantagenet, with the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick,
Vernon, and a lawyer, enter the Temple Garden (“Henry VI.” Pt. I. Act 2, sc.
iv.).
Suffolk.
Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;
The garden here is more convenient.
Plantagenet.
Then say at once if I maintained the truth,
Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error?

* * * * *
The direct answer being evaded, Plantagenet continues—
Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts;
Let him that is a true-born gentleman,

And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
Somerset.
Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

* * * * *
Warwick.
I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
Suffolk.
I pluck this red rose with young Somerset.

* * * * *
Vernon.
I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,
Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

* * * * *
Lawyer (to Somerset)
... The argument you held was wrong in you,
In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.
Plan.
Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Som.

Here, in my scabbard, meditating that
Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

* * * * *
Plan.
Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
Som.
Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?

Plan.
Ay, sharp and piercing to maintain his truth;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.
Som.
Well, I’ll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
That shall maintain what I have said is true.

* * * * *
Warwick.
And here I prophesy this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden,
Shall send between the red rose and the white
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

With such a tradition the Temple Garden should never be without its
roses. They are one of those friendly plants which will do their best to fight
against fog and smoke, and flower boldly for two or three years in
succession: so a supply of red and white, and the delightful Rosa mundi, the
“York and Lancaster,” could without much difficulty be seen there every
summer. Certainly some of the finest roses in existence have been in the
Temple Gardens, as the Flower Shows, which are looked forward to by all
lovers of horticulture, have for many years been permitted to take place in
these historic grounds. How astonished those adherents of the red or white
roses would have been to see the colours, shades, and forms which the
descendants of those briars now produce. The Plantagenet Garden would
not contain many varieties, although every known one was cherished in
every garden, as roses have always been first favourites. Besides the briars,
dog roses, and sweet briars, there was the double white and double red, a
variety of Rosa gallica. Many so-called old-fashioned roses, such as the
common monthly roses, came to England very much later, and the vast
number of gorgeous hybrids are absolutely new. Elizabethan gardens had a
fair show of roses with centifolia, including moss and Provence roses, and
York and Lancaster, Rosa lutea, musk, damask, and cinnamon roses in
several varieties; and as the old records show, the Temple Garden was well
supplied with roses. All these probably flourished there in the days of
Shakespeare, and would readily suggest the scene he immortalised.
Among the spirits that haunt the Temple Garden, there is none that
seems to cling to it more than that of Charles Lamb. It should be a pride of
these peaceful gardens that they helped to mould that lovable and unselfish
character. A schoolfellow, who describes his ways as a boy at Christ’s
Hospital, recalls how all his young days were spent in the solemn
surrounding of the Temple, and how, while at school, “On every half
holiday (and there were two in the week), in ten minutes he was in the
gardens, on the terrace, or at the fountain of the Temple. Here was his

home, here his recreation; and the influence they had on his infant mind is
vividly shown in his description of the old Benchers.”
“Shadows we are and like shadows depart,” suggests the sun-dial on
the wall of Pump Court, but shadows of such gentle spirits as Charles Lamb
leave something behind, and those “footprints on the sands of time” are
nowhere more traceable than in these solemn precincts of law with their
quiet, restful gardens.
The attractions of the Temple are so great, one feels loth to cross the
noisy thoroughfare and plunge through the traffic till the stately old
gateway out of Chancery Lane, on which Ben Jonson is said to have
worked, affords an opening towards the spacious gardens of Lincoln’s Inn.
Lincoln’s Inn Gardens have a special claim to antiquity as they are
partly on the site of the famous garden of the Earl of Lincoln, of which
some of the accounts are preserved in a splendid big old manor roll now at
the Record Office. It is supposed that at his death in 1311, Henry de Lacy,
Earl of Lincoln, assigned these lands to the “Professors of the Law as a
residence.” Additions were made later from the ground belonging to the
Bishop of Chichester, round the palace which Ralph Neville had built in
1228. Part of the site was the “coney garth,” which belonged to one William
Cotterell, and hence is often mentioned as “Cotterell’s Garden.” Garden of
course only meant a garth or yard, and though the name now signifies an
enclosure for plants, in early times other enclosures were common. There
was the “grass yard” or lawn, the “cook’s garth” or kitchen-garden, and
“coney garth” where rabbits were kept, as well as the “wyrt yard” or plant
yard, the “ort yard” or orchard, apple yard, cherry yard, and so on. The
coney garth was not a mere name, but was well stocked with game, and
even at a much later date, from Edward IV. to Henry VIII., there were
various ordinances in force for punishing law students who hunted rabbits
with bows and arrows or darts.

