Green Park is the great un-loved park of London. No one has ever said “let’s take the kids to Green Park for the day”. No one ever goes there on a sightseeing tour. No one takes photographs of it and nobody wants to scatter their ashes in it because it’s just green grass and trees. There are no flowers, no rivers, no ponds, no lakes, no buildings, no little kids playgrounds, just a couple of hot dog burger stands and military monuments. But if you travel back a few centuries then this place had it all: a swamp full of dead lepers, exploding firework disasters, temples turning into burning infernos and even a mad man’s assassination attempt on Queen Victoria.
I’m having to stand under a leafy tree to write this because the rain is battering like hammers above my head. Walking around on these sodden leaves is like tramping through a field of upturned stickers, you have to peel them off your feet with tweezers. Five hundred years ago there used to be lots of little rivulets running down to the Thames so the ground around here was constantly waterlogged, and every time the nearby hospital lost a leper they’d bury the body in it. Can you imagine the festering cesspool that it must have become? A steaming swamp of rotting bodies – it must have been like peering into the Dead Marshes at Pelennor Fields.
St. James’s Palace
When Henry VIII came to the throne he demolished the hospital and built St. James’s Palace on top, and 150 years after that Charles II nabbed the surrounding parkland and turned it into a place for promenading.
If you’re wondering why there are no flowerbeds in Green Park today then blame Charles. This guy was the Don Giovanni of his day and when his missus caught him picking flowers for his mistress she blew her top. To say she was angry was an understatement. She didn’t simply tell him off, she ordered that every flower be ripped out of the ground and turned the place into a colourless wasteland. 450 years later we’re still too afraid to disobey her!
Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’
Roll on another sixty years and Green Park was the site of one of the most memorable premieres ever staged. George II decided that he wanted to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession with a huge firework display so he built a mock temple and had Handel write some music. You’ve almost certainly heard his rousing tune even if you don’t recognise its name: Music for the Royal Fireworks. It was playing the same time the temple exploded, sending up all the fireworks and showering the crowd in sparks. Three people died in the beautiful disaster, but they had colourful cascades and Handel playing them out.
All of the remaining buildings were cleared away in the 1820s and now we’re left with the bland land we see today. The last bit of excitement was when someone took a potshot at Queen Victoria as she was coming up Constitution Hill. Hollywood tried to fool us into thinking that Albert jumped in front of the bullet but I’ve seen his suit at Kensington Palace: that guy was only four feet tall. Someone else had another go a couple of years later and missed again. So they had another go (third time lucky?)… and missed again.
The Bomber Command Memorial
They’ve built a few memorials at the top end of Constitution Hill to liven it up a bit. There’s an impressive monument to Bomber Command near Wellington Arch, and four concrete obelisks for the forces of the British Empire. There’s also a rather plain-looking piece for Canada, close to the Canada Gate.
A word of advice: if you see any deckchairs on the grass then don’t sit in them because they charge about a thousand pounds per hour (which is a slight exaggeration, but not by much). Tourists are forever sitting in them thinking that they’re free – and why not? It’s only a seat. But they are forgetting that this is London, where even sitting down costs a fortune. A warden will quickly come along and kick you out.
If you enjoy this then try Hyde Park (walk it in 18 mins or travel from Green Park to Marble Arch by underground); Kensington Gardens (travel from Green Park to Queensway via tube); Regent’s Park (take a tube journey from Green Park to Regents Park); St. James’s Park (you can walk it 10 mins) and Victoria Embankment Gardens (walk it in 20 mins or catch a tube from Green Park to Embankment). Green Park is a stone’s throw from three Royal residences: Buckingham Palace, St. James’s Palace and Clarence House
