CHAPTER IV 



REGENT'S PARK 



When Philomel begins to sing 

 The grass groivs green and Jloivers spring ; 

 Methinhs it is a pleasant thing 

 To walk on Primrose Hill. 



— Roxburgh Ballads, c, 1620. 



EGENT'S PARK has had but a 

 transitory day of fashion, and his- 

 tory has not crowded it with asso- 

 ciations like the other Royal Parks. 

 It is the largest and one of the most 

 beautiful, yet there is something 

 cold and less attractive about it. 

 In spring, with its wealth of thorn 

 trees, it has a delightfully rural appearance, and it pos- 

 sesses many charms on close acquaintance. Its history 

 as a Royal Park is as ancient as that of Hyde Park 

 or St. James's, but it remained a distant country sport- 

 ing estate, and only assumed the form of a Park, in 

 the modern sense of the word, less than a hundred 

 years ago. 



In the dim distance of Domesday it formed part of 

 the manor of Tybourne. Later on the manor became 

 Marylebone or Mary le Bourne, the Church of St. Mary 

 by the Burn, the brook in question being the Tyburn. 



The manor in Domesday is described as part of the 



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