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 Tho^{s.} Cawarden, Knt. M^{r.} of the said Office of Revels; and
Lawrence Bradshaw, Surveior of the King’s works, exhibited for the
same w^{t.} 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.