58 LONDON PARKS © GARDENS 
sisters, possessed of their pensions, would be able to find 
shelter in one of the other leper hospitals, of which there 
were still a number in the country. 
The space between Whitehall and Westminster, 
acquired from the Abbey, was turned into an orchard. 
The site of Montagu House was the bowling-green of 
the Palace, which stretched to the river. A high terrace 
and flight of steps led to the Privy Garden of Whitehall, 
so, except for the Palace and the Westminster group, 
there were no buildings between the river and the Park. 
It requires some stretch of the imagination to efface the 
well-known edifices which now surround it, and to see it 
in its natural state. Flights of wild birds would pass 
from the marshy ground to the river, unchecked by the 
pile of Government offices. Behind the Leper Hospital 
lay fields and scattered houses. The far-off villages of 
Knightsbridge and Chelsea would scarcely come into sight, 
while beyond the village of Charing the walls and towers 
of the City would loom in the distance. Henry VIII. 
made some alterations, and may have partially drained 
the ground and stocked it with deer. Old maps show 
a pond at the west end, near the present Wellington 
Barracks, called Rosamund’s Pond. The origin of the 
name is uncertain, but <c Rosemonsbore, or Rosamund’s 
Bower,” occurs in a lease of land near this spot from the 
Abbey of Westminster as early as 1520. Hard by was a 
“ mount,” such as was to be seen in every sixteenth- 
century garden, probably with an arbour and seat on the 
top to overlook the pond. The first mention of St. 
James’s as a Park is in 1539, on an occasion described 
in Hall’s Chronicle, when Henry VIII. held a review 
of the city militia. “The King himself,” writes the 
chronicler, “ would see the people of the Citie muster 
