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.