REGENT'S PARK 91 



Although the planting and levelling began in 18 12, 

 the buildings rose up slowly. Of the villas in the Park 

 only two were built in 1820, the rent demanded for the 

 ground being extremely high. But two or three years 

 later the whole thing was more or less as it is now, so far 

 as the general outline and buildings are concerned. The 

 cost by May 1826 was ;^i, 533, 582, and the estimated 

 probable revenue ;^36,330. The Prince Regent took 

 the greatest interest in the proceedings, and Nash's design 

 included a site for a palace for him, though even con- 

 temporary writers condemned the suggestion, as the 

 situation was damp — *' the soil was clay, . . . and the view 

 bad." It was only natural that the Park should hence- 

 forth become the Regent's, and not Marylebone Park, 

 and the " new street" to connect it with Carlton House 

 be called Regent Street. 



It is difficult to judge Regent's Park with an un- 

 prejudiced eye. The exaggerated praise it called forth 

 when just completed is only equalled by the unmeasured 

 censure of the next generation. Of the houses which sur- 

 round it the following are two descriptions. The first, in 

 1855, calls them "highly-embellished terraces of houses, 

 in which the Doric and Ionic, the Corinthian, and even 

 the Tuscan orders have been employed with ornate effect, 

 aided by architectural sculpture." Fifty years later the 

 same houses are summed up with very different epithets : 

 " Most of the ugly terraces which surround it exhibit 

 all the worst follies of the Grecian architectural mania 

 which disgraced the beginning of this century " ! It 

 may not be a style which commends itself to modern 

 taste, but one thing is certain, that having embarked on 

 classical architecture it was best to stick to it and com- 

 plete the whole. It is as much a bit of history, and as 



