Parks are known as the lungs of a city, providing cool breathing space and a refuge away from the office, the shops, the apartment and the traffic. Trees and plants absorb harmful vehicle fumes and release oxygen, while lawns allow families to stretch out and children to play. Without these green spaces cities would truly be concrete jungles.
A glance at a map of London shows an abundance of green. In places there are vast swathes of land that can fool visitors into thinking they are in the countryside rather than the middle of a metropolis of 8.3 million people. Elsewhere one can stumble across magical, walled in, secretive squares with a patch of grass, a few benches and a water feature serving as an oasis of tranquility within the city’s hustle.
Eight of London’s parks — Green, Hyde, St James’s, Kensington Gardens, Regent’s, Richmond, Bushy and Greenwich - retain royal status, although nowadays this means that Parliament, rather than the monarch, is directly responsible for them. Having originally been private hunting grounds for kings and queens, over the course of time they have been made into public spaces for all. And contained by these royal parks there are approximately 135,000 trees and 100,000 roses; 108 kilometers of paths, cycle routes and bridleways; 34 tennis courts and 12 cricket pitches; 21 lakes and 24 kilometers of rivers.
Hyde Park, larger than the Principality of Monaco, is perhaps the most well known and has for centuries been an assembly point for public dissent. It was mass demonstrations there in 1867 that led directly to universal male suffrage in Britain, helping to confirm London’s potent reputation as a symbol for popular change and progressive ideals.
Speakers’ Corner is just below the intersection of Oxford Street, London’s foremost shopping avenue, Edgware Road, also known as Arab Street, and Park Lane, lined with five star hotels. Hyde Park’s infamous public debating ground is where people have gathered every Sunday since 1872 to freely voice their opinions on almost any matter they wish, thus setting a precedent of completely free speech without vulgarity, violent provocation or insults to the Queen. Located on the site of a former gallows where people congregated to hear the condemned man’s final words, is one of the most entertaining attractions the city has to offer. It is a forum to which thousands come to listen, argue, heckle and laugh at leftfield speakers like Surreal Ali and Mixed Ability Shaman who, with quasi-celebrity status, pepper their tirades with, for example, “Beware! London contains the scum of the earth!”, “Olive oil is the future!” and “Born free but dying in chains!” It is certainly a unique day out.
Luminaries such as Karl Marx (who was convinced that revolution in Britain would start here), Vladimir Lenin and George Orwell enjoyed and took part in the debates, while the concept and the name, has been copied in many other cities around the world from Singapore to Trinidad and Tobago.
Serpentine Lake stretches across Hyde Park’s central area providing a tranquil spot for boating and a place to live for a wide variety of birds. During the 2012 Olympic Games the triathlon and open water swimming events were hosted on its waters. The park also stages theatrical productions and concerts with any manner of superstars performing before audiences of up to a quarter of a million people. Due to such a wide variety of activities and such a huge amount of people using the park a permanent police station has been in operation since 1866, primarily to watch over events at Speakers’ Corner when debate can become heated, especially on matters of religion.
Heading southeast, past the statue of Achilles and through Queen Elizabeth Gate, is Green Park, full of ancient trees and formerly a burial ground for lepers that became an area notorious for highwaymen who held up stagecoaches at gunpoint and was also a famed location for duels to resolve matters of honor. In 1820 the park was landscaped by architect extraordinaire John Nash to its modern day, triangular design. In 1840, it was the site of an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria.
Just across The Mall and adjacent to Green Park lies St. James’s Park, the oldest royal park, also designed by Nash, with its Blue Bridge, views of Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade on Whitehall, the seat of the British government. There has been a colony of pelicans on the lake here since 1664 when the Russian ambassador presented the birds as a gift to King Charles II. The park later served as pastureland for grazing cows, complete with its own dairy from which milk was sold.
As an extension of Hyde Park, to the west, are Kensington Gardens with a statue of Peter Pan, the Albert Memorial gleaming in gold and Kensington Palace the former residence of Princess Diana. South of these gardens are the up-market boutiques and department stores of Knightsbridge and further west is an area surrounding Holland Park playing host to numerous embassies and one of the most expensive residential districts in London or anywhere in the world, with asking prices for houses regularly listed at over £10 million. Holland Park itself is one of the capital’s quirkiest with its youth hostel, orangery, Japanese garden, giant chess set, art gallery, theater, pig farm, cricket pitch and secluded nooks and crannies all crammed into a relatively small area.
Regent's Park lies to the north of Hyde Park and can be reached by passing through Marble Arch and continuing up Baker Street where at 221B Sir Arthur Conan Doyle housed his fictional character Sherlock Holmes. The park, roughly oval in shape, is home to London’s zoo and Central Mosque, the largest of its kind outside the Islamic world. The residence of the American ambassador is also here, as is St. John’s Lodge, London’s grand home to the Sultan of Brunei.
Traveling further north through pretty, gentrified Primrose Hill is Hampstead Heath, first mentioned in history books over 1,000 years ago. The extensive hilly woods and grassland, London’s largest area of common land, and fresh air made the heath the favorite haunt of Karl Marx and his family, and is a serene spot where they would walk, picnic and re-enact plays. Indeed Marx was buried a stone’s throw away in Highgate cemetery.
Due to its height, Hampstead Heath commands some of the best views of London, including those from Parliament Hill which are preserved by a law preventing the construction of tall buildings in the vicinity. Three natural pools attract swimmers all year round and the surrounding residential area has long been the place to live for writers, actors and show business personalities.
Traveling south of the River Thames, which bisects London from east to west, is Greenwich Park, whose name is known worldwide as the point of zero degrees longitude and from where the world’s time is set at GMT or Zulu Time. As Britain became a sea-faring nation, navigating the world, sailors required a standard from where time and distance could be measured, and due to the proximity of London’s docks and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich was thus chosen.
In the 17th century King James I put up a two meter wall running three kilometers around Greenwich Park, much of which still remains, and beyond those walls stretch the wide open spaces of Blackheath, an area with a gory history having gained its name from the 1348 Black Death that swept through medieval Europe. The dead were buried here in pits and by 1381 it was the starting point for the Peasants’ Revolt when more blood was shed. By the 17th century, Blackheath had become a byword for robbery on the road out to Kent and the Channel ports of Dover and Folkstone. In an attempt to deter this practice, captured highwaymen were hung from wooden stakes where their bones rattled spookily in the wind. Blackheath is also home to England’s oldest rugby club and is the starting point for the annual London marathon.
Further afield, out in the sprawling suburbs (the English are so fond of their gardens that tower blocks have never been popular) is Richmond Park, a national nature reserve with a large population of red deer. Nearby lies Wimbledon Common, a rambling parkland of one million trees, home to the world’s most famous tennis tournament and a children’s TV show called The Wombles, and it is also where, in 1908, Robert Baden Powell, wrote a book for boy scouts that has become the present day international scouting movement.
Due north of Richmond are the 121 hectare Gardens of Kew, created in 1759 and now protected by UNESCO, employing 650 scientists and receiving two million visitors a year, drawn to see the world’s largest collection of plant life.
A visit to London is not complete without experiencing these green spaces, accessible to all and free of charge, even in the rain!
London’s wonderful green parks
London’s wonderful green parks