(Large)

LINCOLN’S INN

In the first year of Queen Elizabeth the Garden was separated from the
fields by a clay embankment, and a little later a brick wall was added, with
a gate into the fields, which is probably the same as the present little gate to
the north of the new hall, at the end of the border, shown in the illustration.
The Garden continued much further along the wall then, and only was
curtailed when the new hall and library were built in 1843. The delightful
terrace which is raised against the wall overlooking the “fields” was made
in 1663. On June 27th of that year, Pepys, who on other occasions mentions
his walks there with his wife, went to see the alterations. “So to Lincoln’s
Inne, and there walked up and down to see the new garden which they are
making, and will be very pretty.” The outside world seems to have had easy
access to the gardens of all the Inns of Court in those days, but it was
regarded as a special privilege granted to a very wide circle, and a favour
not accorded to the public at large. In the Tatler occur such passages as, “I
went into Lincoln’s Inn walks, and having taken a round or two I sat down
according to the allowed familiarity of these places.” Again, “I was last
week taking a solitary walk in the garden of Lincoln’s Inn, a favour that is
indulged me by several of the benchers who are my intimate friends.”
They were, however, so much frequented by all the fashionable world
of London, that the foreigner arriving there naturally took them for public
gardens. Mr. Grosley, who came to London in 1765, thus describes them:—
“Besides St. James’s Park, the Green Park, and Hyde Park, the two last
of which are continuations of the first, which, like the Tuileries at Paris, lie
at the extremity of the metropolis, London has several public walks, which
are much more agreeable to the English, as they are less frequented and
more solitary than the Park. Such are the gardens contained within the
compass of the Temple, of Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. They consist of
grass plots, which are kept in excellent order, and planted with trees, either
cut regularly, or with high stocks: some of them have a part laid out for
culinary uses. The grass plots of the gardens at Lincoln’s Inn are adorned
with statues, which, taken all together, form a scene very pleasing to the
eye.”
The students must certainly have aimed at keeping their gardens from
the vulgar gaze, and showed their displeasure at some one who had built a
house with windows overlooking the Garden in 1632 in an uproarious
manner. They flung brickbats at the offending window until “one out of the

house discharged haile shot upon Mr. Attornie’s sonne’s face, which though
by good chance it missed his eyes yet it pitifully mangled his visage.”
Old maps of the gardens show a wall dividing the large upper garden
from the smaller, but by 1772 the partition had disappeared. It was
doubtless unnecessary when the terrace was made and the rabbits done
away with.
The 1658 map with the wall in it shows the upper garden intersected by
four paths, and an avenue of trees round three sides, and the small garden
with a single row of trees round it divided into two large grass plots. The
lovely shady avenue below the terrace in the large garden has still a great
charm, and although not so extensive as it once was, the great green-sward
and walks seem very spacious in these days of crowding. The terrace
overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with the broad walk and border of
suitable old-fashioned herbaceous plants, has great attractions. The view
from here must have improved since the days when the Fields were a wild-
looking place of evil repute, and the scene of bloody executions. In the
lonely darkness below the terrace wall, deeds of violence were only too
common.

“Though thou are tempted by the linkman’s call,
Yet trust him not along the lonely wall.
In the mid-way he’ll quench the flaming brand,
And share the booty with the pilfering band.”
—Gay.

Certainly when one is sentimental over the departed charms of Old
London, it would be an excellent antidote to call up some of the
inconveniences that electric light and the metropolitan police have
banished.
There is more character about the gardens of Gray’s Inn than either the
Temple or Lincoln’s Inn. They have come down with but little alteration
from the hands of that great lover of gardens, Bacon. But long before his
time gardens existed. The land on which Gray’s Inn stands formed part of a
prebend of St. Paul’s of the manor of Portpoole, and subsequently belonged
to the family of Grey de Wilton, and in the fourteenth century the Inn of

Court was established. Between its grounds and the villages of Highgate
and Hampstead was an unbroken stretch of open country. There, in Mary’s
reign, Henry Lord Berkeley used daily to hunt “in Gray’s Inne fields and in
those parts towards Islington and Heygate with his hounds,” and in his
company were “many gentlemen of the Innes of Court and others of lower
condition ... and 150 servants in livery that daily attended him in their
tawny coates.” In Bacon’s time it must still have been as open, and
Theobald’s Road a country lane with hedgerows. The Garden already
boasted of fine trees, and among the records of the Society there is a list of
the elms in 1583 all carefully enumerated, and the exact places they were
growing: “In the grene Courte xi Elmes and iii Walnut trees,” and so on.
Eighty-seven elms, besides four young elms and one young ash, appear on
the list; so the Garden was well furnished with trees even before Bacon
commenced his work. Gray’s Inn was the most popular of the four Inns of
Court in the Elizabethan period, and many famous men, such as Lord
Burghley, belonged to it. It was in 1597 that Bacon took the Garden in
hand, some ten years after he became a Bencher. In the accounts of that
year £7. 15s. 4d. appears “due to Mr. Bacon for planting of trees in the
walkes.” In 1598 it was resolved to “supply more yonge elme trees in the
places of such as are decayed, and that a new Rayle and quicksett hedge be
sett upon the upper long walke at the good discretion of Mr. Bacon, and Mr.
Wilbraham, soe that the charges thereof doe not exceed the sum of seventy
pounds.” On 29th April 1600, £60. 6s. 8d. was paid to “Mr. Bacon for
money disbursed about garnishing of the walkes.”
Bacon’s own ideas of what a garden should be are so delightfully set
forth in his essay on gardens, that the whole as it left his hand is not
difficult to imagine. The fair alleys, the great hedge, were essentials, and the
green, “because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept
finely shorn.” His list of plants which bloom in all the months of the year
was compiled of those specially suited “for the Climate of London,” so no
doubt some would be included in this Garden under his eye, although they
do not appear in the records. He wished “also in the very middle a fair
mount,” and even this desire he carried out in Gray’s Inn. In a description of
the Garden as late as 1761, a summer-house which Bacon put up in 1609 to
the memory of his friend Jeremiah Bettenham is mentioned as only recently
destroyed. “Till lately,” it says, “there was a summer-house erected by the
great Sir Francis Bacon upon a small mount: it was open on all sides, and

