HYDE PARK 37 



of it up at night with 300 lamps caused wonder to all 

 beholders. 



A young lady, Celia Fienncs, describes the road in 

 her diary about 1695. " Y^ whole length of this parke 

 there is a high Causey of a good breadth, 3 Coaches 

 may pass, and on each side are Rowes of posts on w'''' 

 are glasses — Cases for Lamps w*^*" are Lighted in y* 

 Evening and appeares very fine as well as safe for y' 

 passenger. This is only a private roade y* King had 

 w"^*" reaches to Kensington, where for aire our Great 

 King W""- bought a house and filled it for a Retirement 

 w'*' pretty gardens." 



The road was in bad repair before the new one was 

 in good order, and Lord Hervey, writing in 1736, says 

 it had grown " so infamously bad " as to form " a great 

 impassable gulf of mud " between London and Ken- 

 sington Palace. " There are two ways through the Park, 

 but the new one is so convex, and the old one is so 

 concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the 

 common of being, like the high road, impassable." 



One of the most striking features of Hyde Park 

 to-day is the long sheet of water known as the '* Ser- 

 pentine," but this was a comparatively late addition to 

 the attractions of the Park. From earliest times there 

 was water. The deer came down to drink at pools sup- 

 plied by fresh springs. The stream of the West Bourne 

 flowed across the Park from north to south, leaving it 

 near the present Albert Gate. Near there it was spanned 

 by a bridge, from which the hamlet of Knightsbridge 

 derived its name. The water in the Park was used 

 to supply the West End of London as houses began to 

 be built further from the City, and Chelsea was also 

 supplied from it. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster 



