Inventory Site Record

* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens

Green Park was enclosed as a deer park by Charles II after the Restoration, prior to which it was open land. Initially called Upper St James's Park, it was called Green Park by the mid C18th. In c.1730 a private walk was laid out for Queen Caroline, who had a summer pavilion built, and a canal or reservoir was enlarged, known as the Queen's Basin, later filled in. It was used for military parades and celebrations in the C18th, but was reduced in size when Buckingham House gardens were enlarged, and also lost land to the east. It opened to the public in 1826. The park today has undulating areas of grass crossed by paths, with avenues and scattered trees. Mature trees are principally planes, with some lime, chestnut and hawthorn. The lack of formal flower beds is reputedly due to Charles II's wife, Catherine of Braganza, who ordered all flowers to be removed having discovered the king had given flowers picked here to another woman. However, the park is known for its annual daffodil display.

Previous / Other name:

The Green Park; Upper St James's Park

Site location:

Piccadilly, St James's

Postcode:

SW1

What 3 Words:

organs.putty.remind

Type of site:

Public Park

Borough:

Westminster

Open to public?

Yes

Opening times:

unrestricted

Special conditions:

Facilities:

Refreshment points at Ritz Corner and Canada Gate; deck chair hire (March-October); toilets

Events:

Public transport:

Tube: Green Park (Victoria, Piccadilly, Jubilee), Hyde Park Corner (Piccadilly). Bus: 2, 8, 9, 14, 16, 19, 22, 36, 38, 52, 73, 82, 148, 436

Citymapper    
Google Map    
streetmap.co.uk

Research updated:

04/11/2021

Last minor changes:

19/07/2023

Please check with the site owner or manager for latest news. www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/green_park/

Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.

Green Park lies on undulating ground, sloping generally from north-west to south-east, and is bounded by Piccadilly to the north-west, by Queen's Walk to the north-east and by Constitution Hill to the south. The Victoria Memorial is at the south-east corner of the park. The park was first recorded in 1554 when Sir Thomas Wyatt led a rebellion in protest against the marriage of Mary I to Philip II of Spain. The area was meadowland used for hunting and the occasional duel and was probably first enclosed by Henry VIII, together with the area of St James's Park. Its adoption as a royal park dates from the 1660s when Charles II enclosed it with a wall, stocked it with deer and built a ranger's house. It enabled him to walk on royal soil from Hyde Park to St James's Park (q.q.v.) and it became a popular pleasure ground. Constitution Hill may be named after the king's 'constitutional' walks. Avenues of trees were planted, and a snow-house and ice-house were built, the mount for the latter remains opposite 119 Piccadilly. The park was first known as Upper St James's Park, and it was used in the C18th for military parades and celebrations. The Queen's Walk along the east boundary was made in c.1730 for Queen Caroline, wife of George II, created to provided a private walk from St James's Palace to the Queen's Library, the name given to the summer pavilion built for her by William Kent (1685-1748). A canal or reservoir at the north-east end of the park was enlarged in order to supply St James's Palace, Buckingham House and the park. It was decorated with a fountain and known as the Queen's Basin, but was later infilled in the mid C19th. The park was the location for grand firework displays, such as that of 1746 when Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks was commissioned to celebrate the end of the War of Hanoverian Succession, and in 1749 G N Servandoni's fireworks to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the War of Austrian Succession. However during the latter celebrations the Temple of Peace erected for the festivities, as well as the Queen's Library, were largely destroyed. A later firework display for the Prince Regent's Gala in 1814 also resulted in the conflagration of the Temple of Concord, built to mark 100 years of the Hanoverians. In 1767 part of the park was taken for the gardens of Buckingham House, later renamed Buckingham Palace (q.v.), as well as encroachments to the east of Queen's Walk due to the building of grand mansions such as Spencer House (q.v.), Bridgewater House and Stafford House.