the roof supported by slender pillars. A few years ago the uninterrupted
prospect of the neighbouring fields, as far as the hills of Highgate and
Hampstead, was obstructed by a handsome row of houses on the north;
since which the above summer-house has been levelled, and many trees cut
down to lay the Garden more open.” The view, even then, was fairly open,
as Sir Samuel Romilly, in 1780, complains of the cold, as there was “only
one row of houses” between him and Hampstead, and “a north-west wind
blows full against” his chambers. This “most gallant prospect into the
country, and its beautiful walks” were the great attractions of these Gardens.
They appear to have been one of the most fashionable walks, especially on
Sundays. Pepys was frequently there, and his diary records, several times,
that he went to morning church, then had dinner, then to church again, and
after went for a walk in Gray’s Inn. That he met there “great store of
gallants,” or “saw many beauties,” is the usual comment after a visit. On
one occasion, he took his wife there to “observe the fashions of the ladies,”
because she was “making some clothes.” The walks and trees are redolent
with associations, and the Gardens, though curtailed, have much the same
appearance as of yore. When a portion of the ground was sacrificed to the
new buildings, those who loved the Garden deeply bewailed. “Those
accursed Verulam Buildings,” wrote Charles Lamb, recalling his early
walks in Gray’s Inn Gardens, “had not encroached upon all the east side of
them, cutting out delicate green crankles, and shouldering away one of two
stately alcoves of the terrace. The survivor stands gaping and relationless,
as if it remembered its brother. They are still the best gardens of any of the
Inns of Court—my beloved Temple not forgotten—have the gravest
character, their aspect being altogether reserved and law-breathing. Bacon
has left the impress of his foot upon their gravel walks.”
After such a delightful summary of their charms it seems cruel to try
and dispel one of their most treasured traditions—namely, that Bacon
planted the catalpa. It is a splendid and venerable tree, and there is no wish
to pull it from its proud position of the first catalpa planted, and the finest in
existence in this country; but it is hard to believe that Bacon planted it, in
the light of the history of the plant. There is no mention of a catalpa in any
of the earlier writers—Gerard did not know it, and it is not in the later
edition of his work by Thomas Johnson, in 1633, or in Parkinson’s
“Paradisus,” in 1629, or in Evelyn’s “Sylva,” in 1664, all published after
Bacon’s death.

The tree was first described by Catesby in his “Natural History of
Carolina,” a splendid folio which appeared in 1731. There it is classed as
Bignonia urucu foliis, or Catalpa, as it was not until later that Jussieu
separated the genus Catalpa. He says the tree was not known to the
inhabitants of Carolina till the seeds “were brought there from the remoter
parts of the country,” “and though the inhabitants are little curious in
gardening, the uncommon beauty of this tree induced them to propagate it,
and it is become an ornament to many of their gardens, and probably will be
the same to ours in England, it being as hardy as most of our American
plants: many of them, now at Mr. Bacon’s, at Hoxton, having stood out
several winters without any protection, except the first year.” Hoxton was
then a place famous for its nursery gardens. In 1767, in Catesby’s volume
on the trees of North America, he gives the same story, and adds, “in August
1748” it produced, “at Mr. Gray’s, such numbers of blossoms, that the
leaves were almost hid thereby.” This Mr. Gray owned the nurseries in
Brompton, famous under the management of London and Wise.
In Philip Miller’s dictionary, Catesby’s history of the plant is referred
to, and also in 1808, in the Botanical Magazine, when the plant was figured.
There it says the plant “has been long an inhabitant of our gardens, being
introduced by the same Botanist [Catesby] about the year 1728.” “It bears
the smoke of large towns better than most trees; the largest specimen we
have ever seen grows in the garden belonging to the Society of Gray’s Inn.”
There is no hint that the tree in question could have been here before
Catesby’s discovery, and it is not till Loudon’s Encyclopædia in 1822 that
the planting is attributed to Bacon. Such a remarkable tree could hardly
have escaped all gardeners for more than a century, during a time when
gardening was greatly in fashion, and every new plant greedily sought after.
We know that nearly a hundred years ago this specimen was the finest in
England, and therefore it may have been planted not more than a hundred
years or so after Bacon’s death. Raleigh very likely walked with Bacon on
the spot where it now stands, but, alas! the possibility that he brought Bacon
a tree from Virginia, which was only discovered near the Mississippi a
century later, is hardly credible.
The entrance to the Gardens on the Holborn side is through massive
wrought-iron gates, on which the date 1723 is legible. The letters “W. I. G.”
are the initials of the Treasurer during whose tenure of office they were

