María Germade Malvido

Hyde Park

Hyde Park is one of the biggest park in London centre, England and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous because of its Speakers´ Corner.

Lake Serpentine divides Hyde Park in two halves.

The park is next two Kensington Gardens; although people think that Kensington Gardens belongs to Hyde Park, the gardens have been considered a different Park since 1728, when Queen Caroline divided the place into two different parks.

Hyde Park is 350 acres long and Kensington Gardens are 275 acres long, that means that the total area is 675 acres; that is a place bigger than Monaco (485 acres).

During the day, both parks seem just one, but at night time Kensington Gardens are closed and Hyde Park is still open until midnight.

The great Exhibition of 1851 took place in the park. This was the reason why the Crystal Palace designed by Joseph Paxton was built.

There have also been many demonstrations in Hyde Park, organised by almost any kind of political party or organization.

On the 20th July 1982 two bombs attacks took place in Hyde Park and Regents Park. The attacks were related to a group that belongs to the IRA and there were eight victims from the Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets. Seven horses were also killed.

Speakers’ Corner: a place where anybody can talk in front of an audience.

Henry VIII bought Hyde mansion to the members of Westminster Abbey (it had belonged to them from the Normand time).

The mansion was closed as a deer park and it was used for hunting purposes. It was a private hunting field until Jacob I let some people in with a gamekeeper responsible for them.Carlos I created the Ring (on north of the Serpentine river) and in 1637 opened it to public in general.

History

Frozen River

Marble Arch

In 1689, when Guillermo III moved his bedrooms to Nottingham House in the small town of Kensington , in the distant part of Hyde park and he renamed it as “Kensington Palace”, sketched a path on south side and led it to St. James Palace. This route was known as route du roi, but this name became corrupted and now it is known as Rotten Row, which still exist s today as a wide gravel road for carriages leading straight from west (Hyde Park Corner) to south limit.

Map of Hyde Park

The first design of a coherent landscape was realized by Charles Bridgeman for the Queen Caroline under the supervision of Charles Wither, General Supervisor of Woods and Forests. It was completed in 1733 with a cost of 20.000 £. Bridgeman's water body called The Serpentine was formed thanks to damming the small Westbourne that flowed through the park, but it was not really in the “line of beauty” described by William Hogarth, it was simply an irregular and modest curve. The 2nd Viscount of Weymouth was made Hyde Park Keeper in 1739 and short after he began to dig the Serpentine lakes in Longleat. The Serpentine is divided by Long Water's bridge, designed by George Rennie (1826).

One of the most important events that took place in the park was the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace was constructed in the south side of the park. Most of the public did not want the building to be kept in the park after the closing of that exhibition, and the architect, Joseph Paxton, collected funds and bought it. Later he made it move to Sydenham Hill, in south London.

Crystal Palace 

The Great Entry to the park, at Hyde Park Corner next to Apsley House, was constructed from Decimus Burton's designs in 1824-25 and it is described this way: “It consists on a screen of beautiful fluted ionic columns with three carriages entrance archways, two foot entrances, a lodge, etc.” The extension of the whole frontage is closely 107 feet (33 m). The central entry has a firm projection: the planking is supported by four columns, and the capitals of the outside columns of each side of the entry are formed in angular direction, to exhibit two complete faces. All these income are finished by a blockade, the sides of the central entry are decorated by a beautiful frieze, representing a naval and military triumphal procession. This frieze was designed by Mr. Henning, Jr., the son of Mr. Henning that was well-known for his models of Elgin's marbles.

Hyde Park Corner

The gates were manufactured by Messrs. Bramah. They are of iron, bronze, 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 are definite well designed and the details of the leaves are done in the most extraordinary manners.A rose garden, designed by Colvin & Moggridge, was added in 1994.

Hyde Park Corner

Sites of interest in the park include Speakers ' Corner (located in the northeast corner near Marble Arch), close to the former site of Tyburn's gallows, and Rotten Row, which is the north boundary of the site of the Crystal Palace. On the south of lake Serpentine there is the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial, an oval ring stone fountain inaugurated on July 6, 2004. To the east of the Serpentine, just beyond the dam, it is the Holocaust Memorial.

