On Cromwell’s return to England, in the spring of 1650, from the scenes of the bloody massacres by which he had subdued Ireland, he entered London in triumph. When passing the old camp where he had reviewed his Ironsides years before, multitudes of citizens came out to greet him. The soldiers stationed there discharged a volley, big guns were fired, and the people shouted and cheered all the way to Whitehall.
The fate of Hyde Park did not remain long undecided.
In spite of much haggling by the Council, the vandals of Parliament succeeded in two or three years in obtaining their own way. London lost its playground. The Park was condemned to be sold by order of Parliament in 1652, and realised about £17,000. The “eligible” property, as an enthusiastic auctioneer of to-day would probably describe it, was divided into three lots, namely:
The Gravel-pit division was bought by Richard Wilcox for £4144.
The Kensington division, bought by a merchant, John Tracy, for £3906; and
The Middle, Banqueting, and Old Lodge Divisions were purchased by Anthony Deane, of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, for £9020.
Of this sum, £4899, 10s. was realised for the timber, so evidently the Park must have been thickly wooded at that time. There were also sold Tyburn Meadow and the enclosed meadow-land used for the deer, which were numerous. These animals brought in the sum of £765, 6s. 2d., the money being devoted to the Navy.
What Richard Wilcox may have done with the Gravel-pit division I have not been able to discover. Possibly he dug more gravel-pits; if so, they have long since been filled up, and all traces have disappeared. The pits came into the possession of a man named Orme in the nineteenth century, who amassed a fortune by selling gravel from them to Russia, and the money he afterwards invested in building. It is probable that Orme Square, the home of Sir Rowland Hill (father of the penny post) for so many years, was named after him.
John Tracy, the merchant who had secured the Kensington division, was evidently a man of ambitions. We know that he built two houses at Knightsbridge within the Park area, from the fact that after the Restoration he mentions them specifically in his petition to Charles II.