erected, the “T” above standing for Treasurer. In the Inns of Chancery a “P”
for Principal, associated with the various initials, is often to be noticed.
These fine gates are a charming approach to the sequestered walks and
ancient trees. Gray’s Inn Gardens have another delightful speciality, in that
the rooks delight to honour them by building there. They have a warm
welcome, and good food in cold weather, and seem likely to remain.
Looking through the lofty iron gates, the rooks’ nests are seen, and the
pleasant cawing sound adds greatly to the attraction of the place.

(Large)

THE GARDEN GATES, GRAY’S INN

CHAPTER XII

HISTORICAL GARDENS

History is philosophy teaching by examples.
—Bolingbroke.

ALTHOUGH their number has sadly diminished of late years, London still
has a few spaces remaining which may be classed as gardens. Often they are
merely green patches of a formal type, which are better suited to the present
climate than attempts at flowers; but a few regular gardens still exist, bringing
dreams of a former period. In St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, the oldest of all
such institutions, the square, with a handsome fountain in the centre, is more
what one expects to find in Italy than in Smithfield. It is this sort of surprise
that makes the charm of London, and renders a wander through its mazes so
attractive. What a contrast the walk of a few minutes can bring in the heart of
London! but of all these changes none is more impressive than the hush of the
Charterhouse after the rush of Aldermanbury or the noise of Clerkenwell.
There is still lingering there the touch of the old monastery; a breath of a
bygone age seems to pervade the courtyards and gateways, and something in
the silence speaks of another world. The first indication of its hidden green
courts are the mulberry leaves peeping over the worn stone wall, near the
gateway which leads to the weathered archway, the entrance of the old
Carthusian monastery. This is the very spot where, with the brutal severity of
Tudor times, the arm of the last Prior was exposed after his cruel execution at
Tyburn. The monastery, founded in 1371, was dissolved with unusual
barbarity, and passed into secular hands. The possession of it by the Duke of
Norfolk has left its mark in many of the existing buildings, as he converted it
from a cloister to a palace, but its palatial days did not last long. It was bought
by the benevolent Thomas Sutton, a portion of whose large fortune, amassed
from profitably working coal mines, was bestowed in founding “a hospital for
poor brethren and scholars.” The scholars have been taken away from the
historical associations, to the purer air of Godalming, and the parts of the

buildings devoted to their accommodation were in 1872 bought by the
Merchants Taylors’ Company for their school. The playing field of the boys is
the ample space which was enclosed by the cloister of the monastery. Part of
the land to the north has been built over, and a tall warehouse overlooks the
burying-ground of the monks, which is still a large green sward of hallowed
ground, with a row of mulberries. This lies so far below the level of
Clerkenwell Road that a flight of steps leads to the postern gate in the high
wall, overhung with climbing plants. This “God’s acre” is covered with
smooth turf, and some day the two walnut trees planted by the master in 1901
may afford grateful shade. It is in keeping with the spirit of the place to plant
trees of such slow and stately growth. The Preachers’ Court and the smaller
Pensioners’ Court are like college quadrangles, with that perfect turf that
England alone produces. The smooth surface is broken only by the regular
intersecting gravel paths, and one row of mulberry trees some seventy years
old. The red-brick buildings have a venerable appearance, although they do
not carry the weight of centuries with dignity, like the “Wash-house Court,”
the hall, the library, or the brick cloister, and the delightful old walls with their
deliciously-scented fig-trees. The whole place has a mediæval look and
feeling, and teems with ghosts and recollections of the monks of the early
peaceful days, and their courageous successors at the Dissolution. The pious
founder, as the chorus of the old Carthusian melody says, must not be
forgotten:—

“Then blessed be the memory
Of good old Thomas Sutton,
Who gave us lodging, learning,
As well as beef and mutton.”

