HYDE PARK 
37 
of it up at night with 300 lamps caused wonder to all 
beholders. 
A young lady, Celia Fiennes, describes the road in 
her diary about 1695. “ Y e whole length of this parke 
there is a high Causey of a good breadth, 3 Coaches 
may pass, and on each side are Rowes of posts on w ch 
are glasses—Cases for Lamps w ch are Lighted in y e 
Evening and appeares very fine as well as safe for y e 
passenger. This is only a private roade y e King had 
w ch reaches to Kensington, where for aire our Great 
King W m> bought a house and filled it for a Retirement 
w th pretty gardens.” 
The road was in bad repair before the new one was 
in good order, and Lord Hervey, writing in 1736, says 
it had grown “ so infamously bad ” as to form “ a great 
impassable gulf of mud ” between London and Ken¬ 
sington Palace. “ There are two ways through the Park, 
but the new one is so convex, and the old one is so 
concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the 
common of being, like the high road, impassable.” 
One of the most striking features of Hyde Park 
to-day is the long sheet of water known as the “Ser¬ 
pentine,” but this was a comparatively late addition to 
the attractions of the Park. From earliest times there 
was water. The deer came down to drink at pools sup¬ 
plied by fresh springs. The stream of the West Bourne 
flowed across the Park from north to south, leaving it 
near the present Albert Gate. Near there it was spanned 
by a bridge, from which the hamlet of Knightsbridge 
derived its name. The water in the Park was used 
to supply the West End of London as houses began to 
be built further from the City, and Chelsea was also 
supplied from it. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster 