Known as Green Park or The Green Park from the mid C18th, the park was opened to the public in 1826. Some re-landscaping was undertaken as part of John Nash's work in St James's Park in the 1820s and in 1830 the Wellington Arch, designed by Decimus Burton, was built and improvements made to straighten Constitution Hill as a processional route. Numerous trees were planted and a horse ride and footpath laid out along the Constitution Hill boundary. Following complaints about the park in the 1830s the Tyburn Pool in the south-east and Queen's Basin in the north were filled in, the Ranger's Lodge was removed, and trees and shrubs were planted along the boundary with Piccadilly.

Further changes took place in the C20th. The Canada Gate was installed in 1908 as part of the memorial to Queen Victoria and celebrates Canada's contribution to the British Empire. When the Queen Victoria Memorial was built in c.1920, the wide tree-lined Broad Walk was laid out aligned on the Memorial. Flanked by plane trees, it runs between the centre point of the north-west boundary along Piccadilly and the south-east corner of the park. At the north end are the Devonshire Gates, erected in 1921. They had been made for Lord Heathfield's house at Turnham Green but then purchased by the Duke of Devonshire in 1837 for Chiswick House (q.v.), moved in 1897 to Devonshire House Piccadilly, and finally to Green Park when Devonshire House was demolished. The Ritz Gate is near the former site of the Queen's Basin. A bandstand erected in c.1920 adjacent to the Queen's Walk was later removed, its site marked by a ring of plane trees. A clipped holly hedge within the north boundary railing was planted in the late 1960s. Other more recent sculptural features in the park include the drinking fountain with bronze sculpture of Diana the huntress with a dog at her feet by Estcourt J Clack of 1954, which was commissioned by the Constance Fund. It originally stood more centrally in the park and gained the name 'Diana of the Treetops' for its position among the trees, on the site of an earlier drinking fountain by Sydney Smirke RA which had been installed in 1860. Clack's drinking fountain was later moved to a more prominent site outside the redesigned entrance from the Green Park tube station, part of the preparations for the London 2012 Olympics. The Canadian War Memorial was installed in 1995 as part of the VE Day 50th Anniversary celebrations. In 2002, the Queen inaugurated a war memorial next to Constitution Hill, dedicated to 5 million servicemen from the Indian Sub-Continent, Africa and the Caribbean. Construction of the Bomber Command Memorial is in progress on the north-west corner of park, adjacent to Piccadilly.

During the summer of 2012 Green Park and St James's Park, which includes Horse Guards Parade Ground and The Mall, hosted six Olympic and Paralympic events.

Sources consulted:

Braybrooke N, London Green, 1959, 103-104; Davies H, A Walk Round London's Parks, 1983, 16-18; Pevsner N, rev Cherry B, London I, 1985, 579-580; Williams G, Royal Parks of London, 1978, 49-63; Royal Parks Review, St James's Park and Green Park; Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, 1993. See Sally Williams, 'Laughing waters': The Joy of Life and other Mid-Twentieth Century Fountains in London's Parks', The London Gardener, Volume 25, 2021.

Grid ref:

TQ290799 (528924,179917)

Size in hectares:

19

Site ownership:

Royal Parks Agency

Site management:

Royal Parks Agency

Date(s):

1660s

Designer(s):

Listed structures:

LBII*: Wellington Arch, Queen Victoria Memorial, Devonshire Gates, Ritz Gate. LBII: 44 early Victorian lamp standards along Queen's Walk and the Avenue from Piccadilly to the Victoria Memorial.

On National Heritage List for England (NHLE), Parks & Gardens:

Yes

NHLE grade:

Grade II*

Registered common or village green on Commons Registration Act 1965:

No

Protected under London Squares Preservation Act 1931:

No

Local Authority Data

The information below is taken from the relevant Local Authority's planning legislation, which was correct at the time of research but may have been amended in the interim. Please check with the Local Authority for latest planning information.

On Local List:

No

In Conservation Area:

Yes

Conservation Area name:

Royal Parks

Tree Preservation Order:

No

Nature Conservation Area:

Yes - Metropolitan Importance

Green Belt:

No

Metropolitan Open Land:

Yes

Special Policy Area:

No

Other LA designation:

None

Green Park - Photo: Colin Wing
Date taken: 18/02/14 12:35

Click a photo to enlarge.

More photos