i6o LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



Hall the local exhibition takes place, and there are 

 many similar institutions, where monster blooms, grown 

 on roofs or in small back gardens, would compete 

 creditably at a national show. The popularity of the 

 chrysanthemums in Battersea Park is so great, that 

 on a fine Sunday there is a string of people waiting 

 their turn of walking through, stretching for fifty 

 yards at least from the green-house to the entrance to 

 the frame-ground. Certainly the arrangement of the 

 green-house is prettily done. The stages are removed, 

 and a sanded path with a double twist meanders among 

 groups of plants sloping up to the rafters, and a few 

 long, lanky ones trained to arch under the roof. The 

 show is much looked forward to, and the colours and 

 arrangements compared with former years, praised or 

 criticised, such is the eager interest of those who crowd to 

 take their turn for a peep. It is delightful to watch the 

 pleasure on all faces, as a whole family out for their Sunday 

 walk, press in together. It is only one more instance 

 of the joy the London Parks bring to millions of lives. 



The world of fashion has only attacked Battersea 

 Park spasmodically. When it was new, and the sub- 

 tropical garden a rarity, people drove out from May- 

 fair or Belgravia to see it. Again Battersea became 

 the fashion when the cycling craze began. In the 

 summer of 1895 ^^ suddenly became "the thing" to 

 bicycle to breakfast in Battersea Park, and ladies who 

 had never before visited this South London Park 

 flocked there in the early mornings. It was away 

 from the traffic that disturbed the beginner in Hyde 

 or St. James's Park, and perhaps the daring originality 

 of cycling seemed to demand that conventions should 

 further be violated ; and nothing so commonplace as 



