The Green Park, London

In London you don’t have to look in special places to find secrets. They’re all around you. All you have to do is look and ask and read a little bit.  Londoners like to chat about their city and will usually break out with, “Bet you didn’t know….”

A very old map of the Green Park area, but it gives you an idea of the layout.

I’ll give you an example of history hiding in plain sight:  The Green Park, or as it’s usually called, simply Green Park.  When you get off at the Green Park underground station for a stroll to Buckingham Palace or to have a drink at the Hotel Ritz, as soon as you get above ground, you’ll notice a huge expanse of green grass, bordered by ancient, towering trees.  That’s it.  Green Park. 

Buckingham Palace with monument to Queen Victoria in front.

Note:  By the way, Buckingham Palace wasn’t the Royal Residence until Queen Victoria moved the court there in 1837.  Before then, the royal residence was in the nearby St Jame's Palace. There’s a large monument to her in front of Buckingham palace.

St Jame's Palace, built by Henry VIII between 1531 and 1536.

Most people will just walk on through Green Park, without realizing they’re walking in one of London’s Royal Parks and a place that’s ripe with history.  There are eight Royal Parks in London, and Green Park is the smallest at 47 acres.  Most of these parks used to be the hunting grounds reserved for royalty, including Green Park, but Green Park also has a darker history.  Where St James Palace stands, St. James Hospital once stood, where lepers were treated.  Green Park is thought to be the lepers’ burial ground.

You have to realize, when the crown created these parks, the land was well away from the city of London.  Times change.

Unlike so many of the other Royal Parks, The Green Park has no buildings, no lakes and very few monuments. You may also notice that except for daffodils in the springtime, there are no flowers.  Oh, yes faithful readers, there are interesting stories behind all these very noticeable omissions.

No flowers in a Royal Park?  True, apparently by order of Queen Catherine, wife of Charles II.  One day the queen caught her husband picking flowers for one of his mistresses and thereafter banned flowers from being grown in Green Park.  There are doubters, including yours truly.  It’s more likely the lack of flowerbeds is because originally The Green Park was an extension of St James Park, with its open spaces.  And there’s little doubt the Queen was not suddenly stunned by the King’s attractions.

Let’s move on to the lack of buildings and ponds or lakes or streams.  Once upon a time, The Green Park had all of these. There was a pond to supply water to St. James Palace and the pond (The Queen’s Basin) was fed by the Tyburn stream on its way to the Thames (Tims) River. As the city encroached, the pond, as water supplier, was no longer necessary and was eliminated.  How about the stream?  Tyburn stream still flows through Green Park, although you won’t ever get to see it.  Now it’s an underground stream and generally follows the path of the central walking path and also flows under Buckingham Palace. By the way, Green Park is the only Royal Park that doesn’t have a water feature, although a modern drinking fountain was installed in 2012.

The buildings.  Yes there was a library and a couple of temples dedicated to this and that, as well as a Ranger’s House for groundskeepers. The temples were destroyed during fireworks extravaganzas in the early 1800s. Other buildings were torn down.

What about the Queen’s Walk?  Created for Queen Caroline, George II’s queen.

The Queen's Walk

And Constitution Walk?  Britain had a constitution?  NO.  Constitution refers to Charles II’s habit of taking a daily walk along this path, a constitutional.

All sorts of nefarious deeds took place in Green Park, in addition to the assassination attempt on Queen Victoria.  In earlier years, the park was an area of robbers and highwaymen.

A young Queen Victoria

It was in Green Park that the first of eight assassination attempts was made on Queen Victoria.  She and Prince Albert, newly wed, left Buckingham Palace about 4 p.m. on 10 June 1840 and had gotten about a hundred yards up Constitution Hill when Edward Oxford, then 18 years old and armed with two pistols, waited for her open carriage to pass. He fired at close range, but missed.  The Queen was four months pregnant and neither she nor her husband were hurt.  Oxford was found to be insane and spent most of the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum

An older photo of Edward Oxford, the would be assassin.

