Hyde Park, Its History and Romance

by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

In the Muniment Room at Westminster lies a paper (to which, through the courtesy of Dean Armitage Robinson, I have been able to refer) that records in 1285 the granting of parcels of land in the Manor of Hide to a tenant, reserving the right to enter and repair the “aqueductum subterraneum” running through them. This is the first of many references to the springs in Hyde Park which for long supplied the surrounding districts with water. When the Manor of Hide became a Royal hunting-ground, the “original fountain” and all the watercourses leading from it to the site of St. Peter’s, and the right of entering to repair them, were restored to the Dean and Chapter.

Dean Stanley notes in his History of Westminster how the Tyburn water was considered especially good on account of its having run through a bed of gravel somewhere near the present site of Buckingham Palace. There was in his time an ancient and well-worn pump standing in Dean’s Yard, under the shadow of the Abbey.

Bathing Well in Hyde Park. From a Print in the Crace Collection, British Museum.

Speaking the other day to an old inhabitant of Westminster who remembered this pump, I learnt that it was in existence until about twenty-five years ago, when the underground railway interfered with the spring, and although water was laid on from another source to provide passers-by with refreshment, the new supply was so little used that the pump was removed. In my informant’s remembrance an old woman used to sit there, with a glass, to dole out the pure liquid from the spring; and in his youth (1835) old people told him that numbers of halt, sick, and lame came to Dean’s Yard, under the shadow of the Abbey, and pumped the water on to their ailing limbs, or bathed their sores, while other visitors carried away buckets full to sick folk at home, just as they do at Lourdes to-day.

But to return to the Manor of Hide. Some writers think that about the time of Edward III. it passed from the control of the monks, doubtless because there exists a document recording that Edward III. granted parcels of land in the Manor of Hide to his Barber, Adam de Thorpe. But probably the King held the land in some way from the Abbot. It was in this reign, too, that John of Gaunt (son of Edward III.), styling himself “King of Leon and Castille,” begged the Abbot of Westminster to grant him the use of the Neyte Manor House during the sitting of Parliament; while about the same time Abbot Nicholas Littlington, who did much good work for Westminster, and improved the Hide ground vastly, lived and died in the Neyte House.

Hyde Park as a Royal enclosure, as we have seen, is a Tudor creation. Like much else that has altered the appearance of this western area of London, its origin is traced back to the fall of Wolsey in 1530, when the Cardinal’s magnificent Palace of York Place was promptly seized by his imperious master. Henry VIII. renamed it Whitehall, and various additions were planned. Grasping as he was by nature, Wolsey had not encompassed his home with any great extent of land. The river front was the best part, and on the interior he had lavished his wealth.

Henry had other ideas of a palace which he intended should be befitting a King. To his larger ambitions is due the whole range of parks which now extend from Westminster right across West London to Kensington. His actions, however, show that he was entirely selfish, and he had at no time contemplated sharing his enjoyment with the people. Before he had been twelve months in possession of Whitehall, the monarch had exchanged the Priory of Poughley, in Berkshire, for about 100 acres of land forming part of St. James’s Park and Spring Gardens, and of this he made a convenient enclosure for the use of the Court.

The next extension of the Royal domain was on a much larger scale.

Henry had evidently quite a reasonable desire to improve the surroundings of his Palace at Whitehall, and no wonder. A Leper Hospital and a swamp were neither desirable nor healthy adjuncts to a Royal dwelling. Some kindly citizens of London had in the early days of the city endowed a hospital for the accommodation of fourteen sisters suffering from this cruel disease. They gave two hides of land, and dedicated the charity to St. James. With various later gifts, the hospital had acquired by the reign of Henry VIII. over 480 acres of land, and a Brotherhood had been established in connection with it. By a grant of Henry VI. the control of the Hospital and Brotherhood had been given to the authorities of Eton School. In 1532, Henry VIII. exchanged certain lands in Suffolk for those adjoining his Palace at Whitehall. He suppressed the Brotherhood and pensioned off the inmates of the Hospital; and thus, with the 100 acres secured from the monks of Westminster in the previous year, the area that stretched from Whitehall to the Manor of Hyde came into his possession.