HE modern so-called “Kensington Gardens” are, as we have already explained, identical with the original domain of old Nottingham House, increased by the addition of some hundred acres or more taken from Hyde Park. When William III. first acquired the Nottingham estate he appointed his favourite, Bentinck, Earl of Portland, “Superintendent of Their Majesties’ Gardens and Plantations within the boundary lines of Their Majesties’ said house at Kensington”—an office distinct from that of Ranger of Hyde Park—and some planting and other improvements seem to have been carried out at that time in these “plantations.”
Queen Anne’s inclosure of a hundred acres from Hyde Park to form a paddock for deer we have already noted.
Faulkner’s exaggerated statement that nearly three hundred acres were taken in and added to Kensington Gardens by Queen Caroline has been confuted by Mr. Loftie; but he has gone to the other extreme in declaring that no alteration whatever was, at any time, made in the boundary between the park and the gardens. Nevertheless, it is still doubtful whether Queen Caroline is to be held responsible for any “rectification” of these frontiers. The reference already quoted, in the Treasury Papers of the year 1729, for an allowance of £200 to the ranger “in consideration of loss of herbage of that part of the said park, which is laid into His Majesty’s gardens at Kensington,” may of course refer to the portion previously taken in by Queen Anne.
Queen Caroline’s Improvements in Kensington Gardens.
TO Queen Caroline, however, is certainly due the main credit of the creation of Kensington Gardens, as we now know them; for it was her reforming and transforming zeal which made the great “Basin” or “Round Pond;” turned a string of small ponds, in the course of the “West Bourne,” into the Serpentine; laid out the “Broad Walk,” and designed the diverging and converging vistas and avenues of trees intersecting the grounds in all directions.
In all these extensive works of improvement Charles Bridgeman, the King’s gardener, was employed; and we find from the old Treasury Minute Book that in 1729 no less a sum than £5,000 was due to him “for works in the paddock and gardens at Kensington.”
About the same date, Queen Caroline, during one of George II.’s absences in Hanover, issued an order that:
“The King’s ministers being very much incommoded by the dustiness of the road leading through Hyde Park, now they are obliged to attend Her Majesty at Kensington, it was her pleasure that the whole of the said road be kept constantly watered, instead of the ring in the Park; and that no coaches other than those of the nobility and gentry be suffered to go into or pass through the Park.”