Pi\RK AND ce:m£.te:f.y 
■45 
and pleasure gardens alone was, in the year 1901-02, 
upwards of ii 18,000 per year. This expenditure is 
not on account of the London parks and gardens 
only, for the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Garden 
and Arboretum costs in round figures about £S,ooo 
per annum. Holyrood Park ii,8oo, and Linlithgow 
Peel £300; the balance being distributed over Bushy 
Park, Greenwich Park, Hampton Court and Pleas- 
ure Gardens, Kensington Gardens, Kew Gardens, 
Regent’s Park, Richmond Park, and St. James’s, 
the Green, and Hyde Parks. 
As the parks passed out of the state of private 
gardens to that of parks, open to the public, some 
formulated control was necessary. This is provided 
for by the Parks Regulation Act of 1872. The by- 
laws of this act are amended by a further set of by- 
laws published in 1904, the chief difference being 
that undesirable and unclean 
persons can be excluded from 
the parks — a very necessary by- 
law indeed, considering the class 
of persons which has hitherto 
infested the parks and occupied 
the seats. 
The parks and gardens of 
London, which the Crown con- 
I trols, have one special character- 
i istic, which is perhaps the foun- 
' dation of their importance as 
parks — that is, they have always 
been park-like in aspect ; they 
have not been used as sites for 
buildings, and then cleared, the 
j buildings being demolished to 
j provide an open space. These 
i parks, by reason of their antiq- 
I uity, have a sentimental value, 
in addition to the value of their 
practical utility, which can never 
be approached, much less equalled, 
by a more modern park, which is only so through 
the munificence of some benefactor, or the progres- 
sive policy of a public authority. Hyde Park and 
Kensington Gardens together cover an area which 
by far exceeds that of any of the other parks in the 
County of London. Hyde Park originally formed 
part of the Manor of Hyde, which, together with the 
two other manors of Eubery and Neyte, made up 
the estate of Eia. The manor of Hyde was, under 
the Saxons, the official perquisite of the King’s 
IMaster of the Horse. 
In 1536 Henry VIII. enclosed the park within 
a ring fence and appointed a ranger to Ioo’k after it, 
an office which is still in existence. Hyde Park as 
it now exists is one of the best known of London 
public parks. It’s situation is admirable, for to- 
gether with the two great arteries of London traffic 
bounding it on the north and south, it forms a fit- 
ting climax to the expectations of the casual wan- 
derer who seeks the pleasure of a public park, by 
starting out from Trafalgar Square and going west- 
ward through St. James Park, the Green Park 
across Piccadilly to Hyde Park and so into Ken- 
sington Gardens. 
Its area is about 400 acres. Formerly it was some 
300 acres more in extent, that being the area which 
Queen Caroline, wife of George H. took from the 
park and added to Kensington Gardens in 1736. 
Thus the area of Kensington Gardens was increased 
to 356 acre.s, so that the two tracts together form an 
expanse of 750 acres of beautiful park situated in 
the very heart of London. This was part of the 
many “improvements” which Queen Caroline car- 
ried out about the time when the art of landscape 
gardening on a large scale was reckoned among the 
fine arts. 
The park and gardens combine the beauty of a 
flower garden with the stateliness of well-kept tim- 
bered land. The undulating character plays its part 
in the general effect, the ground rising in a gentle 
slope from Hyde Park corner in the southeast to 
Lancaster gate in the northwest. This effect has 
not been gained without a considerable amount of 
labor and skill in laying out. 
We have scarcely any particulars of the laying 
out of the park up to the time of the Stuarts. After 
the restoration Charles H. greatly improved the 
park. He employed Andre le Notre, the gardener 
of Louis XV. of France, to design and supervise the 
work. Among the improvements carried out by 
le Notre was the construction of the Mall in St. 
SCENE IN KEW GARDENS, LONDON. 
