Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London LifeKirwan, Daniel Joseph
History
Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- Social life and customs
There are also sheets of water in Regent's Park, Victoria Park,
Battersea Park, St. James' Park, and Kensington Gardens. The sheet of
water, or stream, in Hyde Park, is known as the "Serpentine River,"
from its sinuous course. This is quite a large sheet of water, and is
much frequented for free bathing, on warm days in the heated term.
Here, thousands of people may be seen on a sultry afternoon, plunging
to and fro in the cool waters, and in case of any accident--for the
water is deep--the boats, ropes and drags of the Royal Humane Society's
Life Saving Apparatus, are always ready for immediate use, and numbers
of people are rescued and taken from the Serpentine, and resuscitated.
When the winter months come, and the Serpentine becomes frozen over,
the Londoners congregate there in great numbers to skate, or play at
golf or curling.
There is a large lake in the Regent's Park ornamented with small,
well-wooded islands, and in Kensington Gardens there is one of the
finest museums of art, science, and curiosities, in the world. There
are rocky dells, and grounds for sham fights, in Hyde Park, there are
the rarest exotics in the Palm House at Kew, and every known species of
bird, beast, reptile, and fowl, may be found in the Zoological Gardens,
which comprises eighteen acres of space in the Regent's Park.
In Richmond Park, which is ten miles distant from the London Post
Office Centre, there are two thousand three hundred acres of hill,
dale, plain, and forest, and here are to be found deer-parks, rabbit
warrens, romantic foot-paths, ancient oaks, horse-chestnuts, and thorny
ridges, with a variety of sequestered spots for pic-nics and pleasure
parties. This noble park can be reached by a sail of fifteen miles on
the River Thames, which is skirted by Richmond Park for some distance.
There is a grand Observatory for scientific purposes in Greenwich Park,
which is noted all the world over for its correct calculations, and all
the watches and clocks in Great Britain are set by Greenwich time.
[Sidenote: THE WORLD'S FAIR.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account