Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens - London Parks - London

Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens were originally part of one park and at 625 acres combined are one of the largest green spaces in central London. They’re located in between the most fashionable and wealthiest parts of the city, with the eastern side bordered by Park Lane and Mayfair, the south by Knightsbridge and the north and west by Bayswater, Notting Hill and Kensington.

Henry VIII seized the land from the church in 1536 to use as a royal park for deer hunting but he kept it for his private use and it wasn’t until 1637 that Charles 1 opened the park for public use. Hyde-park18.jpg
In 1690 William III created the first road in England to be lit at night when he had 300 oil lamps installed on Rotten Row to make his journey between Kensington and St James’s Palace’s safer.

One of the major landscaping changes to the park took place in 1730 when George II’s wife, Queen Caroline, had the flow of the Westbourne River dammed to create The Serpentine, an 11.3 hectare lake that curve’s through the parks, separating the two.

Hyde Park has always been a place used for major events in London. In its early days duels were fought and horseracing took place there, it was the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and in the last hundred years it’s been used for concerts and political demonstrations. The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who and Queen all played major gigs in the park in the 60’s and 70’s and recently it staged Live 8 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers while hundreds of thousands turned up for a Stop the War march in 2003.

Today Hyde Park consists of a mixture of tree lined walks, open grass or mixed wooded areas, paths set aside for cycling, roller blading and running, bridle ways for horse riding and the Serpentine lake.
If you approach the park from Hyde Park Corner you can go through the Grand Entrance, built in the 1820’s, a long columned entrance with three carriage and two walking gates. Once inside the park you’ll be at the area where Carriage Drive, Rotten Row, Serpentine Road and Broad Walk converge.

Walking north from here there’s a large statue of a warrior, dedicated to the Duke of Wellington, on the right hand side then Broad Walk leads off in the direction of Marble Arch and Speaker’s Corner. Along this eastern side of the park paths criss-cross each other and there are a lot of mature tree’s providing shade. At the top right hand corner of Hyde Park is Speaker’s Corner where under a law of 1872 it is legal to gather a crowd and address them on any subject without any legal repercussions. The only two subjects not allowed are the Royal Family and overthrowing the state.

Hyde-park2.jpgIn its time Marx, Lenin and George Orwell among others have been down to Speaker’s Corner, get along on Sunday’s to hear people get off their chest’s what ever’s bothering them.

Looking out on the park from the Marble Arch side the trees give way to a large expanse of open grass and paths, although some young trees have been planted.

If you walk west from the Hyde Park Corner entrance along Serpentine Road you’ll pass the bandstand on the right and some garden’s on your left where winter planting was taking place this week. This is really one of the few parts of Hyde Park with some formal planting.

A little further on and you’ll reach the Serpentine, a pancake flat expanse of water that looks fairly shallow from the edge but is deep enough for pleasure boating. In the eastern corner of the Serpentine is a restaurant called the Dell with an interesting batwing shaped roof and high glass walls. There’s plenty of seating on an outside terrace in front and there’s a large area on its left with wooden tables and benches providing a good view of the lake. The Dell is open 9am-8pm in summer and 10am-4pm in winter and they do sell alcohol.hydepark12.jpg

The Serpentine seems very calm, the ideal place to get in a boat and go for a row on the water
and a few hundred yards along the lakeside from the Dell is a boathouse where you can rent out rowing boats, pedal boats or take a ride on a solar powered glass boat.

Prices for rowing and pedal boats are £4 per half hour/£6 per hour for adults, £1.50 per half hour for kids or £9.99 for two adults and two kids for 30 minutes, £14.99 for an hour, life jackets are provided. Rowing lessons are available if you need them.

The SolarShuttle is a pontoon like boat with a curved roof made of 27 glass mudules that collect the sun’s enegry and power the boat. It takes up to 40 people on a winding tour of the lake starting at the boathouse and finishing at the Lido on the other side. Tickets cost £3 for adults and £1.50 for children and it runs from 10am-6pm in summer and 10am-5pm in winter.

The area around the lakeside has fairly wide paths and along with all the other trails through the park this is a particularly popular place for joggers especially at lunchtimes during the working week and you’ll see hundreds of runners working up a good sweat during their lunch breaks.
Hydepark11.jpgHyde Park and Kensington Gardens together are a runners paradise, lots of routes, spacious paths, a flatish terrain that has enough inclines to make you work, lots of shade in summer and cafe’s and refreshment stands around the park if you need to get a drink, plus the scenery is very nice.