Of the shades which surround these peaceful green courts none appear
more real than that of Colonel Newcome. The guardian will point out the
room in which he died, or his pew in the chapel, as if he belonged to history as
much as Wray, who bequeathed the old books in the “Officers’ Library,” or
any of the well-known pensioners. With such true and pathetic touches has
Thackeray drawn the character of Colonel Newcome that fiction has here
become entwined round the walls almost as closely as fact.

Further eastward is an open piece of ground, which is hardly a garden; but
as it is green, and took the place of what was known as the Artillery Garden, it
may claim a moment’s consideration. Push open a door in the modern-looking
castellated building in the City Road near Bunhill Fields, and a large, quiet,
open space is discovered. Old guns look inoffensively down on a wide square
of green turf. This is the home of the Honourable Artillery Company, the
descendants of the “Trained Bands” of citizens, first enrolled in 1585 in the
fear of a Spanish invasion. They have been here since 1622, when they moved
from near Bishopsgate Without. “Artillery Garden,” or Teazel Close or
Garden, was the name of the older place, from the teazel grown there for the
cloth workers.

“Teazel of ground we enlarge St. Mary’s Spittle,
Trees cut down, and gardens added to it,
Thanks to the lords that gave us leave to do it,”

says an old poem. The existing Artillery Ground was a great place for cricket
matches, where county met county in the eighteenth century. It was here that a
vast crowd witnessed the first balloon ever launched into the air in England,
sent up by Count Zambeccari in 1783. The next year, from the same place,
Lunardi was more ambitious, and actually went up in his balloon. It proved
too small for the friend who was ready to risk his life in his company, so he
took a dog, a cat, and a pigeon with him instead.
Passing on into the City, the remains of the once extensive Drapers’
10
Garden is met with. Only a small piece, seen from the street through iron
railings, and approached through the hall, has been retained; a few trees and
bright flowers survive of what was once a fashionable and much sought after
resort.

(Large)

Trinity Almshouses, Mile End Road

Most of the other patches of green in the City are disused burial-grounds,
and are considered in a chapter by themselves. Beyond the City, on the east, in
the Mile End Road, is the quiet old Trinity Hospital. It stands on the north of
that wide road, which might be made one of the most beautiful entrances to
the City. The simple good taste of these delightful old almshouses is a great
contrast to some of the surroundings. They were probably designed by John
Evelyn, with the assistance of Wren. His father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne,
founded and built very similar almshouses at Deptford, long since swept
away. Of these Evelyn writes, “It was a good and charitable work and gift, but
would have been better bestowed on the poor of that parish than on seamen’s
widows, the Trinity Company being very rich, and the rest of the poor of the
parish exceedingly indigent.” In spite of these sentiments, he is believed to
have had a hand in the Mile End Almshouses, which were founded by Captain
Henry Mudd of Ratcliffe, Captain Sandes or Sanders, and Captain Maples.
The two last are remembered by statues still standing in the little formal
gardens. Maples, who appears in the dress of a naval officer of the period, left

a fortune for the use of the guild in diamonds, collected in India, where he was
an early pioneer, and where he died in 1680. A similar endowment in Hull is
described in a poem in 1662:—

“It is a comely built, well-ordered place,
But that which most of all the house doth grace
Are rooms for widowes, who are old and poore,
And have been wives to mariners before.”

Certainly Trinity Hospital, Mile End, is comely and well ordered. The
pensioners take a pride in keeping every nook and corner scrupulously clean.
Everything is, in fact, in “ship-shape” order. The grass is neatly mown, the
trees on either side well trimmed and clipped. Outside each little house a few
plants are carefully tended, the pots arranged with precision, and every flower
looked after with pride. It is indeed a peaceful place for these old people to
pass their declining years in, and the sight makes the regret for St. Katharine’s
and the other vanished charitable buildings all the more keen.
The site of another benevolent institution near is fulfilling a useful and
delightful task, although the old houses attached to it have disappeared. It was
a row of almshouses founded by a member of the Brewers’ Company, named
Baker, about 150 years ago, for widows. The garden was much too large for
these decrepid old women to cultivate, so the place was taken in hand some
twenty-five years ago by the Rev. Sidney Vatcher, who built the beautiful
church of St. Philip, Stepney, hard by, and he became the tenant of the
Brewers’ Company. This charming garden was at first more or less opened by
him to the parish, but lately it has been put to the most suitable use of giving a
quiet place for rest and recreation to the nurses of the London Hospital. The
almshouses were pulled down about four years ago, to make way for the
laundries of the Hospital. Here, indeed, is one of those sudden and surprising
contrasts to be found in London. A high brick wall encloses this oasis, and the
nurses and some privileged people have keys to the door, which opens, from a
side street close to the noise of the Mile End Road, suddenly into a peaceful,
picturesque garden. The idea in the formation was a willow-pattern plate, and
the little bridge over a miniature stream is reproduced. Plane trees in a formal
array are kept trimmed to give a dense shade, and the hammocks hung from
them in summer provide the most ideal resting-places for the worn-out nurses.

