Hyde Park, Its History and Romance. Mrs. Alec-Tweedie
that of “Port-Reeve” at Richard I.’s accession) and Aldermen made periodical inspections of these important Conduits; the 18th of September seems to have been an especially festive day in connection with these visits. Waggons brought the ladies in grand fettle to the scene, while the gentlemen rode. It was a great fête, a sort of country outing from the City, when all made merry. They had a picnic and a feast in the Banqueting House, which then stood near Hyde Park.
Stow gives an account of one of these visitations in his quaint language, when he politely speaks of a hare as “she” and a fox as “he.”
“These conduits used to be in former times visited; and particularly, on the 18th of September 1562, the Lord Maior [Harper], Aldermen, and many Worshipful Persons, and divers Masters and Wardens of the Twelve Companies, rid to the Conduit Heads for to see them after the old Custom; And afore Dinner they hunted the Hare, and killed her, and thence to Dinner at the Head of the Conduit. There was a good number entertained with good Cheer by the Chamberlain. And after Dinner they went to hunting the Fox. There was a great Cry for a mile; and at length the Hounds killed him at the end of St. Giles’s. Great Hallowing (hallooing) at his Death, and blowing of Hornes: And thence the Lord Maior, with all his Company, rode through London to his Place in Lombard Street.”
Fancy anyone being put to bed at eight o’clock!
At eight the bell of St. Martin’s-le-Grand—where the General Post Office now stands—tolled the Curfew, and every other church in the Metropolis took up the note and rang forth the knell of day. It was supposed that all lights and fires should be immediately put out, and the city being in darkness everyone would retire to bed. Any way, it may be reasonably supposed that the larger bulk of the population did as they were bid, and only very exalted personages dared appear at night, and then escorted by a retinue of servants bearing torches and lanterns, and followed by armed men. London must indeed have been a city of the dead by a few minutes past eight.
What a running, hustling, and scuttling there must have been once Curfew had started, just as there is in Regent’s Park to-day when at sundown the Keeper calls forth that all gates must be closed. Surely this must be a remnant of Curfew.
The principal gates of the Parks are now closed at midnight, although some of the foot-gates are shut at sundown, so that even after all these hundreds of years the parks are practically shut at night, except the main thoroughfare which crosses from the Bayswater Road to Knightsbridge, between the Victoria and the Alexandra Gates, which is also the only part of the park where public vehicles, such as cabs, are allowed at any time, and no carts or vans have permission to pass.
In the Muniment Room at Westminster lies a paper (to which, through the courtesy of Dean Armitage Robinson, I have been able to refer) that records in 1285 the granting of parcels of land in the Manor of Hide to a tenant, reserving the right to enter and repair the “aqueductum subterraneum” running through them. This is the first of many references to the springs in Hyde Park which for long supplied the surrounding districts with water. When the Manor of Hide became a Royal hunting-ground, the “original fountain” and all the watercourses leading from it to the site of St. Peter’s, and the right of entering to repair them, were restored to the Dean and Chapter.
Dean Stanley notes in his History of Westminster how the Tyburn water was considered especially good on account of its having run through a bed of gravel somewhere near the present site of Buckingham Palace. There was in his time an ancient and well-worn pump standing in Dean’s Yard, under the shadow of the Abbey.
Bathing Well in Hyde Park. From a Print in the Crace Collection, British Museum.
Speaking the other day to an old inhabitant of Westminster who remembered this pump, I learnt that it was in existence until about twenty-five years ago, when the underground railway interfered with the spring, and although water was laid on from another source to provide passers-by with refreshment, the new supply was so little used that the pump was removed. In my informant’s remembrance an old woman used to sit there, with a glass, to dole out the pure liquid from the spring; and in his youth (1835) old people told him that numbers of halt, sick, and lame came to Dean’s Yard, under the shadow of the Abbey, and pumped the water on to their ailing limbs, or bathed their sores, while other visitors carried away buckets full to sick folk at home, just as they do at Lourdes to-day.
But to return to the Manor of Hide. Some writers think that about the time of Edward III. it passed from the control of the monks, doubtless because there exists a document recording that Edward III. granted parcels of land in the Manor of Hide to his Barber, Adam de Thorpe. But probably the King held the land in some way from the Abbot. It was in this reign, too, that John of Gaunt (son of Edward III.), styling himself “King of Leon and Castille,” begged the Abbot of Westminster to grant him the use of the Neyte Manor House during the sitting of Parliament; while about the same time Abbot Nicholas Littlington, who did much good work for Westminster, and improved the Hide ground vastly, lived and died in the Neyte House.
Hyde Park as a Royal enclosure, as we have seen, is a Tudor creation. Like much else that has altered the appearance of this western area of London, its origin is traced back to the fall of Wolsey in 1530, when the Cardinal’s magnificent Palace of York Place was promptly seized by his imperious master. Henry VIII. renamed it Whitehall, and various additions were planned. Grasping as he was by nature, Wolsey had not encompassed his home with any great extent of land. The river front was the best part, and on the interior he had lavished his wealth.
Henry had other ideas of a palace which he intended should be befitting a King. To his larger ambitions is due the whole range of parks which now extend from Westminster right across West London to Kensington. His actions, however, show that he was entirely selfish, and he had at no time contemplated sharing his enjoyment with the people. Before he had been twelve months in possession of Whitehall, the monarch had exchanged the Priory of Poughley, in Berkshire, for about 100 acres of land forming part of St. James’s Park and Spring Gardens, and of this he made a convenient enclosure for the use of the Court.
The next extension of the Royal domain was on a much larger scale.
Henry had evidently quite a reasonable desire to improve the surroundings of his Palace at Whitehall, and no wonder. A Leper Hospital and a swamp were neither desirable nor healthy adjuncts to a Royal dwelling. Some kindly citizens of London had in the early days of the city endowed a hospital for the accommodation of fourteen sisters suffering from this cruel disease. They gave two hides of land, and dedicated the charity to St. James. With various later gifts, the hospital had acquired by the reign of Henry VIII. over 480 acres of land, and a Brotherhood had been established in connection with it. By a grant of Henry VI. the control of the Hospital and Brotherhood had been given to the authorities of Eton School. In 1532, Henry VIII. exchanged certain lands in Suffolk for those adjoining his Palace at Whitehall. He suppressed the Brotherhood and pensioned off the inmates of the Hospital; and thus, with the 100 acres secured from the monks of Westminster in the previous year, the area that stretched from Whitehall to the Manor of Hyde came into his possession.
On the site of the Hospital the King built the “Manor House of St. James,” afterwards known as St. James’s Palace. It did not become a Royal residence, however, until long afterwards. A new tilt-yard was laid out close by the palace at the Mall, and bowling alleys, tennis courts, and a cockpit between St. James’s and Whitehall added to the attractions of this Royal quarter of the town.
As time and events ripened for the dissolution of the monasteries, the enclosure of yet more of the Church lands became an easy matter. But a few years had passed before Henry VIII. made a still greater enlargement of his Park and hunting-ground by crossing the little Tyburn stream, which had hitherto formed its boundary, and taking in the whole of the Manor of Hide which lay beyond.
Westminster was one of the few religious houses that the Tudor monarch treated with a light hand, possibly inspired by some superstitious dread, as his father was buried in the Abbey. Instead of waiting a convenient opportunity to seize all that the monks possessed, giving nothing in return, as was his habit, he granted in exchange for Hide, lands that had previously belonged to the Priory of St.