Everything about Hyde Park London totally explained
Hyde Park is one of the largest
parks in central
London,
England and one of the
Royal Parks of London, famous for its
Speakers' Corner.
The park is divided in two by the
Serpentine Lake. 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 is 350 acres (140
hectare/1.4 km²) and Kensington Gardens is 275 acres (110 ha/1.1 km²) giving an overall area of 625 acres (250 ha/2.5 km²), making this park larger than the
Principality of Monaco (1.96 square kilometres or 485 acres). 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, including, therefore, many hours of darkness.
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 protestors 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.
History
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 used for hunts. It 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 Nottingham House in the village of Kensington on the far side of Hyde Park, and renamed it
Kensington Palace, he'd a drive laid out across its south edge, leading to
St. James's Palace.; this
Route du Roi came to be corrupted to
Rotten Row, which still exists as a wide straight gravelled carriage track leading west from
Hyde Park Corner across the south boundary of Hyde Park. Public transportation that was entering London from the west paralleled the King's private road along Kensington Gore, just outside the Park.
The first coherent landscaping was undertaken by
Charles Bridgeman for
Queen Caroline; under the supervision of Charles Withers, Surveyor-General of Woods and Forest, 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 wasn't 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 didn't want the building to remain in the park after the conclusion of the exhibition, and the design architect,
Joseph Paxton, raised funds and purchased it. He had it moved to
Sydenham Hill in South London.
Grand Entrance
"The Grand Entrance to the park, at
Hyde Park Corner next to
Apsley House, was erected from the designs of
Decimus Burton in 1824-25. 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.
A rose garden, designed by Colvin & Moggeridge, was added in 1994.
Sites of interest
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. To the southeast (but outside of the park) is
Hyde Park Corner. South of the Serpentine Lake 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. A magnificent specimen of a botanical curiosity is the Weeping Beech,
Fagus sylvatica pendula, cherished as "the upside-down tree" (
illustration). Opposite Hyde Park Corner stands one of the grandest hotels in London,
The Lanesborough, which offers its top suite at £8,000 per night.
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. Parkes was later Inspector of the Park Constables of the Park and died in the Lodge on
14 November 1864.
The photography for the
Beatles album
Beatles for Sale was taken at Hyde Park in the autumn of 1964.
Concerts
Hyde Park has been the venue for some famous rock concerts, including
Pink Floyd (1968 and 1970),
Jethro Tull (1968),
Blind Faith (1969),
The Rolling Stones (1969),
King Crimson (1969),
Grand Funk Railroad (1971),
Roy Harper (1971),
Wigwam (1975),
Queen (1976),
Pavarotti (1991),
The Who (1996),
Eric Clapton (1996),
Michael Flatley (1998),
Steps (2000),
Bon Jovi (2003),
Shania Twain (2003),
Red Hot Chili Peppers (2004),
Live 8 (2005),
Queen + Paul Rodgers (2005),
Daft Punk (2007),
Depeche Mode (2006),
Foo Fighters (2006), Ditlev Frisch (2007),
Aerosmith (2007),
White Stripes (2007), and
Capital 95.8 Party in the Park.
Hyde Park in fiction
In
Volume II of
Alan Moore's
graphic novel,
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Allan Quatermain implies that Hyde Park is named in honour of Mr. Edward Hyde, the bestial alter ego of Dr. Henry Jekyll, the titular character(s) of
Robert Louis Stevenson's novella,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This was a posthumous honour, done so to recognize Hyde's death while attempting to stop invaders from the planet
Mars in their
advance upon London (adapted from
H. G. Wells'
The War of the Worlds). In this story, Hyde Park was originally named "Serpentine Park".
In the
Bernard Cornwell novel
Sharpe's Regiment, a reenactment of the
Battle of Vitoria was staged. During the reenactment,
Major Richard Sharpe, led the Second Battalion of the South Essex Regiment into Hyde Park holding a
French Imperial Eagle, which Sharpe had captured during the
Battle of Talavera, to present his men to the
Prince Regent in order to secure their protection from Sharpe's enemies.
In
The Face of Evil (a
serial in the
British science fiction television series
Doctor Who),
The Doctor is attempting to reach Hyde Park when he lands on an alien planet.
Hyde Park is also the setting for
Anne Perry's Victorian murder mystery,
The Hyde Park Headsman in which several murder victims are found beheaded in or near the park under strange circumstances, causing near-hysterical terror in the residents of 1892 London. Superintendent
Thomas Pitt is charged with discovering the murderer before he/she can strike again.
Hyde Park features as a setting in
The Eye in the Door by British novelist
Pat Barker. Chapter one in particular alludes to the Park's history as a
gay cruising ground before the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967.
It featured where Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver fight in the 2004 to
Bridget Jones Diary.
The discovery of a young scientist's body in the Long Water, near the Peter Pan statue, is a central incident in
Boris Starling's 2006 novel Visibility.
Also, In
Destroy All Humans! 2, it's an area in Albion, a fictionalized London.
Featured in Libba Bray's
Rebel Angels and
The Sweet Far Thing.
Transport
There are five
London Underground stations located on or near the edges of Hyde Park and
Kensington Gardens (which is contiguous with Hyde Park). In clockwise order starting from the south-east, they are:
Bayswater on the Circle and District Lines, is also close to Queensway station and the north-west corner of the park.
Many buses also serve the local area.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hyde Park London'.
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