144
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. AUG. 22, im.
merit. Faulkner 'omits reference to the
part taken in the work by the first king
from Hanover ; and although Dr. Doran
in 1877 referred to it, and the consequent
public outcry (' London in Jacobite Times,'
ii. 14), it has remained unnoticed. It ap-
pears that the King, having finished the
eastern addition to the Palace, turned his
attention to his gardens. We find from
the Surveyor's estimate of 5 May, 1726,
that " His Majesty had ordered the Paddock
in Hyde Park to be inclosed with a brick
wall nine feet high," and we have a lengthy
statement of " the new works in the Paddock
in Hyde Park" executed between Septem-
ber, 1726, and June, 1727 (Treasury Papers).
The first item in this account is the taking
down of old brickwork in the Paddock,
probably the Finch wall, with perhaps others
built by Queen Anne ; and that the new
wall, above referred to, was intended to
complete the enclosure of the area now
covered by the Gardens, may be seen in a
' Plan of Hyde Park as it was in 1725 ' in
the Grace Collection. Here " His Majesties
New Gardens " come down to the Canal
(now the Long Water), and the fence crosses
the dam (where is now the bridge) on to
Buck Barn Hill. The statement mentioned
above tells us a good deal about the work
and its cost, but does not locate it so clearly
as we desire. There is the excavation of the
Great Basin (now called the Round Pond),
and the making of the Canal was a heavy
work. Trees and their planting form a very
interesting subject : 22,000 of all kinds
may be reckoned in the account. Elm,
oak, chestnut (of both kinds), walnut,
beech, lime, evergreen oak, almond, fir,
and lesser ornamental trees and shrubs were
in abundance. George I. died before the
completion of the Gardens, and the work
was continued into the reign of his successor.
The amount of the statement was 25,856Z.,
the main portion of which was for work
" pursuant to orders of his late Majesty
King George I.," and but 1,203Z. pursuant
to orders of King George II.
The Plan of 1725 above noticed does not show the completed enclosure of the Gardens upon Buck Barn Hill, their north-eastern limit, probably because not there finished ; but perhaps the space was wanted for the title of the plan. In the remaining two years of George I. the ha-ha fence, the surprising invention of Bridgeman a wall perhaps nine feet high, of which the coped top only was seen above the ground surface, the remainder forming one side of a deep fosse beyond may have been
built ; but more probably as Faulkner
shows it should be attributed to the
gardening period of Queen Caroline, the
able consort of George II. This Queen
found the whole extent of the Gardens in
an incompleted state, and from the accounts
preserved it seems that the completion occu-
pied at least four years of George's reign. As
to the area taken from Hyde Park, however,
I think the full encroachment had been
rounded off by his father. Caroline never-
theless had a fine field for invention and
disposal, with the ability of Bridgeman
at her service. The maze of flower-beds
on the south front of the Palace, which had
been the delight of poor Queen Anne, was
swept away by Caroline. Greater import-
ance seems then to have been given to the
Broad Walk by doubling the ranks of elms.
Thames water was brought to the Great
Basin, first filled in the midsummer of 1728 ;
and the " Queen's Temple," designed by
Kent, was made to overlook the Serpentine.*
These thirty acres of water, joining the
Long Water of ten acres, and made where
the West Bourne had wandered through a
marsh, formed the Queen's chief achieve-
ment, quite apart from the Gardens. And
her Majesty, though acquitted in the matter
of the Park aggression, had her own imperial
conception of projects and expenditure.
Not only Kensington Gardens, but the entire
remainder of Hyde Park, were to form the
exclusive pleasure domain of a new palace
to rise at its centre (Read's Weekly Journal,
26 Sept., 1730 ; The Old Whig, 26 June,
1735). The Queen, however, had the dis-
cretion which prevented too great an ad-
vance ; she listened to the warning of her
minister, whose reply, on an occasion when
he was consulted as to cost, was : " Madam,
it might cost three crowns " (Dr. Doran,
' Lives of the Queens of England of the
House of Hanover,' 1875, i. 380).
On completion of the Gardens an accurate survey was made of the entire royal domain. The plan existsf ; it is without date, but from its features I gather that it preceded by a few years Rocque's better-known plan of 1736. Every parcel is numbered, and its advantage over Rocque's plan is the accompaniment of a table giving the name or disposal of each parcel (in this a very interesting record), and 1 its area. The total area is 297a. 2r. 38p., say 297*75 acres. Now, it has been shown that Hyde Park,
- The Temple yet exists, transformed into
gardener's lodge. t Brit. Mus. K. xxviii. 10, d. 1.
