Hyde Park from Domesday-book to Date. Ashton John

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let my footsteps first pursue their course

      To yon clear fountain, hid in shady grove,

      And quaff the clear salubrious crystal brook,

      Emblem of purity! when innocence

      Partakes, and all the wakened sense restores.

      O blessed Jordan! at thy limpid stream,

      Gladly I mingle with the cheerful throng,

      And drink the cup, and then renew my walk,

      With strengthen’d nerves, down the delightful shade.”

      Some of these springs were utilized for the supply of water outside the Park – but the larger quantity came from the Westbourne. Still, in 1620, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster had permission given them to use the water of four springs in Hyde Park for their benefit, and letters patent were granted to “Thomas Day, Gent. of Chelsea, to enable him to take the water from Hyde Park to the City of Westminster.” This, I take it, meant to utilize the Westbourne, as the Dean and Chapter had the springs: but both their privileges were annulled by the King’s Bench, as it was alleged that the ponds in the Park were, by these means, so drained that there was not enough water left for the wants of the King’s deer.

      In the time of James I. there were eleven pools in the Park, and a glance at Roque’s map of 1747 will show that many were then still remaining; indeed, in the accompanying illustration of the Bathing House in 1794, we see a horse drinking at one of them. By this, we see that horses were turned out to grass in the Park. In 1751, grooms used to exercise their horses there, as did also a riding master named Faubert.

      “See, too, the jolly courser, with his groom,

      Expert, not like to him who Persia’s crown

      Obtained, yet skill’d with upright crest and arm,

      Compacted knee, to give the rein and bitt

      Their motion due, his flight retarding not.

      – Next Faubert view with graces of menage,

      And troops of horse in strictest motion wheel.”

      From the heights of Hampstead spring several small streams, such as the Fleet, the Brent, and the West Bourne, probably so called to distinguish it from St. Mary le bourne, which was further east. Roque’s map shows its position with regard to the Serpentine, but, before that misnamed lake was made, it ran right through the Park from north to south, leaving the Park about Albert Gate, where was a bridge, from which Knightsbridge takes its name. Then it flowed by what are now William Street, Lowndes Square, and Chesham Street, falling into the Thames near Ranelagh.

      Queen Caroline, wife to George II., conceived the idea of utilizing this little stream, and making it into a lake, and, as it was supposed that she was expending her own money on this work, no objection was raised to her so doing, but it is said that at her death she left the King to pay a sum of no less than £20,000 on account of it. We learn when it was commenced from Read’s Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer, Saturday, September 26th, 1730. “Next Monday, they begin upon the Serpentine River, and Royal Mansion in Hide-Park: Mr. Ripley is to build the House, and Mr. Jepherson to make the River under the Directions of Charles Withers, Esq^re.” This latter gentleman, who was Surveyor General of Woods and Forests, died shortly before the Serpentine was finished, probably in 1733, when his successor was appointed; and in May, 1731, it was deep enough, in part, to allow two small yachts upon it. Its cost was estimated at £6000 – but a portion of that (£2500) had to go as compensation to the Chelsea Water Works Company, who held a 99 years’ lease, granted to one Thomas Haines, in 1663, whereby, on annual payment of 6s. 8d., he had command of all the springs and conduits in the Park.

      The water supply for the Serpentine came from the Westbourne, until, in the course of time, owing to the extension of building, the houses around draining into it, its water became too foul for the purpose, and, in 1834, it was cut off, and connected with the sewer in the Bayswater Road; and the supply thus lost is made good by the Chelsea Water Works, who pump in water at the Kensington Gardens end, and the overflow at the very pretty Dell forms a striking feature in the landscape gardening of the Park. Formerly, as we see in Roque’s map, the overflow was conducted into a pool, which was bridged over by the King’s Old Road.

      The Serpentine was not utilized for any purpose until August 1st, 1814, when a national rejoicing called “The Jubilee” was held in the Park, to celebrate the conclusion of peace with France, and the celebration of the centenary of the accession of George I. There were to be illuminations, fireworks, and balloon ascents in St. James’s and the Green Parks, and in Hyde Park a fair, and a “Naumachia,” or sea-fight, which was somewhat appropriate, as the famous Battle of the Nile was fought on August 1st, 1798.

      The mimic three-deckers and frigates were necessarily small, and they were made out of ships’ barges at Woolwich, and great was the chaff made about this “liliputian navy.” Here are some skits thereon: —

      “John Bull, the other day, in pensive mood,

      Near to the Serpentine Flotilla stood;

      His hands were thrust into his emptied pockets,

      And much of ships he muttered, and of rockets;

      Of silly Fêtes – and Jubilees unthrifty —

      And babies overgrown, of two and fifty;32

      I guess’d the train of thought which then possess’d him,

      And deem’d th’ occasion fit, and thus address’d him:

      “ ‘Be generous to a fallen foe,

      With gratulations meet,

      On Elba’s Emperor bestow

      Thy Liliputian fleet:

      “ ‘For, with his Island’s narrow bounds,

      That Navy might agree,

      Which, laugh’d at daily here – redounds

      In ridicule to thee.’

      “Says John, ‘Right readily I’ll part

      With these, and all the gay things,

      But it would break the R – ’s heart

      To take away his play things.’ ”

      Or take the two following distiches: —

      “A simple Angler, throwing flies for trout,

      Hauled the main mast, and lugg’d a First Rate out.

      “A crow in his fright, flying over the Fleet,

      Dropped something, that covered it all, like a sheet.”

      In contemporary accounts, the “Naumachia” was generally very summarily dismissed, and the following is, perhaps, one of the best of them.

      “Between eight and nine o’clock, the Grand Sea Fight took place on the Serpentine River, where ships of the line, in miniature, manœuvred and engaged, and the Battle of the Nile was represented in little. Of this mock naval engagement on the great Serpentine Ocean, it would be extremely difficult to give any adequate description. It is, perhaps, sufficient to observe that it was about on a par with spectacles of a similar nature, which have been frequently exhibited at the Theatres… We were as heartily glad when the cockle-shell fight was over, as we had been tired of waiting for it. We were afraid, at one time, whether it would have neither beginning nor end. Indeed, there had been a wretched skirmish between four and five in the afternoon, between an American and an English frigate,33 at the conclusion of which, the English colours were triumphantly hoisted on the rebel Yankee… At a signal

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