122 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
ham, but half the purchase-money of ^72,000 was paid 
by the London County Council, and the entire cost of 
alteration and maintenance is found by it. The place 
was bought chiefly to preserve the wooded aspect of the 
view from Richmond Hill. The Forest of Hainault is 
also outside the bounds, near Epping. The 805 acres 
there are partly fields, and in part the remains of the old 
Forest of “ Hyneholt,” as it was often written, a section 
of the Royal Forest which covered a large tract of Essex. 
The most natural division, when dealing with these 
open spaces, is the river, and it is a division which strikes 
a fairly even balance. Including Royal Parks, which 
contain some 1266 acres, the northern side can claim the 
larger area, as, irrespective of squares and churchyards 
and gardens, there are about 3141 acres of green. The 
south side has only Greenwich Park of 185 acres of 
Royal Park, and, exclusive of that, there are quite 2169 
acres, as against 1875 of the municipal areas on the 
northern side, when the Crown land is deducted. Besides 
these, there are 226 acres maintained by the Borough 
Councils; so in round numbers London has about 
5721 acres of open space. These figures are only rough 
estimates, and do not include all the smaller recreation 
grounds or gardens of less than an acre. 
These parks scattered around London are enjoyed by 
hundreds of thousands annually, and yet, to a compara¬ 
tive handful of people who live near Hyde Park, they 
are as much unexplored country as the regions of Tim- 
buctoo. The bicycling craze of ten years ago suddenly 
brought Battersea Park into fashion ; but the miles of 
crowded streets, with their rushing trams and top-heavy 
omnibuses, put a considerable bar between the <£ West 
End ” and those more distant favoured spots. There is 