At one time animals were kept here in cages, as a kind of small “Zoo” for
Whitechapel; but since the last alterations the animals have been relinquished,
and the bear-pit makes a delightful rock garden, and the various other cages
form summer-houses. One thoughtful addition of the vicar was placing a small
stove in one of these shelters, with an array of kettles, teapots, cups and
saucers, so that any of the nurses resting can have their al fresco cup of tea—
and what could be more grateful and comforting? A French writer who
recently gave her impressions of L’Ile Inconnue was charmed with the peace
and repose of this little East End Paradise. After seeing the Hospital and all its
wonderful appliances, “You will now see our Eden,” said the guide. “Ici!
l’Eden! m’écriai-je, après le péché alors!” Then, when she had for a moment
looked within those mysterious high walls, “N’avais-je pas raison d’appeler ce
jardin l’Eden?” said the friend. “Oui, repondis-je, c’est l’Eden après la
Rédemption.” Certainly any one who sees this little garden, and realises the
devoted lives of those who made it and those who enjoy it, must agree with
this writer.
It is not often that, when the old almshouses vanish, the neighbourhood
benefits to such an extent. What will be the fate of the Ironmongers’
Almshouses in Kingsland Road, between Shoreditch and Dalston? A large
board in the garden that fronts the street announces the site is for sale!
The Foundling Hospital has large green courts, on which the merry but
sombrely-clad little children are seen running about, through the fine iron
gates which face Guildford Street. This was founded in 1739 by Captain
Thomas Coram, who gave so much of his wealth to objects of charity and
philanthropy that a subscription had to be raised to support him in his old age.
Theodore Jacobson (died 1772) was the architect of the building. A colonnade
runs round the whole length of the forecourt up to the gates, part of which is
used as laundries, or other things necessary to the institution. A writer in 1773
describes the “large area between the gates and the hospital” as “adorned with
grass plats, gravel walks, and lamps erected upon handsome posts: beside
which there are two convenient gardens,” and exactly the same description
holds good to-day. Brunswick Square lies to the west, and Mecklenburgh
Square to the east, so the Hospital grounds are still airy. There is a small
garden at the back of the building in front of the Infirmary; on the east is the
Treasurer’s Garden, a fair-sized enclosure, and on the other side, with the
poplars growing in Brunswick Square overhanging it, lies the other and larger
of the two “convenient gardens.” There is nothing old-fashioned or attractive

in these gardens left; merely a green lawn, a weeping ash, and a few
commonplace “bedding-out” plants; not altogether in keeping with the age or
dignity of the building and spacious forecourt.
Less well known is the delightful Garden of the Grey-coat School in
Westminster. Most of the old foundations in Westminster have vanished, such
as Emanuel Hospital and the “Blue-coat School,” which disappeared a few
years ago, but so far this charming old house has been respected. Quaint
figures of the children in the dress of the time—it was founded by the citizens
of Westminster in 1698—stand on either side of the entrance. The children
from the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, who have
attended the elementary schools for three years, are eligible for admission, up
to the age of ten. The school was reconstituted as a day school for 300 girls in
1873, and, in spite of all educational vicissitudes, has been allowed to survive,
and the sweet and wholesome influence of those old-fashioned surroundings
would be a great loss, should it ever be swept away. The Garden is delightful.
It is practical as well as ornamental, as it furnishes the staff of teachers with a
good supply of vegetables. They have each a small flower-bed too, tended
with great care, and the children are allowed a place of their own, where they
work, dig, and plant. Down the centre runs a wide gravel walk, with a deep
herbaceous border along either side, sweet-scented pinks and low-growing
plants near the front, then a long row of spiderwort, and behind that a
regiment of magnificent hollyhocks. The spiderwort or Tradescantia is a
flower eminently suited to London gardens, not only because it seems to
withstand any amount of smoke and bad air, but because of its association
with the famous garden in Lambeth, where it was first grown. Parkinson, in
1629, gives the history of his friend’s introduction of the plant. “The
Spiderwort,” he writes, “is of late knowledge, and for it the Christian World is
indebted unto that painfull industrious searcher, and lover of all nature’s
varieties, John Tradescant (sometimes belonging to the Right Honourable
Lord Robert Earle of Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of England in his time, and
unto the Right Honourable the Lord Wotton at Canterbury in Kent, and lastly
unto the late Duke of Buckingham), who first received it of a friend, that
brought it out of Virginia, thinking it to bee the Silke Grasse that groweth
there, and hath imparted hereof, as of many other things, both to me and
others.” “Unto this plant I confess I first imposed the name ... which untill
some can finde a more proper, I desire may still continue ... John Tradescant’s
Spider Wort of Virginia.” Courageous as herbalists generally were in tasting
plants, Parkinson confesses there had “not beene any tryall made of the

