42 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



future alterations may once more bring more into 

 sight. As the taste for gardening changed from the 

 shut-in gardens of the Dutch style to the more ex- 

 tended places of Wise, the garden grew in size. Again, 

 when Bridgeman was gardener. Queen Caroline, wife of 

 George II., wished to emulate the splendour of Ver- 

 sailles, and 300 acres were taken from Hyde Park to 

 add to the Palace Garden. Bridgeman made the sunk 

 fence which is still the division between Kensington 

 Gardens and the Park ; and with the earth which was 

 taken out a mount was made, on which a summer-house 

 was erected. This stood nearly opposite the present end 

 of Rotten Row, and though it has long since ceased to 

 exist, the gate into the Gardens is still known as the 

 Mount Gate. Kent, who succeeded Bridgeman, con- 

 tinued the planting of the avenues and laying out of the 

 Gardens, and the greater part of his work still remains. 

 The Gardens were reduced in size when the road was 

 made from Kensington to Bayswater, and the houses 

 along it built about seventy years ago, and the exact 

 size is now 274 acres. Queen Caroline would have 

 liked to take still more of the Parks for her private use ; 

 but when she hinted as much to Walpole, and asked the 

 cost, he voiced public opinion when he replied, "Three 

 crowns." 



The fashion of making sheets of artificial water 

 with curves and twists, instead of a straight, canal-like 

 shape, was just taking the public fancy, when Queen 

 Caroline began the work of converting the rather marshy 

 ponds in Hyde Park into a " Serpentine River." The 

 ponds were of considerable size, and in James I.'s time 

 there were as many as eleven large and small. Celia 

 Fiennes, the young lady who kept a diary in the time of 



