Probably few people have any idea that a serious proposal was once actually made to erect a railway station in Hyde Park. This was to be inside the park, on the left-hand side, not very far from the entrance at Hyde Park Corner, and was to serve as terminus to a projected London and Richmond railway.
At the upper end of the road skirting the garden wall of Buckingham Palace, now called Constitution Hill, the great Sir Robert Peel met his death on a June afternoon in 1850, when his horse, having shied at something, threw its rider over his head, an accident which led to a fatal termination a day or two later.
CONSTITUTION HILL
On Constitution Hill, by a somewhat strange coincidence, two attempts were made upon the late Queen Victoria by individuals who were more or less of deranged mind—Edward Oxford, on June 10, 1840, and John Francis, on May 30, 1842. A little more than a month later a hunchbacked youth also levelled a pistol at Her Majesty not very far away from the same locality. His name was Bean, and the outrage occurred whilst the Queen was proceeding from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal. A madman who entertained similar murderous designs also attempted to enter Buckingham Palace in 1839, but was fortunately seized by a sentry before he could do any harm. In former days lunatics were not kept under such strict observation and control as is at present the case. In the early ’forties, for instance, a regular panic was produced in Kensington Gardens by the appearance of a half-clad lunatic on horseback, who created a great deal of confusion amongst the people listening to a band.
The quaint old name of Constitution Hill was the “King’s coach-way” to Kensington, whilst the Green Park was at one time known as Upper St. James’s Park.
In old days there were occasional riots in Hyde Park, notably in 1855, when a Bill to prevent Sunday trading aroused much irritation. Frequenters of the park were a good deal molested by these disturbances, which occurred several Sundays in succession. In 1862 there was also a riot in the same park, which arose from a difference of opinion as to the French occupation of Rome. A free fight took place, indeed, between a number of working men and a body of Irish Catholics, in the course of which a good many people were seriously injured. The breaking down of the park railings during the Reform agitation was, however, a much more serious affair, quiet being only restored by the arrival of the Life Guards.
For the last forty years or so, with the exception of the Trafalgar Square riots, the great demonstrations which are a regular feature of London Sundays have passed off quite peaceably, those taking part in the processions being drawn from a more orderly class than was formerly the case. Even the demonstrations organised by the unemployed have been of a law-abiding character. In connection with these I remember rather an amusing little incident. A certain lady had been invited to view a procession of the unemployed from the windows of a house belonging to a hostess much interested in philanthropic endeavour. On that particular occasion the unemployed had made but a sorry muster, and the lady in question, with every desire to say the right thing, remarked on leaving, “A most delightful afternoon, and I feel sure you are doing a great deal of good; but it was disappointing, wasn’t it, that after all your trouble there should have been so few unemployed?”
ROTTEN ROW
Whilst speaking of Hyde Park I am reminded of the various legends prevailing as to the origin of the name Rotten Row, which some people maintain is nothing else than a corruption of Route du Roi. I do not believe there is any real authority for this derivation, which seems to me somewhat speculative and fanciful, and rests upon no serious foundation of historical evidence. There were formerly many streets in England, and especially in Scotland, which were called Ratton Row, either from alliteration, or allusion to the locality being infested with rats. There was, for instance, a Ratones Lane or Rat Lane in the parish of St. Michael, Greenhithe, as early as the 14th century, whilst coming down to later times a portion of Old Street, just where it joined with Goswell Street, was called Rotten Row in 1720, the houses being appropriately enough in a bad state of decay; the name of this street was afterwards changed to Russel Row. The most fanciful derivation of Rotten Row is the one which declares it to have originated from Rattanreigh, a Celtic term for a good mountain path or road as contrasted with a bad one. Rotten Row in Hyde Park can, by no stretch of imagination, be termed mountainous, and the name of this pleasant ride, which is not an ancient one, in all probability actually arose from the loose state of the mixture of sand and gravel of which its surface is composed.
It was Sheridan who, in a debate in the House of Commons in 1808 on the question of building houses on a part of Hyde Park, jokingly suggested that both sides of Rotten Row might be built on, in order that gentlemen taking their rides there might have the advantage of being gazed at by ladies in the balcony.