From Wormwood Scrubs to Regent’s Park it is three miles as the crow flies—three miles of houses inhabited by a working-class population, with no green spot except the Paddington Recreation Ground, which is small (25 acres), and of little or no use to the thousands of poor children in this vast parish, being too far from their homes.
Crossing the line dividing the West from the North-west district near Kensal Green, we find the following four not large open spaces in Kilburn—Kensal Rise, Brondesbury Park (private), Paddington Cemetery, and Kilburn or Queen’s Park (30 acres).
All this part of London is now being rapidly covered with houses, and the one beautiful open space, with large old trees in it, is Brondesbury Park. How sad to think that this fine park will probably be built over within the next few years, and that the only public open space left will be the Queen’s Park—a dreary patch of stiff clay, where the vegetation is stunted and looks tired of life. Even a few exceptionally dirty-looking sparrows that inhabit it appear to find it a depressing place.
Two miles east of this melancholy spot is Regent’s Park, which now forms one continuous open space, under one direction, with Primrose Hill, and contains altogether 473 acres. It is far and away the largest of the inner London parks, its area exceeding that of Hyde Park by 112 acres. Its large extent is but one of its advantages. Although not all free to the public, it is all open to the birds, and the existence of several more or less private enclosed areas is all in their favour. On its south, east, and west sides this space has the brick wilderness of London, an endless forest of chimneys defiling the air with their smoke; but on the north side it touches a district where gardens abound, and trees, shrubs, and luxuriant ivy and creepers give it a country-like aspect. This pleasant green character is maintained until Hampstead Heath and the country proper is reached, and over this rural stretch of North-west London the birds come and go freely between the country and Regent’s Park. This large space should be exceedingly attractive to all such birds as are not intolerant of a clay soil. There are extensive green spaces, a good deal of wood, and numerous large shrubberies, which are more suitable for birds to find shelter and breed in than the shrubberies in the central parks. There is also a large piece of ornamental water, with islands, and, better still, the Regent’s Canal running for a distance of nearly one mile through the park. The steeply sloping banks on one side, clothed with rank grass and shrubs and crowned with large unmutilated trees, give this water the appearance of a river in the country, and it is, indeed, along the canal where birds are always most abundant, and where the finest melody may be heard. All these advantages should make Regent’s Park as rich in varied bird life as any open space in the metropolis. Unfortunately the birds are not encouraged, and if this park was not so large, and so placed as to be in some degree in touch with the country, it would be in the same melancholy condition as Hyde Park. The species now found are the blackbird and thrush, greenfinch (rare) and chaffinch, robin, dunnock, and wren (the last very rare), and in summer two or three migrants are added. But most of the birds find it hard to rear any young owing to the birds’-nesting boys and loafers, who are not properly watched, and to the cats that infest the shrubberies. Even by day cats have the liberty of this park. Wood-pigeons come in numbers to feed in the early morning, and a few pairs build nests, but as a rule their eggs are taken. Carrion crows from North London visit the park on most days, and make occasional incursions into the Zoological Gardens, where they are regarded with very unfriendly feelings. They go there on the chance of picking up a crumb or two dropped from the tables of the pampered captives; and perhaps for a peep at the crow-house, where many corvines from many lands may be seen turning their eyes skyward, uttering at the same time a cry of recognition, to watch the sweeping flight of their passing relatives, who ‘mock them with their loss of liberty.’
The water-birds (wild) are no better off in this park than the songsters in the shrubberies, yet it could easily be made more attractive and safe as a breeding-place. As it is, the dabchick seldom succeeds in hatching eggs, and even the semi-domestic and easily satisfied moorhen finds it hard to rear any young.
The other great green space in the North-west district is Hampstead Heath, which contains, including Parliament Hill and other portions acquired in recent years, 507 acres. On its outer border it touches the country, in parts a very beautiful country; while on its opposite side it abuts on London proper, forming on the south and south-east the boundary of an unutterably dreary portion of the metropolis, a congeries of large and densely-populated parishes—Kentish and Camden Towns, Holloway, Highbury, Canonbury, Islington, Hoxton: thousands of acres of houses, thousands of miles of streets, vast thoroughfares full of trams and traffic and thunderous noises, interminable roads, respectable and monotonous, and mean streets and squalid streets innumerable. Here, then, we have a vast part of London, which is like the West-central and East-central districts in that it is without any open space, except the comparatively insignificant one of Highbury Fields. It is to the Heath that the inhabitants of all this portion of London must go for fresh air and verdure; but the distance is too great for most people, and the visits are consequently made on Sundays and holidays in summer. Even this restricted use they are able to make of ‘London’s playing ground,’ or ‘Happy Hampstead,’ as it is lovingly called, must have a highly beneficial effect on the health, physical and moral, of the people.
VIEW ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH