SOUTH LONDON PARKS 
161 
Hyde Park would satisfy the aspirations of the newly- 
emancipated lady cyclists. What would their ancestors, 
who had paced the Mall in powder and crinolines, 
have said to the short-skirted, energetic young or even 
elderly cyclist ? No doubt some of that language 
which shocks modern ears, used by the heroines in 
“ Sir Charles Grandison,” would have been found equal 
to the occasion. The great cycling rage is over, and 
Battersea is again deserted by fair beings, who now 
prefer to fly further afield in motors, but the Park 
is just as crowded by those for whose benefit it was 
really made—the ever-growing population of London 
south of the river. 
Vauxhall Park 
Going east from Battersea the next Park is Vauxhall, 
a small oasis of green in a crowded district. Although 
only 8 acres in extent, it is a great boon to the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and hundreds of children play there every day. 
It has been open since 1891, the land, occupied by houses 
with gardens, having been acquired and the houses de¬ 
molished, and the little Park is owned and kept up by 
Lambeth Borough Council. 
It has nothing to do with the famous Vauxhall 
Gardens, to which the rank and fashion of the town 
flocked for nearly two hundred years; and the country 
visitor to Vauxhall Park could hardly speak of it in such 
glowing terms as Farmer Colin to his wife in 1741 of 
the famous Vauxhall Spring Gardens :— 
“ O Mary ! soft in feature, 
Pve been at dear Vauxhall; 
No paradise is sweeter, 
Not that they Eden call. 
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