A magnificent botanical curiosity is “Weeping Beech”, Fagus sylvatica pendula, cherished as “the tree upside-down”. Opposite Hyde Park Corner is one of the biggest hotels of London, The Lanesborough, which offers its better suite for 8,000£ a night.

A tree in the shape of house

St. James´s Park

The park of Santiago, Saint James, Sainte Jacob or St. James´s Park is a extent of 23 hectare in the zone of Westminster, in the centre of London. It is the oldest of the Royal Parks of the city. It is situated in the extreme south of the zone of St. James´s, which was named in honour of a leprous hospital devoted to Santiago the Minor.

St. James´s Park is surrounded by Buckingham Palace on the west, The mall (London) and St. James´s Palace on the north, Horse Guards on the east and Bridcage walk on the south. the park has a small lake, the St. James-Park´s lake, with two island, Duck Island and West Island. A bridge that crosses the lake offers a wonderful view of the west side of Buckingham Palace framed by trees and springs, and a fantastic view of the principal building of the Foreign and Common Wealth office, on the east.

This photo shows Green Park, Buckingham Palace and St James's Park

The park is the most Eastern of the chain of London parks that also includes, towards the west, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Garden´s. The closest entry to the underground are the St. James´s Park, Victoria Station and Westminster.

In 1532, Henry VIII bought the zone from the marsh, often flooded by the Tyburn stream, to the Eton School. This zone was limited on West by York Palace, recently bought by Henry to the Cardinal Wolsey, acquired to transform York Palace in an appropriate residence for the king. When Jacob I became king in 1603, he made drain the park and prepare landscape gardens, and he put in it several kinds of exotic animals, among which there were camels, crocodiles and elephants, and an aviary prepare to hold exotic birds.

Exotic Animals

During the King’s exile in French during the Commonwealth of British, Charles II, the young king was very impressed by the elaborated gardens of the royal French palaces, and after his return from France he ordered to sketch the park to give it a more formal air. This work was probably asked to the French landscaper André Mollet. These schemes include the creation of a canal of 775 by 38 metres. Charles II opened the park to the public, and used it to entertain guests and lovers, as Nell Gwyn. During XVIII century it saw many changes, including the claim of part of the channel by Horse Guards Parade and in 1761  the Royal Family acquired Buckingham House (now Buckingham Palace).

Newcastle’s St James Park

Subsequent renovations made  between 1826 and 1827,commissioned by the Regent Prince (later George IV) and supervised by landscape gardener and architect John Nash, showed how the channel was transformed into a lake, and formal avenues became more romantic  walks . At the same time, Buckingham House was expanded to create the present palace  and Marble Arch was built as the entrance, while The Mall became a ceremonial grand tour, opened to the public 60 years later, in 1887, the Arch was moved to  its current location at the intersection of Oxford Street and Park Lane in 1851 and was replaced by the Victoria Memorial between 1906 and 1924.

In early July 2007 the Tour de France started in London. The first day was the Prologue, which took in a tour round the Royal Parks in London before the tour proper set off through Kent to the English Channel on the following day.These delightful topiary cyclists were commissioned by Mark Wasilewski, Park Manager of St James Park, to commemorate the occasion.

Regent´s Park

Regent`s park is one of the London Royal Parks. It is located in the north zone of the city, a part in Westminster city another part in Camden.

The park has an exterior round called the Outer Circle (4,3km) and an inside round called the Inner Circle surrounds the area know as Queen Mary´s Garden.

Apart from two union paths between these, the park is reserved for pedestrians. Side south, east and most part of west are surrounded by elegant rows of white terraced houses designed by John Nash. On north´s limit it is Regent´s Canal, which connects Grand Unicorn Canal to London Docks, the ancient London harbour

Sun of the late Autumn in Regent Park, London

The park, of 2km square, is mainly formed by open green areas in which there are a lot of different facilities for free time activities and gardens, a lake for water birds, an area for boats, sports fields and children´s playground on the North-East limit of the park there is the London Zoo, the oldest zoo park of the world.

Regent´s Park also has flower and botanical gardens, among which Queen Mary´s Garden in the Inner Circle (where it is also the Open Air Theatre) is the most important.

In Regent´s Park we can also find the London Central Mosque, known as Regent´s Park Mosque, Winfield House, official residence of the United States ambassador in the United Kingdom, and the Regent´s College, in which several institutions of higher education are located.

Central Mosque