The Serpentine attracts a lot of bird life and you’ll see ducks, swans, greyleg and Canada geese, cormorants, heron’s and gulls among other’s around the edge’s of the lake.
The birds and water fowl in the park are obviously getting well fed by visitors, they’re so used to people that you almost tread on some of before they’ll move out of your path.
There are enough sheltered parts around the lake to provide a breeding area for the birds, similar to St James’s Park.

On the 10 November park staff are conducting a guided walk of the park called Autumn in Hyde Park looking at how autumn effects the animals and plants, its from 1-2.30pm and places need to be booked in advance by contacting the address on their website.

The bridge that crosses the Serpentine was built in the 1820s by John Rennie and marks the point where Kensington Gardens begins the stretch of water on the western side of the bridge is known as Long Water.The bridge allows a road called West Carriage Drive to go from the north side of the park near Lancaster Gate to the south coming out on Kensington Gore.

On the other side of the lake to the boathouse is the Serpentine Lido, a roped off area for outdoor swimming with changing facilities. Its open to the public daily from June-September. The Lido Cafe is a long single storey building with a clock tower that is open from 9am-9pm in the summer, 10am-4pm in the winter. They have outdoor seating and they serve alcohol.

A short walk from the Lido Cafe is the Princess Diana Memorial which was opened by the Queen in 2004. Its a long, flat circular water fountain set on a gentle slope and the water flows in two directions down hill before meeting in a pool at the bottom.

It’s made from 545 pieces of Cornish granite and you’re allowed to sit on it or paddle your feet in the water. I have to say seeing it for the first time its pretty uninspiring, it’s flatness and the fact there’s just grass in the middle means it doesn’t grab your attention.
It needs some mature trees in the centre area to set it off and make you want to walk around the back to see what’s there. They spent a lot of money designing and building this fountain but for me it doesn’t work.

It’s open from 10am to around dusk nearly all year, there’s a regular maintenance programme and in 2006 that’s from October 30 to November 14.

If you walk west from the Diana Memorial and across West Carriage Drive into Kensington Gardens you will pass on the left the Serpentine Gallery, a 1934 tea pavillion that was opened in 1970 as a gallery for modern and contemporary art. Its open daily from 10am-6pm and admission is free.

Kensington Gardens is similar to the Hyde Park side with its long, straight, criss-crossing paths with avenues of tall shady trees. At its western side towards Kensington Palace is a circular pond called the Round Pond, dug in the 18th century. There’s no boating on this pond unless its the model boat variety and the area is quite open and featureless.

Walking across Kensington Gardens from the Round Pond towards Lancaster Gate you’ll see a tall obelisk made from red Scottish granite, first erected in 1866 in honour of the explorer John Hanning Speke who died aged 37 two years before.
Speke along with Sir Richard Burton were the first Europeans to find Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. Speke also found and christened Lake Victoria after being told about it by locals and controversially claimed to have found the source of the Nile. It was, but Speke hadn’t traced it the whole way and was guessing.

A little way form the Speke obelisk, next to Long Water is a small statue that Kensington Gardens is well known for, a bronze of novelist JM Barrie’s character Peter Pan standing on a pedestal.

In 1906 the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was published. Scenes from the 2004 film Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp were also filmed in Kensington Gardens.

Continue down the lakeside and you’ll come to the Italian Fountains, commissioned by Queen Victoria, four large ponds, two abreast with a fifth smaller pond in the middle each with a fountain. At one end is a pavilion with three arches on each side and a square tower about 20ft on its roof. At the other end of this railed water garden, water comes from spouts in the wall into the Serpentine.

Kensington Gardens are open from 6am-dusk year round and Hyde Park is open from 5am-midnight year round. Both offer free walking tours throughout the year, upcoming for Kensington Gardens are 19th Century Pioneers on the 23 November, explaining the lives of people who have statues and memorials in the park and on the 14 December Christmas Through The Ages.


Hyde Park has Cancer Research UK - Stride for Life on 29 October a sponsored 5km walk for cancer research, Autumn in Hyde Park on 10 November, Christmas Through The Ages on 8 December and London’s Fair from 21 December-7 January.