Property: Hyde
Park
Board: London - Here and Now Limited
Edition (2005)
Colour:
Red
Original 1935
Property: Indiana Avenue
Details of the Property:
Wikipedia [visit link] tells us
about Hyde Park:
"Hyde Park is
one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal
Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.
The park was
the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which the Crystal Palace was
designed by Joseph Paxton. The park has become a traditional location for mass
demonstrations. The Chartists, the Reform League, the Suffragettes and the Stop
The War Coalition have all held protests in the park. Many protesters on the
Liberty and Livelihood March in 2002 started their march from Hyde Park. On 20
July 1982 in the Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings, two bombs linked to the
Provisional Irish Republican Army caused the death of eight members of the
Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets and seven horses.
The park is
divided in two by the Serpentine. The park is contiguous with Kensington
Gardens; although often still assumed to be part of Hyde Park, Kensington
Gardens has been technically separate since 1728, when Queen Caroline made a
division between the two. Hyde Park covers 142 hectares (350 acres) and
Kensington Gardens covers 111 hectares (270 acres), giving an overall area of
253 hectares (630 acres), making the combined area larger than the Principality
of Monaco (196 hectares, 480 acres), though smaller than New York City's Central
Park (341 hectares, 840 acres). To the southeast, outside the park, is Hyde Park
Corner. Although, during daylight, the two parks merge seamlessly into each
other, Kensington Gardens closes at dusk but Hyde Park remains open throughout
the year from 5 am until midnight.
Hyde Park is
the largest of four parks which form a chain from the entrance of Kensington
Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green
Park (19 hectares), past the main entrance to Buckingham Palace and then on
through Saint James's Park (23 hectares) to Horse Guards Parade in
Whitehall."
In 1536, Henry
VIII acquired the manor of Hyde from the canons of Westminster Abbey, who had
held it since before the Norman Conquest; it was enclosed as a deer park and
remained a private hunting ground until James I permitted limited access to
gentlefolk, appointing a ranger to take charge. Charles I created the Ring
(north of the present Serpentine boathouses), and in 1637 he opened the park to
the general public.
In 1689, when
William III moved his habitation to Kensington Palace on the far side of Hyde
Park, he had a drive laid out across its south edge, formerly known as "The
King's Private Road", which still exists as a wide straight gravelled carriage
track leading west from Hyde Park Corner across the south boundary of Hyde Park
towards Kensington Palace. The drive is now known as Rotten Row, possibly a
corruption of rotteran (to muster), Ratten Row (roundabout way), Route du roi or
rotten (the soft material with which the road is covered). Public transport
entering London from the west paralleled the King's private road along
Kensington Gore, just outside the park. In the late 1800s, the row was used by
the wealthy for horseback rides.
The first
coherent landscaping was undertaken by Charles Bridgeman for Queen Caroline;
under the supervision of Charles Withers, the Surveyor-General of Woods and
Forests, who took some credit for it. It was completed in 1733 at a cost to the
public purse of £20,000. Bridgeman's piece of water called The Serpentine,
formed by damming the little Westbourne that flowed through the park was not
truly in the Serpentine "line of beauty" that William Hogarth described, but
merely irregular on a modest curve. The 2nd Viscount Weymouth was made Ranger of
Hyde Park in 1739 and shortly began digging the Serpentine lakes at Longleat.
The Serpentine is divided from the Long Water by a bridge designed by George
Rennie (1826).
One of the
most important events to take place in the park was the Great Exhibition of
1851. The Crystal Palace was constructed on the south side of the park. The
public in general did not want the building to remain in the park after the
closure of the exhibition, and the design architect, Joseph Paxton, raised funds
and purchased it. He had it moved to Sydenham Hill in South
London.
Another
significant event held in Hyde Park was the first Victoria Cross investiture, on
26 June 1857, when 62 men were decorated by Queen Victoria in the presence of
Prince Albert and other members of the Royal Family, including their future
son-in-law Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, later Emperor Frederick
III.
