Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/58

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY is, MOB.

368 acres* and that of 1652 having been 621 acres, it is evident that there has been a loss of 253 acres. Where are those acres ? The Park is a quadrilateral enclosure. Three of its sides have remained virtually unaltered since 16'52. The northern boundary, now as then, is the Uxbridge Road in the ' Particulars ' termed " the Great Road to Acton" ; the southern boundary has always been " Knightsbridge Highway and Brentford Road" ; Park Lane, formerly Tyburn Lane though perhaps not so called in 1652, as here it is merely " the Way leading from Brentford Road to Acton Road" forms the unaltered eastern boun- dary ; while the fourth or western boundary, now coinciding with that of Kensington Gardens, is more than half a mile east of the former limit a limit in the ' Par- ticulars ' described as " the ground lying near the Gravel Pits " and " the house and ground usually taken to belong to Mr. Finch of Kensington." The fact is that to-day, traversing the Park westward from Park Lane, we cannot find the 621 acres of 1652 until we have crossed Kensing- ton Gardens and have almost arrived at Wren's handsome Orangery ; and in our walk we shall have undoubtedly crossed the 253 lost acres of Hyde Park now in- corporated with Kensington Gardens.

Further proof that the Gardens have in the main been made from the Park is scarcely necessary, yet the naming and definition of the five sale- divisions are so interesting as well as corroborative, that they may here have place.

Against Park Lane (or Tyburn Lane) abutted two divisions : the Banqueting House Division, occupying the north-west angle of the Park (and apparently so called from an old royal hunting and feasting house, or perhaps a place of refreshment for visitors to " the Ring") and the Old Lodge Division, containing the gate-keeper's lodge at " Park Corner." After the Banqueting House Division had stretched its length along the Uxbridge Road as its northern boundary, it was succeeded by the Middle Division, which extended along the same road until it reached " Bayard's Watering," the spring or pond from which the Bays-

but as the desired total is not afforded, it has to be arrived at by a somewhat complicated addition of Hyde Park portions noted in the several parishes, together with the water-areas of the Serpentine, also parochially divided. Professional practice, however, enables me to compute or verify this and all other areas now adduced.
 * The area is obtained from the Ordnance map,

water district has its name. Here we pause- to note that the ground sold was already well within the present limits of Kensington Grardens, and at the point where the West- bourne stream crossed the Uxbridge Road and entered the Park. But although within the Kensington Gardens of to-day, we have yet to trace westward another former division of Hyde Park, and a good half-mile to go before reaching its old demarcation. And, again, the name " Gravel Pit Division " well denotes its situation : it extended along^ the Uxbridge Road until it touched the- verge of the now obsolete, though not for- gotten district, " Kensington Gravel Pits." A plan to which I shall presently refer shows, if I mistake not, the most easterly of the pits : its edge is close to and parallel with the Park ditch, beyond which further excavation was doubtless prohibited. Here we reach an important point in the demon- stration : the western boundary of the Gravel Pit Division is defined as " the ground lying near the Gravel Pits, and part of Finch's ground," i.e., the division was. partly bordered on the west by Mr. Finch's property, and partly by the gravel pits, which lay to the north of Mr. Finch's ground, between it and the Uxbridge Road.

The fifth and last division, lying south of the two just noticed, was the " Kensington Division." It was much the largest, and its name was appropriate, as it stretched along " the highway leading from Knights- bridge through Kensington Town." So we- have Hyde Park at Kensington, and the western boundary is again significant, viz., " part of the house and ground taken to belong to Mr. Finch of Kensington." This,, I think, must mean that the house of Mr. Finch, in later years Earl of Nottingham,, was closely approached ; and this evidence, added to that of its former capacity, seems to me convincingly to determine the old limits of Hyde Park.

In regard to the actual demarcation of limit between the Park and the Finch pro- perty we have information. It was by a ditch, probably an ancient fosse, for wood and trees grew on its banks. When " the King had his own again," and the sale of the Park had been quashed (the purchase money returned ?), Charles II. granted the old ditch, and ten feet width of the Park beyond, to Sir Heneage Finch, gentle- man and baronet, now His Majesty's Solicitor-General. The descriptive words of the grant (dated 25 March, 1662) are :

" That ditch or fence which divides Hide Park from the lands of Sr. Heneage Finch, and the wood