THE LONDON PARKS: THEIR DESIGN AND PLANTING. 



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London parks have been parks in the 

 past, and it should be a pleasure to keep 

 them as parks. 



Recent Changes. — The parks are so 

 precious to the public that any needless 

 interference with their breadth, airiness, 

 and beauty of surface is a serious loss ; 

 but let anyone go to Hyde Park now, 

 and he will see how the heart of the 

 park is disfigured and cut up to make a 

 large nursery garden not really needed 

 for the beauty or planting of the park. 

 If one chief commissioner has the right 

 to commit such an outrage without pub- 

 lic consent or notice, any other may 

 have the same power for evil. For no 

 weightier reason than to improve the 

 view from the late Mr. Albert Grant's 

 house at Kensington, the old gardener's 

 house at the corner of Kensington Gar- 

 dens was removed and a suburban villa 

 put instead of it in the middle of the 

 park. The old house could not have been 

 in a better place, as it did not interfere 

 with the beauty or breadth of the park ; 

 but you cannot plant a London villa in 

 a park without also adding to it the 

 walks and roads necessary for its ser- 

 vice. The objections to what is now 

 being done are : (i) the loss of area in 

 the centre of the park ; (2) stiff banks ; 

 (3) false lines out of harmony with the 

 naturally beautiful surface of the park; 

 and (4) the dreadful addition to the 

 mass of spiked iron railings. Even those 

 who admire or who endure the sight of 

 iron railings would be almost alarmed 

 if they knew how many miles of them 

 there are in Hyde Park — a waste of 

 metal and labour, as half of them are 

 needless. If the footways by the drive 



at the Serpentine must be fortified by 

 lines of ponderous and hideous iron 

 posts and rails, why not the far more 

 crowded streets? They destroy thegood 

 effect of the Serpentine from many 

 points of view. If the park is only to be 

 considered as a run for town-imprisoned 

 dogs, the railings must be kept, but quite 

 half of the iron might even then be done 

 away with. Park or garden beauty that 

 can only be seen through spiked rail- 

 ings is bought at too high a price. 



False Earth Lines. — As to the stiff 

 banks now being formed, the natural 

 surface is so good that any attempts to 

 alter it are needless, and sure to end in 

 ugliness. The practice in the London 

 parks of raising mounds is against all 

 good work in landscape gardening. It 

 is assumed by the mound-makers that 

 the natural form of the ground is not 

 right for their purpose, and so dump- 

 lings of earth are thrown up here and 

 there. Anyone going through the parks 

 will be able to judge whether anything 

 is gained by this distortion of the sur- 

 face. Piling mounds of earth round a 

 tree is a sure way of hiding the beau- 

 tiful form of the stem as it arises from 

 the earth, often with a wide-spreading 

 base, and where this needless work has 

 been done the base of the tree is often 

 hidden, and the stem comes out of the 

 ground like a broom-handle. It also 

 shortens the life of the tree and often 

 kills it outright. Anyone now walking 

 along the Bayswater side of the park 

 may see the stiff bank round the nur- 

 sery the whole way along. There a long 

 gentle vale (rightly kept unplanted), 

 which starts from the Marble Arch and 



