Hyde Park, Its History and Romance

by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

The Tyburn—it is spelt indifferently Tyburn, Ty-burne, Tibourne, and in other ways—was a very little stream to figure so largely in history. Surely no rivulet of its size has borne a name more feared or written about, unless it be the Styx itself. From the northern heights of Hampstead and Highgate the waters drained off into many brooks. Of these the most important was Tyburn, which ran from Hampstead across the district now known as Regent’s Park to Tyburn Road, which it crossed somewhere near Stratford Place. Thence the stream made its way through the modern Brook Street, Hay Hill, Lansdowne Gardens, Half Moon Street, and along the valley in Piccadilly, where it was crossed by a bridge.

How few of us realise what a hill there is in Piccadilly, or that a bridge over a stream there could ever have been necessary. When Piccadilly is full of traffic the steep dip is scarcely noticeable, but at night, when the lamps are lighted, one discovers by the ups and downs in the rows of twinkling lights that there is a veritable hill and vale, along which some of the most famous clubs in London are now built.

In the Green Park the Tyburn widened into a large pond, from which it ran past the spot where Buckingham Palace now stands, and fell into the Thames in three branches, the main stream emptying itself at Chelsea. The burn spread into a marsh as it neared the river, and finally surrounded the wooded Thorney, or Isle of Thorns, on which Westminster Abbey was built.

Running nearly parallel with the little Tyburn was another rivulet, which flowed through our present Park, namely, the West-bourne. This, too, rose in the high lands near Hampstead, fought its way down hill to Bayswater, where Westbourne Terrace now stands, and crossed Hyde Park, taking a southerly course near the present site of Albert Gate, where a foot-bridge was built. It passed thence through Lowndes Square and Chesham Street, finally discharging into the Thames by two mouths near the grounds of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.

The accompanying map will illustrate this description and give interest to the above details.

These two little rivulets practically watered that part of the forest, while London for centuries afterwards was confined to the walled town ending at Blackfriars. Both are lost to sight to-day. They can no longer be seen above ground, although their springs help to flood our drains and keep them fresh and clean. As Dean Stanley says: “There is a quaint humour in the fact that the great arteries of our crowded streets, the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the lifeblood of those old and living streams; that underneath our tread the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are still pursuing their course, still ministering to the good of man.” The identical course of the Tyburn given in the Charter of King Edgar is followed by the “King’s Pond Sewer.”

It will be seen that the land lying between the Tyburn and the Westbourne was practically an island. It was known as the Manor of Eia—the Ey-land—and included all the district between Westminster and Chelsea to the extent of some 890 acres. Hence in the words Hyde and Hay may be seen the corruption of the Anglo-Saxon “ey” or “ei,” an island; in Ty-bourne, of “Ey-bourne.” Anyone familiar with Cockney dialect will easily account for the “H” in Hyde and Hay. The “T” in Ty-bourne is probably an abbreviation of the Saxon word “aet,” the road near; the word thus signifying “the-road-near-the-island-stream.”

This Manor of Eia was, after the completion of Domesday Book (1086), in accordance with the custom of Feudal times, divided into three Manors, namely, Neyt, Eubery, and Hide, and here again is found the corruption of the word “ey” in “Neyt” and “Eubery” (Ebury). There seems to be some doubt as to the origin of Knightsbridge, but it most probably took its name from the bridge over the West-bourne, near the site of the Albert Gate, which apparently was held as a military post, to control the outlaws who infested the morass to the south.

The land had, before the Norman Conquest, been one of the emoluments of the Saxon Master of the Horse, and was probably a Royal hunting-ground, for Edward the Confessor, who, historians agree, was more of a monk than a ruler, had a passion for hawking and hunting. The chase followed his morning prayers with curious regularity. More than that, he pursued his game to the death, and was as hard-hearted in watching their struggles as he was severe in his forest laws, or angry at any contretemps that marred his sport. Through the thick forests which surrounded London he rode forth, hawk on wrist, watchful for bird or hound to give sign of the hidden quarry. Bull and boar, deer, wolf, and hare were all victims of the Saxon’s sport. Harold is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry hawk on hand, his hounds round him, ready for the chase, which, like his predecessor, he may have enjoyed within the precincts of Hyde Park.