Gardens -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; Parks -- England -- London
It was not until James I.’s time that the Park began to be esteemed
as a resort for those attached to the Court. Prince Henry, the elder
brother of Charles I., made the tilting-ring on the site of the present
Horse Guards’ Parade, and brought the enclosure more into vogue for
games. James I. made use of the Park for his own hobbies, one of which
was the encouragement of growing vines and mulberries in England. He
planted considerable vineyards, and in 1609 he sent a circular letter
to the Lords-Lieutenant of each county, ordering them to announce
that the following spring a thousand mulberry trees would be sent to
each county town, and people were required to buy them at the rate of
three-farthings a plant. To further prosecute his plan, the King set an
example by planting a mulberry orchard at the end of St. James’s Park.
The place afterwards became a fashionable tea garden, and Buckingham
Palace is partly built on the site. The King kept also quite a large
menagerie of beasts and birds presented to him by various crowned
heads, or sent to him by friends and favourites. There are records
of elephants, camels, antelopes, beavers, crocodiles, wild boars,
and sables, besides many kinds of birds. The keepers of the animals
received large salaries, and the cost of the care of these beasts
would frighten the Zoological Society of to-day. No expense was spared
to give the best and most suitable surroundings to the animals. For
instance, as much as £286 was expended in 1618 by Robert Wood, the
keeper of the cormorants, ospreys, and otters, “in building a place to
keep the said cormorants in and making nine fish-ponds on land within
the vine garden at Westminster.” Fish were put in for these creatures,
and a sluice was made to bring water from the Thames to fill the
ponds. These strange beasts and birds and their attendants must have
been a quaint and unusual sight. The keepers were dressed in red cloth
(which cost nine shillings a yard), embroidered with “I.R.” in Venice
gold, and must have added to the picturesque appearance of this early
Zoological Garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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