properties” or “vertues.” Luckily no one has disputed Parkinson’s choice of a
name, and his friend’s memory is still preserved. The plant is not confined to
Virginia, but grows much further into the Wild West, and is common in
Kansas, Nebraska, and distant States. Yet it will still adapt itself to the grimy
limits of a London garden, and flower year after year. The Grey-coat School
Garden is quite refreshing; the plants look so healthy and prosperous that it is
really encouraging. The interior of the house, with oak beams and panels, is
all in keeping, and the long class-room, with windows looking out on the
bright Garden, is most ideal. As, at the close of their afternoon studies, the
girls, singing sweetly in parts, join in some familiar hymn, and the melodious
sounds are wafted across the sunlit Garden, it is hard to believe in the
existence of the crowded, unsavoury slums of Westminster, only a stone’s
throw from this “haunt of ancient peace.”

(Large)

GREY COAT SCHOOL, WESTMINSTER

Among its many charms and associations Westminster Abbey can lay
claim to possessing one of the oldest gardens in England. The ground still
occupied by the space known as the “College Garden” was part of the
infirmary garden of the ancient monastery. It cannot trace back its history with
the Abbey to the Saxon Sebert, but when Edward the Confessor’s pile began
to rise, and all the usual adjuncts of a monastery gathered round it, the
infirmary with the necessary herb-garden of simples for treating the sick
monks would be one of the first buildings to be completed. One of the most
peaceful and retired spots within the Abbey precincts is the Little Cloister,
which was the infirmary in early days. When the Great Cloister was finished
in 1365, the Little Cloister was taken in hand. Payments for work on “the New
Cloister of the Infirmary” appear in the accounts from 1377, and it was
completed in 1390, and that year the centre was laid down in turf. The garden
belonging to the infirmary covered all the space now occupied by the
“College Garden,” and joined the “Grete Garden,” which lay to the west. It
was probably, like all the gardens of that date, laid out in long, narrow, straight
beds, in which were grown all the healing herbs used for the sick of the
monastery. Probably there were fruit-trees, too, as in 1362 John de Mordon,
the infirmarer, got 9s. for his apples, and the following year 10s. for pears and
apples. No doubt the favourite Wardon pear was among them, as in another
record, between 1380–90, it is specially mentioned. The chapel of St.
Katharine, which stood on the north side of the Garden, was destroyed in
Elizabeth’s reign. This, the infirmary chapel of Norman building, was as
replete with history as every other nook and corner of the Abbey buildings.
Here St. Hugh of Lincoln and most of the early bishops were consecrated, and
here took place the unseemly dispute for precedence, between the Primates of
Canterbury and York in 1186, which led to the settling of their respective
ranks by the Pope. While so many changes have swept over the Abbey, and
whole buildings have vanished, the herb-garden of early days has kept its
place, and is still a garden, though bereft of its neat little beds.

(Large)

Abbey Garden, Westminster

The Little Cloister has been greatly altered since then, having been
refashioned in the early part of the eighteenth century under the influence of
Wren. Although so changed since the time when strange decoctions of
medicinal herbs were administered within its walls, it has retained much of its
fascination, and the approach to it by the dim vaulted entrance, dating from
the Confessor’s time, out of the narrow passage known as the “Dark Entry,”
adds to its charm. The sun streams down on this small court, with its tree and
ferns and old moss-grown fountain, lighting it with a kind of “dusky
splendour.” Any one standing in this suggestive spot will feel with
Washington Irving, that “The Cloisters still retain something of the quiet and
seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discoloured by damps, and
crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of
the mural monuments, and obscured the death’s heads, and other mural
emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the
arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their leafy beauty;
everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has
something touching and pleasing in its very decay.”
These lines refer to the Great Cloister, but the quiet and repose are still
more noticeable in the Little Cloister, which rarely echoes to the sound of
hurrying feet. The noise and laughter of Westminster scholars is only dimly
heard in this secluded corner. The boys are not as boisterous as when Horace
Walpole feared to face them alone, even to visit his mother’s tomb. “I literally
had not courage to venture alone among the Westminster boys; they are as
formidable to me as the ship carpenters at Portsmouth,” he wrote in 1754.
Even in those days the list of eminent scholars was already a long one—
Hakluyt, Ben Jonson, George Herbert, Dryden, Wren, being on the roll of
those who had passed away, besides others then living, such as Gibbon and
Warren Hastings, who carried on the tradition of this classic ground.