With the Crown Land Act of 1851, the public has the right to cross the green. Wanna feel like royalty? Try a walk up Constitution Hill, which you can find on the map or the Queen’s Walk on the edge of the park, beginning right next to the Hotel Ritz.  And as I told you, look around!  London’s colorful history flows, even in the serenity of a blissful, royal park.  Not only colorful, but dark.  Lots of skeletons in London’s pretty closets.

 

The elderly Queen Victoria

Buckingham Palace: Changing of the Guard Part II

Are the weapons real and are they loaded?  Yes and yes.  Impressive that these are real soldiers and well trained, and when not guarding the Queen, they’re deploying with their units around the world. Many of them have had combat tours. And the weapons you see are real and loaded.  They aren’t at the palace just for show.

At the beginning of a guard’s tour of duty, he is told the following: "You may not eat, sleep, smoke, stand easy, sit or lie down during your tour of duty".

At Buckingham Palace the guards are inside the gates, mainly to prevent incidents with tourists who in the past have interfered, but also because of the terrorist threat.  When the guards are outside the gates, as they sometimes are, there is a procedure for dealing with unruly miscreants.  The first thing they do is come to attention, loudly stamp a boot and say, “Stand back from the guard.”

The second step is to move his weapon into a ready position.  In the third step, he will point his weapon.  Following that, the next step is to signal for help (there’s a button inside the guard station), or detain the person himself.  That seems to be all that is needed. To date, no weapons have been fired while on duty at Buckingham Palace.

Should you get in the way of a marching guard, he will shout, “Make way for the Queen’s Guard.”

What about the bearskin caps?  Real or fake?  REAL, made from Canadian black bear skins.  Cost is exorbitant:  £1,224 (2016 price), or about $1555.45 each. 

Are animal rights folks going crazy?  Yep.  Have the British backed off?  Nope.  Still, bearskin may be on its way out after a couple of centuries of tradition, not because of animal rights, but because of cost. My observation is that from the beginning of recorded history, economics have played a more important role in change than any other single factor, whether the topic is “the divine right of kings,” the rise and fall of dictators, who wins an election, or the cost of bearskin caps.

What about the bands?  Each regiment has its own, except for the Household Cavalry regiments, who only have one combined band.  They march from Wellington Barracks to the palace for the ceremony.  In the Changing of the Guard, normally two bands play, one for the oncoming regiment and one for the retiring regiment.

The cavalry rides from the nearby Hyde Park Barracks.

Cavalry?  Really in the 21^st Century?  Yes and no.  When not guarding the monarch, the Household Cavalry Regiment (HCR) horsemen are also ‘real soldiers’, serving in their operational role as a Formation Reconnaissance Regiment, riding in armored fighting vehicles.

Things to know about the Cavalry:  The horses are known as Cavalry Blacks and stand at least 16 hands high (5 1/3 ft or 64 inches).  No stallions and most are geldings.

In the 1982 Hyde Park Bombing, four horsemen and seven horses were killed.  On their ride to Buckingham Palace, the Household Cavalry salutes the monument.

Want more? Juliet Blaxland has written a book on the horses, titled:  Nimrod, A Cavalry Black, from foal to retirement, with part of the proceeds going to The Household Cavalry Foundation charity.

Yes, there is a lot more to know, but you already know more than 99% of the folks who view The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace!  Relax, enjoy the music and the ceremony and the pageantry that has been a part of British history for hundreds of years.

As a side benefit, here’s a free mental check on your short-term memory.  If you fail this quiz, put down that bottle, sober up and try it again.

Does that guard have a white and green plume on his hat?  Then he’s a member of…………

That right, he's a Welsh Guard.

And from which regiment are these red-coated Cavalry? 

The Life guards, of course.

Check this photo.  Is the Queen in residence?

 You bet she is!  Another way to tell?  Four guards in front of the palace, she's there.  Two guards means she's not.