The Grand
Entrance to the park, also known as Queen Elizabeth Gate, at Hyde Park Corner
next to Apsley House, was erected from the designs of Decimus Burton in
1824–25.[12] An early description reports:
"It consists
of a screen of handsome fluted Ionic columns, with three carriage entrance
archways, two foot entrances, a lodge, etc. The extent of the whole frontage is
about 107 ft (33 m). The central entrance has a bold projection: the entablature
is supported by four columns; and the volutes of the capitals of the outside
column on each side of the gateway are formed in an angular direction, so as to
exhibit two complete faces to view. The two side gateways, in their elevations,
present two insulated Ionic columns, flanked by antae. All these entrances are
finished by a blocking, the sides of the central one being decorated with a
beautiful frieze, representing a naval and military triumphal procession. This
frieze was designed by Mr. Henning, junior, the son of Mr. Henning who was well
known for his models of the Elgin marbles. "The gates were manufactured by
Messrs. Bramah. They are of iron, bronzed, and fixed or hung to the piers by
rings of gun-metal. The design consists of a beautiful arrangement of the Greek
honeysuckle ornament; the parts being well defined, and the raffles of the
leaves brought out in a most extraordinary manner."
Sites of
interest in the park include Speakers' Corner (located in the northeast corner
near Marble Arch), close to the former site of the Tyburn gallows, and Rotten
Row, which is the northern boundary of the site of the Crystal Palace. South of
the Serpentine is the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial, an oval stone ring
fountain opened on 6 July 2004. To the east of the Serpentine, just beyond the
dam, is London's Holocaust Memorial. Another memorial in the park commemorates
the victims of 7/7 terrorist attacks, in the form of 52 steel pillars - one for
each of the dead.
A botanical
curiosity is the Weeping Beech, Fagus sylvatica pendula, cherished as "the
upside-down tree". Opposite Hyde Park Corner stands one of the grandest hotels
in London, The Lanesborough (Formerly - until the early 1970s- St George's
Hospital). Stanhope Lodge (Decimus Burton, 1824–25) at Stanhope Gate, demolished
to widen Park Lane, was the home of Samuel Parkes who won the Victoria Cross in
the Charge of the Light Brigade. After leaving the army, Parkes became inspector
of the park's constables, and died in the lodge on 14 November 1864. A rose
garden, designed by Colvin & Moggridge Landscape Architects, was added in
1994.
In 1867 the
policing of the park was entrusted to the Metropolitan Police, the only royal
park so managed, due to the potential for trouble at Speaker's Corner. A
Metropolitan Police station ('AH') is situated in the middle of the park. The
1872 Parks Regulation Act created positions of "park keeper" and also provided
that "Every police constable belonging to the police force of the district in
which any park, garden, or possession to which this Act applies is situate shall
have the powers, privileges, and immunities of a park-keeper within such park,
garden, or possession."
Hyde Park has
been the venue for some famous rock concerts, including the major location for
the Live 8 string of benefit concerts where Pink Floyd reunited their classic
line up for the first time in over 30 years. Queen played here in one of their
most popular shows, in 1976. It is estimated that 150–200 thousand people turned
up for the event. The record concert attendance is probably for the 1969 concert
by the Rolling Stones. According to much of the press, the crowd then was
estimated between 250,000 and 500,000. Blur played here as part of their
reunion. They released a live album recorded at the park called All the People:
Blur Live at Hyde Park.
Since 2008
Hyde Park has hosted "Winter Wonderland", a Christmas fun fair.
Since 1996,
the park has been the London venue for the Proms in the Park concerts, held on
the last night of the BBC Proms. On 17 July 2012, pop icon Madonna performed in
Hyde Park for her only London performance during her MDNA World Tour.
For the 2012
Summer Olympics, the park hosted the triathlon and the 10 km open water swimming
events."
Board link: Wikipedia.