Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/57

 10 s. x. JULY is, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

41

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY IS, 1908.

CONTENTS.-No. 238.

NOTES :-Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, 41 Vowel- Shortening in English, 43 Dr. Johnson's Ancestors and Connexions, 44 Fee Bowls Hornsey : Highgate and Arabella Stuart, 46 Leamington-on-Sea " Votes for Women," 47.

QUERIES : King's Silver: Lincoln College, 47 Manor Identification in Divers Counties" Charming-Bells " for Bird-catching Old Tunes Steering-WheelE. Thayer, 48 'Sweet Nan of Hampton Green' 'The National Journal,' 1746 Titles conferred by Cromwell Hartley Coleridge" Dandy affair," 1816 : " Bats' Club Dinner " Gilbert Imlay's ' Emigrants ' Steele and Addison Union Light Dragoons, 1780, 49 Capt. Charles Gill, R.N. " Tanner "=Sixpence Benedict Arnold, 50.

REPLIES :' Kitty Fisher's Jig' : 'Yankee Doodle,' 50- Queen Caroline Cornish and other Apparitions, 51 Snodgrass as a Surname Cap of Liberty St. John Bap- tist's Eve : Midsummer, 52 Hippocrates Legend Canning Portraits" Sabariticke "Portfolio Society Fig Trees : Maturing Meat, 53 " Abracadabra "" Promethean " The Nose Celestial Edwards of Halifax H. C. Wise, 54 Authors of Quotations Wanted" Angel " of an Inn, 55 Sir T. Browne : Quotation Swedenborg's Memorial Tablet Man in the Almanac " Paffer " Gibbet as Landmark, 56 Parish Dinners George Monoux Roger North's Life of his Brother Burials at Nice : Capt. James King Cheapside Cross : its Bibliography Burial-Ground of St. George's, Hanover Square, Bayswater Road Bur- ney's ' History of Music 'The Pied Finer in Ispahan, 57 The ' D.N.B.' : Additions and Corrections, 58.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' Annals of Cambridge ' ' Shake spearean Representation: its Laws and Limits' 'The Edinburgh Review.'

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS.

THE question of relationship or non-rela- tionship between Hyde Park and Kensing- ton Gardens is still open and undecided the question, that is, Was the ground now covered by the Gardens in the main severed from Hyde Park, or was it originally separate and distinct ? The answer varies : some- times it favours the severance, sometimes the original distinction. The writers on the subject may have been satisfied with their conclusions, but readers are left per- plexed.

Lysons (1796), writing nearest the period when the Gardens were laid out, says in his ' Environs ' (iii. 184) :

" Kensington Gardens were originally only 26

acres. Queen Anne added 30 acres but the

principal addition was made by the late Queen [Caroline], who took in near 300 acres of Hyde Park."

Faulkner in his 'Kensington' (1820) re- peated this.

On the other hand, the now current authorized Guide tells us :

"The modern so-called 'Kensington Gardens.' are identified with the original domain of old Nottingham House, increased by the addition of some hundred acres or more taken from Hyde Park."

Here is variance. We gather from the earlier version that the old mansion had no land attached to it beyond its immediate precinct. From the later and current account we learn that the mansion had " a domain" identical with the Kensington Gardens of to-day. Which of these views is right ? I hold that both are inaccurate, though the elder be nearer the truth ; and it is because I venture to think there is a ready and positive solution of the question that I beg the Editor to allow me to recast, clearly and concisely, my argument made elsewhere a few years since,* in order that it may have further circulation in ' N. & Q.,' and perhaps eliciting response, affirmative or negative, may tend to the settlement of the matter.

The solution appears to me to lie in the answer to the question, What was the former, and what is the present acreage of Hyde Park ? The former acreage is ob- tained indubitably from the document in the Record Office entitled ' Particulars of Sale of Crown Lands, 1652 : Hyde Park, Parcel of the Possessions of Charles Stuart, late King of England.' These ' Particu,- lars ' have considerable interest. The Park was sold in five divisions. The names given to them indicate their positions ; their boun- daries are precisely defined ; their contents in wood, water-pools, &c. are specified ; the computed areas, and the value of each division, are stated. A special survey had been made, and as it bears every evidence of precision, the sum of the five areas 621*83 acres cannot be doubted. It seems extraordinary that this document has been overlooked when the question before us has been discussed. Faulkner copies it, yet does not apply it in its reference to the Park and Gardens. No plan accompanies the * Particulars,' as might be expected. But having the boundaries, positions, and areas clearly stated, I have, with the article above referred to, ventured to construct a plan, on which the divisions are conjecturally Laid down within the outlines obtained from the Ordnance map.

The present area of the Park (including the water- area of the Serpentine) is about

bounties Magazine (1904), vi. 145, 222.
 * 'The Making of Kensington Gardens,' Home