Hyde Park Corner

“ Looking eastward down the town from the same favoured gazebo, the long perspective of houses declined and dwindled till they merged in the highway across the moor. The white riband of road disappeared over Grey's Bridge a quarter of a mile off, to plunge into innumerable rustic windings, shy shades, and solitary undulations up hill and down dale for one hundred and twenty miles till it exhibited itself at Hyde Park Corner as a smooth bland surface in touch with a busy and fashionable world. ”

“ For it was half-past three of the clock on a beautiful day in the height of the London season, and, as everybody knows, Hyde Park is a royal park, and along that stretch of road from Hyde Park Corner to the marble arch no cart or omnibus or hackney cab or pretentious taxi is allowed under penalty of instant annihilation. Only the splendour (in eyes such as Unity's) of plutocratically owned vehicles meets the enraptured vision. Pedestrian fashion, however, does not haunt that end of the road, which is mostly given up to nurse-maids and drab members of the proletariat ”

“ The parks of London, like its districts, all have their special attributes, their special place in the social plane. Thus, Hyde Park is aristocratic, and in the season, its penny chairs, from Hyde Park Corner to the Albert Gate, are thronged with the smart world. Beautiful women, distinguished men, and gilded youths may be seen riding—the best riders and the finest horses in the world—along Rotten Row at the fashionable morning hour ”

“ Streets did not creep up to its precincts until quite a century and a half later. When Sir Thomas Wyatt marched with his rebels upon London, his ordnance was planted at Hyde Park Corner, and his men occupied the fields where now stand Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood to the south. ”

“ It is quite a fashionable place for little tea-parties, and bachelor-girls or old-maid men, who live lives of solitude in “diggings” or clubs, come forth like the butterflies and entertain their friends in this inexpensive yet charming way, by giving a tea-fight within sight of where our good Queen Victoria was born.
This is advance at the western end of the Park, but farther east, that is to say in Piccadilly, still further advance is found. For within a stone’s throw of Hyde Park Corner, and near where the Duke of Cambridge lived so long, is a Ladies’ Club and also an Automobile Club. ”

“ Respecting this interesting anecdote, a tradition tells us that Charles II. was very partial to a walk in Hyde Park, and that at the spot to which he limited himself generally he p. 130planted two acorns from the Boscobel Tree. The trees from them grew at the north side of the Serpentine, just where the road turns off by the magazine towards Bayswater. For many years they were fenced in, but one only now remains; the other, much decayed, was removed in 1854.
Hyde Park Corner is now the most magnificent entrance to the metropolis ”

“ Hyde Park and Knightsbridge came in for a share of petty larcenies and assaults by the meaner footpads and outlaws who lurked at many a dark corner, and few persons thought of going home by night214 except under escort, and with torches to light the gloom of the streets. It was a short life, if a desperate and at times a merry one. Of all the famous highwaymen who dangled on Tyburn gibbet, one finds few who lived to see the age of thirty. ”

“ Of the Park habitués, Royalty must necessarily come first. Between nine and ten o’clock almost any morning of the week, when he is in town, the Prince of Wales, faultlessly mounted, and generally attended by Sir Arthur Bigge, may be seen entering the Park at Hyde Park Corner. To the most of the world he goes unnoticed. He rides as quietly as any other gentleman in the Row, and so as not to disturb his pleasure no one bows unless personally acquainted with his Royal Highness. ”

“ There are many dreamers like Cuckoo on the thin riband of that pavement, moving in a maze created by everlasting custom, beneath their flowers, half senseless to life, and yet alive to the least human notice, behind the stretched barriers of their veils. She walked from the Circus to Hyde Park corner and back again; then turned, with an ever-growing lassitude, to repeat the desolate experience. ”

