In 1712, Anne issued further orders “for the better keeping of Hyde Park.” Gatekeepers were always to be on duty, and not to sell intoxicating liquors. No one was to leap or ride over ditches and fences, or to break the latter, and this also applied to the banks of ponds. No person was to ride over the grass on the south side of the gravelled coach road except Henry Wise, who was permitted to cross the part of the Park leading to the door in the Park wall next his plantation. Nobody should cut or lop trees, and the law forbidding hackney coaches was extended to stage coaches, chaises with one horse, carts, waggons, and funerals.
Gardens were becoming the fashion at this time, and Evelyn twice mentions visiting the wonderful nursery gardens belonging to Mr. Wise at Brompton, the site of famous nurseries until quite a recent date.
A great sensation was caused a few years later, in the reign of George I., when some men of good birth one day hired a hackney coach, drawn by six horses in the most terrible state of decay. Scavengers were mounted on the box as footmen; chimney-sweepers acted as postillions and shoeblacks ran behind.
The originators of the “joke” themselves entered the coach, and, making a dash through the gates of Hyde Park, drove their dying steeds furiously to the Ring and took their turn round it before they could be prevented.
Although Queen Anne did not herself encourage people to waste their time in the Parks, her reign saw Society considerably broadened, somewhat to the disgust of the older families. The City merchants on the Sabbath sallied forth with their fine ladies to join the habitual frequenters, and the Church parade of gallants and dames became an important function.
Society spent most of its Sundays there in the season, meeting and chatting just as Society does to-day, and so began the custom of sitting out on sunny Sunday afternoons, as is still the fashion. Church-going was merely an opportunity for show, of bowing to acquaintances who were present at the prayer-meeting, and probably making arrangements for further gossip at a later hour of the day, especially at St. Paul’s. The fashionable service was in the afternoon, after which people again repaired to the Park.
Colley Cibber, in his Apology for my Life, writes:
“Kynaston (the celebrated actor) at that time was so beautiful a youth that the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde Park, in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play, which in those days they might have sufficient time to do, because Plays then were us’d to begin at four a-clock, the Hour that People of the same Rank are now going to Dinner.”
What would poor old Colley Cibber, who was so surprised at a four o’clock dinner, say to the fashionable hour in London of eight or half past? Everything is later. We get up later, breakfast later, lunch later; have instituted “tea” since those days, and have our dinner when those good folk had their suppers. And what would the theatrical world say to a performance beginning at four o’clock in London, although in many German towns it still starts at six; but then in the little German towns people dine at one o’clock, as they used to do in England formerly. Only in Berlin does Society wear dress clothes, and take the meal after seven o’clock in full feckle.