MUNICIPAL PARKS 
137 
plaine of wood, and not to be discerned from other 
grounds.” These woods were on the ground covered 
by the Park. Stowe notices in his short accounts of 
the Bishops of London that Ralph Stratford, who was 
Bishop from 1339 to 1354, ‘‘deceased at Stebunhith.” 
The name Bonner’s Hall somehow became attached to 
the Manor House. The same chronicler also records 
that Bishop Ridley gave the manors of Stepney and 
Hackney to the King in the fourth year of Edward VI., 
who granted them to Lord Wentworth. Bonner, there¬ 
fore, would be the last Bishop who could have resided 
there. The old Manor House was not destroyed till 
1800, when part of the material was taken to build 
a farm-house, which was cleared away when the Park 
was formed. 
The first laying out of the Park does not seem to 
have been altogether satisfactory. A writer in 1851 
criticises it very severely. The roads and paths, he says, 
were so badly laid as to require almost reconstruction. 
The “ banks of the lake must be reduced to something 
like shape to resist the wash of the water,” and the re¬ 
modelling of the plantations will be “ a work of time.” 
Just then Mr. Gibson assumed the charge of the Park, 
and even this captious critic seems to have been well 
satisfied that he had “ begun in real earnest ” to carry 
out the necessary improvements. Modern gardeners 
might not applaud all his planting quite so enthusiasti¬ 
cally as his contemporaries. For instance, the rage for 
araucarias—monkey puzzles—has somewhat subsided, 
though the planting of a number met with great praise 
in the Fifties. Most of the Park was planted with 
discrimination. In a line with the canal which forms 
one boundary, an avenue was put, now a charming 
