Kensington Gardens London

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Kensington Gardens

 

Once a private garden of the Kensington Palace, the 275-acre Kensington Gardens are located to the west of Hyde Park. As the Kensington Gardens are also adjacent to Green Park and St. James Park, the four parks make a continuous "green lung" in the heart of London.

Landscape architects Henry Wise and Charles Bridgeman laid out the Kensington Gardens from 1728-1738 and developed the Round Pond, formal avenues and a sunken Dutch garden. The Serpentine was created in the 1730s and the part of it which flows in Kensington Gardens is known as "The Long Water." There are also four fountains and a number of classical sculptures in the "Italian Garden" area. The Kensington Gardens was formerly a part of the Hyde Park, and the two are bounded by West Carriage Drive (The Ring) and the Serpentine Bridge. It also contains the Elfin Oak, a 900—year old tree stump.

Kensington Gardens have become a reference to a number of popular works of fiction.

A good example is J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens," a prelude to the character's adventures in Neverland. It is also used in Thomas Tickell's 1722 poem "Kensington Gardens"

and Ashley McClung's horror novel, "The Beast." Other well known gardens in the world are the

Haiku Gardens in Kaneohe, Hawaii and the St. Bernard Garden in Miami Florida.