Hyde Park from Domesday-book to Date

“The day now began to dawn, and I took her to the window. The election of Cochrane (after his expulsion, owing to the sentence of the Court, which both insured his re-election and abolished the pillory) was to take place that day. I said, ‘Look there, Madam; in a few hours all the streets and the park, now empty, will be crowded with tens of thousands. I have only to take you to the window, show you to the crowd, and tell them your grievances, and they will rise in your behalf.’ ‘And why should they not?’ I think she said, or some such words. ‘The commotion,’ I answered, ‘will be excessive; Carlton House will be attacked, – perhaps pulled down; the soldiers will be ordered out; blood will be shed; and if your Royal Highness were to live a hundred years, it never would be forgotten that your running away from your father’s house was the cause of the mischief; and you may depend upon it, such is the English people’s horror of bloodshed, you would never get over it.’ She at once felt the truth of my assertion, and consented to see her uncle Frederic (the Duke of York) below stairs, and return with him. But she required one of the Royal carriages should be sent for, which came with her governess, and they, with the Duke of York, went home about five o’clock.”

Turning down Park Lane, we find Gloucester House, the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, and it is so called because it was bought by the late Duke of Gloucester on his marriage. Formerly the Earl of Elgin lived here, and here he exhibited the “Elgin Marbles” which are now the pride of the classical section of the British Museum. Byron, in his Curse of Minerva, thus writes of them: —

“While brawny brutes, in stupid wonder stare,And marvel at his lordship’s ‘stone shop’ there.”

Lower down is Dorchester House, the residence of Capt. Holford, erected in 1852-4. It is so named because it stands on the site of a house belonging to the Damers, Earls of Dorchester. It is celebrated for its libraries, engravings, and paintings by the old masters. Yet nearer Hyde Park Corner is Londonderry House, the town house of the Marquess of Londonderry, K.G.

Hyde Park Corner, as shown in a water-colour drawing of 1756 in the Crace Collection, gives us a good idea of what it was like – its wooden gates, its apple stall, the row of squalid cottages, and the public-house called the “Hercules’ Pillars” – where now stand Apsley House and the houses of the Rothschilds. Anent the apple stall, the story is told that the wife of a discharged soldier named Allen kept it during the reign of George II. Allen somehow attracted the notice of the King, who, upon learning that he had fought at Dettingen, asked what he could do for him. Allen asked for the grant of the bit of land on which his hut and apple stall stood, and the boon was granted. In 1784, Allen’s representative sold the ground to Henry, Lord Apsley, who was then Lord Chancellor, who thereon built a red brick house, which he is said to have designed, and, having built the first floor, found that he had forgotten any staircases to go up higher.

In 1820 it was purchased by the nation and settled on the great Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his heirs for ever, but it had to undergo many alterations before it took its present shape. Many of my readers will remember the bullet-proof iron shutters which were put up at every window facing Piccadilly, after all the windows had been smashed by a mob during the popular ferment caused by the Reform Bill. They were never opened during the old Duke’s life, and were only taken down by his son in 1856. The story of these iron shutters is thus told by the Rev. R. Gleig, in his Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington (ed. 1864, p. 360): —

“The Duke was not in his place in the House of Lords on that memorable day when the King went down to dissolve (prorogue) Parliament (April 22nd, 1831). He had been in attendance for some time previously at the sick bed of the Duchess, and she expired just as the Park guns began to fire. He was therefore ignorant of the state into which London had fallen, till a surging crowd swept up from Westminster to Piccadilly, shouting and yelling, and offering violence to all whom they suspected of being anti-reformers. By-and-by, volleys of stones came crashing through the windows at Apsley House, breaking them to pieces, and doing injury to more than one valuable picture in the gallery. The Duke bore the outrage as well as he could, but determined never to run a similar risk again. He guarded his windows, as soon as quiet was restored, with iron shutters, and left them there to the day of his death – a standing memento of a nation’s ingratitude.”

The illustration representing the Duke looking out of his smashed windows is taken from Political Sketches by H.B. (John Doyle), No. 267, June 10th, 1833, and is entitled “Taking an Airing in Hyde Park; a portrait, Framed but not YET Glazed.”

Nearly opposite Apsley House, and at the top of Constitution Hill, stands an Arch which was originally intended as a private entrance to Buckingham Palace; but it was erected on its present site about 1828, when Burton put up his screen at the entrance to Hyde Park. It is now more generally known as the Wellington Arch, from its having been surmounted by a colossal bronze equestrian statue of the great Duke, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt, in 1846. This was the outcome of a public subscription for the purpose, which is said to have amounted to £36,000. So much ridicule, however, was heaped upon it, that it was taken down in January, 1883, and removed to Aldershot in August, 1884, where it now is. A new statue on a pedestal supported by four soldiers, by Sir J. E. Boehm, was afterwards erected on nearly the same spot, and was unveiled by the Prince of Wales, on December 21, 1888.

St. George’s Hospital, which stands close by, owes its existence to some dissension in the government of the Westminster Infirmary – and the seceders, in 1733, took Lanesborough House, on the site of the present hospital. The house being found too small, wings were added, and, even then, want of space compelled the governors to pull it down and erect a new one, which was finished in 1834 – since when it has been much enlarged.

