42 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
future alterations may once more bring more into 
sight. As the taste for gardening changed from the 
shut-in gardens of the Dutch style to the more ex¬ 
tended places of Wise, the garden grew in size. Again, 
when Bridgeman was gardener, Queen Caroline, wife of 
George II., wished to emulate the splendour of Ver¬ 
sailles, and 300 acres were taken from Hyde Park to 
add to the Palace Garden. Bridgeman made the sunk 
fence which is still the division between Kensington 
Gardens and the Park; and with the earth which was 
taken out a mount was made, on which a summer-house 
was erected. This stood nearly opposite the present end 
of Rotten Row, and though it has long since ceased to 
exist, the gate into the Gardens is still known as the 
Mount Gate. Kent, who succeeded Bridgeman, con¬ 
tinued the planting of the avenues and laying out of the 
Gardens, and the greater part of his work still remains. 
The Gardens were reduced in size when the road was 
made from Kensington to Bayswater, and the houses 
along it built about seventy years ago, and the exact 
size is now 274 acres. Queen Caroline would have 
liked to take still more of the Parks for her private use; 
but when she hinted as much to Walpole, and asked the 
cost, he voiced public opinion when he replied, “ Three 
crowns.” 
The fashion of making sheets of artificial water 
with curves and twists, instead of a straight, canal-like 
shape, was just taking the public fancy, when Queen 
Caroline began the work of converting the rather marshy 
ponds in Hyde Park into a “ Serpentine River.” The 
ponds were of considerable size, and in James Ids time 
there were as many as eleven large and small. Celia 
Fiennes, the young lady who kept a diary in the time of 
