Gardens -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; Parks -- England -- London
To get to some of these places involves a considerable journey. Many
of the outlying parks have to be reached by train, or by a very long
drive, or tram ride. From Hyde Park Corner, for instance, to Bostall
Wood or Avery Hill is a long expedition. To the fortunate few who
possess motor cars the distances are trifling, but the vast majority
of people must exercise considerable ingenuity, and possess a good
bump of locality, if they wish to visit all London’s open spaces. A
knowledge of the distant places, the names of which are inscribed in
large letters on every omnibus, is necessary. The Royal Oak, Elephant
and Castle, or Angel, are but starting-places for the more distant
routes, although they form the goal of green, red, or blue ’busses.
The electric trams of South London have made the approach to Dulwich,
Peckham, Greenwich, and many other parks much more simple, and motor
’busses rattle along close to even the distant Golder’s Hill or
Highbury Fields. With a railway time-table, a good eye for colour in
selecting the right omnibus, and a knowledge of the points of the
compass, every green patch in London can be reached with ease, even by
those whose purses are not long enough to let them indulge in motors,
or whose nerves are not steady enough to let them venture on bicycles.
Each park forms the central point of some large district, and they are
not dependent on the casual visitor for appreciation. Every single
green spot, on a fine Saturday throughout the year, is peopled with
a crowd from the neighbourhood, and on every day in the year, winter
as well as summer, almost every open space has a ceaseless throng of
comers and goers.
What is the cost of maintenance of these parks is a question that
will naturally occur; and the answer in many cases is easy to find,
as the statistics of both the London County Council Parks, published
in their handbook, and those of the Royal Parks, which are submitted
to Parliament every year, are accessible. The following extracts may,
however, be useful. In looking at the two sets of figures, of course
the acreage must be borne in mind, and the great expense of police
in the Royal Parks, amounting to £8782 for Hyde Park alone, must be
deducted before any fair comparison can be made, even when results are
not considered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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