“ His flimsy overcoat flung wide open and ever wider in paroxysms of outraged elegance by the crass wind, and showing an expanse of white shirt-front of that criss-cross piqué kind which is one of the happiest discoveries of this century, and his silk hat rammed over his right eyebrow as though to dare a tornado to embarrass it, he strode up from Hyde Park Corner at a pace which, while not actually leisurely, seemed to be the outward manifestation of an entire absence of interest in time, place, destination, man, God and the devil. ”

“ A happy fellow is this son of winter, for see how the rogue has kissed those pretty lips and dainty cheeks until they are red as summer roses. What would not those guardsmen give for the same privilege, even though they should kiss through the wedding ring?”
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in later days260 used to take a daily drive in Hyde Park. In 1840 a man named John Oxford shot at the Queen on Constitution Hill. Her Majesty fortunately escaped unhurt, so the drive was continued to Hyde Park Corner, and a visit paid to the Duchess of Kent in Belgrave Square. ”

“ Giles’ in the Fields, and from thence to Islington, to Our Lady of the Oak, to Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath.”
Hyde Park was then of much greater extent than it is at present, and comprised 620 acres; but what with the portion taken to add to Kensington Gardens, and land taken away at Hyde Park Corner, it now does not measure 400 acres. ”

“ As you gazed from an eminence, no rows of monotonous houses reminded you of the vicinity of a large city, and the atmosphere of Hyde Park was then much more like what God has made it, than the hazy, gray, coal-darkened half twilight of the London of to-day. The company, which then congregated daily about five, was composed of dandies and women in the best society, the men mounted on such horses as England alone then could produce. ”

“ Truly Hyde Park has an unparalleled record. For four hundred years the makers of history, politicians, beauty, nobility, bravery—and knavery, alas!—have all tendered homage to the charm of its acres, its noble trees, its grassy sward. Generation after generation has proclaimed love for it; and now, indeed, what would the babies and the beauties do without the famous stretch from Marble Arch to Piccadilly? ”

“ There was no fashionable chronicler of the day to tell us exactly which were the favourite resorts of Society, but it would not be surprising if the rough roads cut in the spacious parks which extended so far from Whitehall were first put to use for carriage exercise by Elizabeth’s courtiers. Hyde Park has been the fashionable drive for centuries. One likes to think of those bumpy old contrivances, of colossal weight and build, with the stoutness of a farmer’s cart, as setting the fashion of driving in the park which has come down unbroken to the present year of grace. ”

“ It is impossible to contemplate such an outrageous scene without a glance at that calm February morning, almost a century later, grey, still and chilly, when from early dawn the population of London—even to the loafer and the noisy hooligan of the street—went with subdued demeanour towards Hyde Park, there to stand, or sit in the trees for hours, until the funeral cortége of Queen Victoria should pass through London. Even Nature herself seemed to hold her breath as the stately procession wound its way across the Park, on that very road taken by the galloping horses eighty years before. ”

“ Wild and beautiful, no doubt, was the Hyde Park of Queen Anne, but it was not the luxurious garden that we now know. Let us obliterate for a moment from our mind’s eye the well-kept grounds of our favourite resort, with the waters of the Serpentine sparkling in the sun, and replace them by thickets and brushwood growing on marshy ground, here and there stagnant pools, with the pungent smell that ever pervades any tract of swampy forest-land ”

“ Hyde Park, however, is the common heritage of all, the meeting-ground of King and coster. It is the most truly democratic spot in all London. It is surprising what tolerance there is, what good feeling pervades the throng made up of such extraordinary mixtures and contradictions.
A well-dressed woman, who goes into a mean street of slum-land, is made the subject of audible remarks, mostly ribald, too often coarse. Her fashionable costume seems to excite hatred. The would-be finery of the Park no doubt envies the real finery. ”

“ It is hard for the Londoner of 1908 to realise that two hundred years ago neither children, nor the “man in the street,” nor the loafer, nor the orator, were permitted to enter Hyde Park. In fact, the only part the poor labouring folk ever knew of it was its high brick wall.
When the Jacobite risings were fermenting, a military camp was formed in Hyde Park. The newspapers contain grand accounts of the rejoicings among the troops, and the feast given to the men by the Duke of Montague, who was in command, in honour of the Prince of Wales’s birthday. ”