(Large)

THE LITTLE CLOISTER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY

In monastic times there were many gardens within the precincts of the
Abbey, besides the infirmary garden; but it is difficult to locate all of them
with certainty, although the sites of some are known. The abbot’s garden lay
in the north-west angle of the wall, and must have covered part of the present
Broad Sanctuary, including the spot where the Crimean monument now
stands. Beyond the abbot’s house, just west of the cloister, was the abbot’s
little garden. The northern part of Dean’s Yard was from very early times
known as “The Elms,” from the grove of fine trees, some of which remain. It
is said that when Elizabeth ascended the throne and summoned Abbot
Feckenham, who had been reinstated by Mary, he was planting some, perhaps
these identical, elm trees. Among them formerly stood a huge oak, which was
blown down in 1791. The horse pool was on the west of the Elms, and beyond
both to the south lay the numerous adjuncts of the monastery, the brewhouse,
bakehouse, and granaries. Skirting this enclosure was the “Long Ditch,”
which flowed by the line of the present Delahay Street and Prince’s Streets,
and passed along outside of the wall of the Infirmary Garden, in what is now
Great College Street, and fell into the Thames. This stream turned the mill
from which “Millbank” took its name. In it, to the south of the granary, was a
small island osier bed. The sale of the osiers on it used to bring in 10s.
annually in the fourteenth century. Beyond the stream were more gardens. The
“Hostry Garden” was a large one on the site of the church of St. John, and
next to it the “Bowling Alley,” where Bowling Street ran in later times, and to
the west of that was a kitchen-garden. Somewhere also on the west of the
“Long Ditch,” before it turned towards the Thames near the osier island, must
have been the “Precentor’s Mede,” or, as it was sometimes called, the
“Chaunter’s-hull,” and also the “Almoner’s Mede” or “Almery Garden.” On
the other side of the “Hostry Garden,” southwards on the site of “Vine Street”
and “Market Street,” was situated the vineyard, without which no thirteenth-
century monastery was complete, and “Market Mede.” Even this does not
exhaust the list of separate gardens, but the others probably lay further away.
The cellarer had charge of a large garden, which may have been the “Convent
Garden,” which is so familiar as “Covent Garden” that the connection
between the site of the market and the Abbey has been lost sight of. One of the
large gardens which was generally let was “Maudit’s Garden.” In the records
it is spoken of as “Maudit’s” or “Caleys.” The name Maudit was given to it
because Thomas Maudit, Earl of Warwick, in the thirteenth century effected
an exchange of lands with the Abbey, of which the garden formed a part. The
other name, “Caleys,” was “Calais,” named from the wool staplers who came

from that town and resided near there, just as “Petty France” (where Milton
lived) was called so from the French merchants. An Act of interchange of land
between Henry VIII. and the Abbey, in the twenty-third year of his reign,
mentions “a certain great messuage or tenement commonly called Pety
Caleys, and all messuages, houses, barns, stables, dove-houses, orchards,
gardens, pools, fisheries, waters, ditches, lands, meadows, and pastures.” Part
of this was “Maudit’s” garden, which was sometimes in the hands of the
convent, but more frequently let out. Among the muniments in 1350, “a toft
called Maudit’s garden, and a croft called Maudit’s croft,” are referred to.
There seems to have been an enclosure within this “toft” which was let out
separately, and in the twentieth year of Edward IV., Matilda, the widow of
Richard Willy, who had held it, gave up this enclosure or “conyn garth.” This
was probably a “coney garth” or rabbit enclosure, like the one at Lincoln’s
Inn, which was kept up for a long time. Such rabbit gardens were by no means
uncommon. All gardening operations must at times have been rendered
difficult by reason of the wet soil and frequent flooding of the river, but with
the patient persistence characteristic of gardeners in those days, the gardens in
monastic times were probably well kept, and yielded profitable crops. It is
delightful to know that, in spite of all the changes, one portion of the old
gardens actually remains to this day.
Lambeth, on the opposite bank, fared no better than Westminster for high
tides, and wet seasons did occasional damage there. In Archbishop Laud’s
Diary, he notes the inroad of a high tide, which certainly would be destructive:
—“November 15, 1635, Sunday. At afternoon the greatest tide that hath been
seen. It came within my gates, walks, cloysters, and stables at Lambeth.”
Nothing of great antiquity now remains in these Lambeth Gardens, although
they are indeed historic ground. The long terrace and wide herbaceous border,
with a profusion of madonna lilies, backed by a wooden paling, and fruit-trees
peeping over, is now a charming walk. The trees on the right of the illustration
are planes, ailanthus, and catalpas, all smoke-resisting and suitable, but not
such as would have ornamented the Garden in older days, when Archbishop
Cranmer adorned his garden with “a summer-house of exquisite
workmanship.” It was designed by his chaplain, Dr. John Ponet or Poynet,
who is said to have had “great skill and taste in works of that kind.” The
summer-house was repaired by Archbishop Parker, but afterwards fell into
decay and was removed, and in 1828 not even a tradition of where it had
stood remained. The site of “Clarendon’s Walk,” another historical corner of
the Lambeth Garden, is also uncertain. It appears to have received the name