Green Park - History

History

The park is said to have originally been a swampy burial ground for lepers from the nearby hospital at St James's. It was first enclosed in the 16th century when it formed part of the estate of the Poulteney family. In 1668 an area of the Poulteney estate known as Sandpit Field was surrendered to Charles II, who made the bulk of the land into a Royal Park, as "Upper St James's Park" and enclosed it with a brick wall. He laid out the park's main walks and built an icehouse there to supply him with ice for cooling drinks in summer.

The Queen's Walk was laid out for George II's queen Caroline; it led to the reservoir that held drinking water for St James's Palace, called The Queen's Basin.

At the time, the park was on the outskirts of London and remained an isolated area well into the 18th century, when it was known as a haunt of highwaymen and thieves; Horace Walpole was one of many to be robbed there. It was a popular place for ballooning attempts and public firework displays during the 18th and 19th centuries. Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks was composed specifically for a fireworks celebration held in Green Park in 1749. The park was also known as a duelling ground; one particularly notorious duel took place there in 1730 between William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath and John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol.

John Nash landscaped the Park in 1820, as an adjunct to St. James's Park.

There are Government offices and corridors, linking the nearby Royal palaces, beneath the east side of Green Park, which continue to run to the south. These are clearly visible on the edges of Green Park and St. James's Park, with the glass roofs just below ground level. The rooms are thought to be conversions of some of the tunnels built as part of the Cabinet War Rooms from the Second World War.

Beneath The Green Park still runs Tyburn stream.