“ Hyde Park differs from all these; and Hyde Park stands within a huge city, and not a mile or two outside. It is not newly planted or freshly made, and some of the trees within its railings, dating back through many centuries, would be hard to rival in any land. ”

“ And thus from generation to generation Hyde Park has been the playground of London’s rich and poor, the wide theatre upon which their tragedies and comedies have been enacted, the forum in which many public liberties have been demanded, the scene where national triumphs have been celebrated. ”

“ Earlier in the year, when the trees are throwing out their fresh green leaves, the almond blossom glows, the grass looks fresh, and the daffodils and narcissi give hope of coming achievement. Possibly Hyde Park possesses no trees so ancestral as the old elm which stands on the edge of the lake in the neighbourhood of St. James’s Park, beneath which the monks at Westminster are said to have fished for a Friday’s meal. It still bears leaves, and though its roots are plastered up, seems likely to thrive for many years. ”

“ Society, however, pursued its way, and the daily drive and lounge survived during all the religious120 and political turmoil. Hyde Park remained the great rendezvous, though James was rarely seen there, and under the trees were discussed, as of old, the affairs of the Court, the plots of the Roman Catholics, precedence of great ladies, rivalries and jealousie, dress and equipage. A new excitement was added to the fashionable walk by a custom which began among the beaux and grandes dames of wearing masks in the Park, and by their means many intrigues were set afoot. ”

“ Hyde Park is a truly national property, and it is amusing and perhaps edifying to note the various uses to which it is often put. In the morning it is the rendezvous of nurses and children; in the afternoon of a fashionable throng; on Sunday evenings it is the resort of hard-working men and women, who have to content themselves with getting a breath of fresh air once a week. ”

“ A great demonstration, with its twenty or fifty298 thousand people, is an occasional event. When agitators are busy there may be two or three such in a year. But never a week passes without the free air of Hyde Park being disturbed by the strident cries of somebody or other, airing the grievances of himself or his class, while there is a set of publicists—well-known figures—to whom the opportunities to hear their own voices, afforded by the Park, seem to be their meat and drink and vegetables. ”

“ It is also interesting to watch the different aspects it presents at different times of the day. How fascinating, is it not, to see the strong, youthful figures of young England plunging into the cool water, racing, boxing, and playing games, and to see the men, of the same steel-like, well-proportioned race as the magnificent English horses galloping up and down.
“After four o’clock Hyde Park displays a spectacle of wealth, beauty, and elegance such as can only be found in cities of a very ancient culture ”

“ Indeed, if one allows one’s imagination to run riot, there are even now spots in Hyde Park which lend themselves for the “setting” of such meetings. Strolling on a November afternoon near the site of the Ring, my thoughts wandering back through the centuries, I came to a grassy slope facing a group of silver birch trees. Their beautiful forms stood in bold relief against a background of dark shrubs. The setting sun—a red ball of fire—gave the haze, that adds so much to the picturesqueness of London, a hue that might have been the glow of a ruddy sunrise. ”

“ In 1712, Anne issued further orders “for the better keeping of Hyde Park.” Gatekeepers were always to be on duty, and not to sell intoxicating liquors. No one was to leap or ride over ditches and fences, or to break the latter, and this also applied to the banks of ponds. No person was to ride over the grass on the south side of the gravelled coach road except Henry Wise, who was permitted to cross the part of the Park leading to the door in the Park wall next his plantation. ”

“ A movement is on foot to reinstate refreshment booths in Hyde Park, as we saw in the last chapter, by placing one on the site of the old horse-racing Ring; but it is to be hoped many more will be opened on the lines of the charming little tea kiosks that have been instituted in Kensington Gardens,—a long-delayed reform that is much needed. ”