Knightsbridge is a very old hamlet – adjacent to Hyde Park Corner and thence running westward, bounded on the north by the Park. It is supposed to have taken its name from a bridge over the Westbourne, which ran across the road previous to its falling into the Thames at Chelsea. In Ellis’s Introduction to Norden’s Essex, p. XV., he says that Norden, describing in 1593 the bridges of most use in Middlesex, “enumerates ‘Kinges bridge, commonly called Stone bridge, nere Hyde parke corner, wher I wish noe true man to walke too late without good garde, unless he can make his partie good, as dyd Sir H. Knyvet, Knight, who valiantlye defended himselfe, ther being assaulted, and slew the master theefe with his owne hands.’ ”

This bridge was as near as possible where Albert Gate now stands – one of the mansions there being once occupied by George Hudson, the Railway King, who bought it for £15,000. From being a small draper at York, with his own savings and a legacy of £30,000, he amassed a large fortune by promoting Railway Companies. When the Railway mania collapsed he became very poor, but a few friends having subscribed £4800, they bought him an annuity with it, on which he lived until his death, in 1871.

The Barracks for the Household Cavalry are also in Knightsbridge, and not many years ago they were condemned as being unsanitary, and the present magnificent block built in their stead. From them to Kensington Gardens, there is nothing particular to note.

1

Ancestor of the family of Mandeville, Earls of Essex.

2

A hide was 100 or 120 acres – as much land as one plough could cultivate in a year.

3

A Carucate was as much arable land as could be cultivated by one plough in a year, with sufficient meadow and pasture for the team.

4

A plough is the same as a Carucate.

5

These were not slaves, but persons used and employed in the most servile work, and belonging, both they and their children, and their effects, to the lord of the soil, like the rest of the cattle or stock upon it.

6

A Virgate was from 8 to 16 acres of land.

7

Bordars were peasants holding a little house, bigger than a cottage, together with some land of husbandry.

8

An History of the Church of St. Peter, Westminster, by R. Widmore, 1751.

9

John of Gaunt, brother of Edward III., and titular King of Castile.

10

Strype’s edit, of Stow’s Survey, ed. 1720. Book VI. p. 80.

11

Lord Burghley, High Steward of Westminster.

12

Who had formerly been a kind of companion to his wife.

13

England under the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, by P. E. Tytler. Lond. 1839, vol i. p. 288.

14

Illustrations of British History, etc., by E. Lodge. Lond. 1791, vol. ii. p. 205.

15

The Duke of Anjou and his Court.

16

Keeper, whose duty was to shoot trespassing dogs, and foxes.

17

His lodge.

18

Correspondence of Lord Scudamore, Ambassador at Paris in 1635, etc., privately printed.

19

Vol. ii. p. 508.

20

Mercurius Politicus. January 29-February 5, 1657.

21

Mercurius Politicus. January 15-22, 1657, and The Publick Intelligencer, January 19-26, 1657.

22

Mercurius Politicus. February 12-19, 1657.

23

“Amusements Serious and Comical, Calculated for the Meridian of London.” Lond. 1700, p. 55.

24

“Environs of London.” D. Lysons, 2nd ed. vol. ii. part i. p. 117.

25

Amelia, by Hy. Fielding, ed. 1752. Book 5, ch. vi. p. 132.

26

Brit. Mus. 515. 1. 2/215

27

Richardson.

28

The Duke of York, afterwards James II.

29

Whenever “the tour” is mentioned, the “Ring” is meant which was the most fashionable part.

30

Rox. ii. 379. – Lutt. ii. 147.

31

1st Series, 2nd edition, 1862, p. 71.

32

The age of the Prince Regent.

33

Technically we were then at war with America – a war which began June 18th, 1812, and was ended by the Peace of Ghent, December 24th, 1814.

34

These mimic ships were drawn by artillery horses from the Thames side to the Serpentine.

35

Morning Chronicle, June 30, 1838; p. 4, c. 3.

36

The “Book of Fame,” by Geoffrey Chaucer; printed by Caxton, 1486 (?)

37

Dais.

38

Punch, June 29, 1850.

39

This was no mandarin, but the shipper of a Chinese junk, then on exhibition, who had dressed himself gorgeously, and obtained admission somehow.

40

6s. iv. 172.

41

The writer saw the messenger returning from the King at Kensington, and the execution.

42

“Celebrities of London and Paris.” 3rd Series, 1865.

43

The Bishop of Durham is a Prince Palatine, as well as a Bishop, and on entering his palatinate used to be, and may be now, girt with a sword.

44

“A ramble thro’ Hyde Park; or, the Humours of the Camp.” London, 1722.

45

Oil-cloth.

46

Then called Buckingham House.

47

Next in rank to gunners.

48

Really, 841 cavalry and 7351 infantry.

49

The barrels and locks of the muskets of that date were bright and burnished. Browning military gun-barrels were not introduced till 1808.

50

The then Chief Commissioner of Police.

51

This Mr. Walpole denied in a letter to The Times, July 26th.

52

So called because it was there that the Reform League used to hold their meetings.

53

35 and 36 Vic. C. 15 (June 27, 1872); by which it is set forth in the first Schedule, “That no person shall deliver, or invite any person to deliver any public address in a park, except in accordance with the rules of the park.”

54

A police inspector specially active in pursuit of Anarchists – knowing all their haunts, etc.

55

Now Sir E. Lawson, Bart., editor of The Daily Telegraph.

56

1000l.

57

Then Chief Commissioner of Police.

58

Probably meaning Sunday, 24th March.

59

Now the French Embassy, and the London and County Banking Company.

60

In a plan of “Part of Conduit Mead” – about 1720 – the little stream is called “Aye brook.”

61

“Memoirs of the Embassy of the Marshal de Bassompierre to the Court of England in 1626,” p. 138. Translated. Lond. 1819.