St. James’s has always been a very royal park since the days when the young Princess Elizabeth rode through it from her father’s new palace to the court at Whitehall, attended “with a very honourable confluence of noble and worshipful persons of both sexes.” Charles I. took his last walk through it on his way to the scaffold in Whitehall. Charles II. spent much of his time playing with his dogs and feeding his ducks there, and he planted some of the oaks from the acorns of the royal oak at Boscobel. His aviary on the south side is still remembered in the name of Birdcage Walk, and the tradition is carried on by the aquatic birds that again haunt the ornamental water as before the war.
Walpole in his reminiscences quotes George I. as saying:
This is a strange country. The first morning after my arrival at St. James’s, I looked out of the window, and saw a park with walls, canal, etc., which they told me were mine. The next day, Lord Chetwynd the Ranger of my Park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd’s servant for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal in my own garden.
I always loved, too, the reply of Walpole’s father to Queen Caroline when she asked how much it would cost to close St. James’s Park for the royal use and he answered, “only three crowns, Madam.”
Regent’s Park
“London is before all things an incomparable background.”—F. M. Hueffer.
Regent’s Park to most people spells the Zoo, the place where one may see the best menagerie in the world. It is the successor of Marylebone Park, a royal hunting-ground until Cromwell’s day. It was laid out in its present style after 1812 by Nash, the man who designed Regent Street, and named after the Prince Regent, who thought he would build a country house here.
It is so far removed from Mayfair that its glories have been neglected, but now that fashion has drifted north of Hyde Park and even Bloomsbury is having its recrudescence, Regent’s Park may wake up any day and find itself famous. It is beautifully laid out and tended, and garden lovers from other lands will like it immensely if they take a tube to Baker Street and spend an hour or so there, either boating on the lovely lake or walking in the gardens.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, enclosed by a circular walk, are reached from York Street by a road running north between Bedford Women’s College and the Toxophilite Society (which ordinary people are content to call the Archery Club). It is only open to the general public on Mondays and Saturdays on payment of one shilling.
On this west side of the park is St. Dunstan’s Lodge, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Kahn, who gave their house for some years to the late Sir Arthur Pearson for his hostel for the education of the blind.