Regent’s Park to most people spells the Zoo, the place where one may see the best menagerie in the world. It is the successor of Marylebone Park, a royal hunting-ground until Cromwell’s day. It was laid out in its present style after 1812 by Nash, the man who designed Regent Street, and named after the Prince Regent, who thought he would build a country house here. It is so far removed from Mayfair that its glories have been neglected, but now that fashion has drifted north of Hyde Park and even Bloomsbury is having its recrudescence, Regent’s Park may wake up any day and find itself famous. It is beautifully laid out and tended, and garden lovers from other lands will like it immensely if they take a tube to Baker Street and spend an hour or so there, either boating on the lovely lake or walking in the gardens. The Royal Botanic Gardens, enclosed by a circular walk, are reached from York Street by a road running north between Bedford Women’s College and the Toxophilite Society (which ordinary people are content to call the Archery Club). It is only open to the general public on Mondays and Saturdays on payment of one shilling. On this west side of the park is St. Dunstan’s Lodge, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Kahn, who gave their house for some years to the late Sir Arthur Pearson for his hostel for the education of the blind. It was once the home of the Marquess of Hertford, who was the original of Thackeray’s Marquis of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_ BATTERSEA PARK “It takes London of all cities to give you such an impression of the country.”--HENRY JAMES. Battersea Park is another of London’s lovely gardens. It takes its name from the old parish and manor of Battersea, a gradual corruption of the Patricesy or Peter’s Isle, by which it was known in Domesday Book as belonging to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster. There is nothing very interesting historically about the park, as it was only laid out in 1852, on Battersea Fields, the scene of a duel in 1829 between the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Winchelsea, but it is one of the favourite parks of London and the only one that fringes the borders of the Thames. It has a lovely sunk garden, that is a dream of beauty in the summer time, and letters are always appearing in the papers about the birds that nest among its trees. Four of the 188 acres are laid out as a sub-tropical garden. There is a lake with rowing boats to hire, and arrangements are made for cricket and other sports.