In the 1920s and 30s a Scottish shepherd grazed his sheep in Hyde Park.
George Donald travelled down each year from Aberdeen together with his dog and his flock. The park authorities had introduced grazing sheep to reduce the costs of mowing and not just at Hyde Park but at Clapham Common and Hampstead Heath as well. Mr Donald moved his flock from one fresh pasture to the other throughout the spring and summer.
Here are his sheep grazing on the banks of The Serpentine.
The fact that the sheep were Scottish caused questions to be asked in Parliament. Here is an extract from Hansard:
Mr. SITCH
asked the First Commissioner of Works if his attention has been drawn to the statement that the flock of sheep at present feeding in Hyde Park has been brought with their shepherd from Aberdeen; and whether, in view of the present difficulties of transport, he can explain why this arrangement was made?
Commander EYRES – MONSELL (Treasurer of the Household)
replied: “The grazing of Hyde Park is the subject of a 1114 contract which was entered into, after tenders has been invited last January, with Scottish graziers, to whom the sheep belong. Under the conditions of the contract, no powers are reserved to specify the places from which the sheep or the shepherds come.”
Sir H. BRITTAIN
chipped in: “Were not any English sheep available?”
Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY
opined: “Is it not due to the fact that the Aberdeenshire-sheep are far better?”
HYDE PARK (SHEEP).
HC Deb 09 March 1920 vol 126 cc1113-4 1113 (italics are mine)
Scottish sheep or otherwise, I wonder if such an idyllic scene could be recreated economically today?
British Pathe have a couple of lovely short films of sheep grazing in Hyde Park, in 1920 & 1948
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For a little over a month this new sculpture has been standing on a traffic island in Park Lane, London.
It is by Lorenzo Quinn and entitled “Vroom, Vroom”. The vintage Fiat 500 is being pushed along by a 4 meter high aluminium child’s hand. If like me you like this work, there are plenty more Quinn sculptures to enjoy in the area. “Volare” stands in Cadogan Place, “Finding Love” is at One Hyde Park and “The Force of Nature II” is in Berkeley Square. There are also exhibitions of his work at the Halcyon Gallery in Bruton and New Bond Street.
There is a “Halcyon Gallery Sculpture Trail” that guides you around these and other new works.
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The Royal Parks say on their website that “The world’s first moving pictures were filmed near Apsley Gate, Hyde Park Corner, London, one morning in January 1889 by a British inventor, William Friese-Greene.”
Friese-Greene did indeed use his invention, a camera that could take a jumpy 10 frames per second in the South East corner of the park in 1889. He even wrote to Edison when he was granted a patent on his camera, to say “beat you to it” so to speak. But Friese Greene wasn’t great at follow through, instead of working to perfect his system he simultaneously began work on a two completely different systems one in colour and even more astonishingly one in 3D.
The film he used in Hyde Park could only be developed onto paper so it is difficult to see how he could have ever projected the images he took, though some claim that he did. Perhaps it is fair to say that his system proved to be an evolutionary dead end and did not really contribute to the development of cinema but we can still recognise him as the man who took the very first moving images.
The little pet cemetery at Victoria Gate in Hyde Park, London, didn’t so much officially open in 1880 but rather it evolved from then, following one particular burial.
Prince George, the Duke of Cambridge, was at the time not only Commander in Chief of the British Army but also the Ranger of Hyde Park.
Prince George was a colourful Royal who had an invalid marriage with an actress, Louisa Fairbrother. When his wife (Mrs Fitzgeorge, as she was now known) lost her favourite dog, George used his position and instructed the gate-keeper a Mr.Windbridge, to give the dog a decent burial in the garden of his lodge. (The dog was also called Prince!) The idea caught on in society circles and within 25 years, Mr.Windbridge’s garden had been almost completely filled with the graves of over 300 various upper class pets, dogs, cats, birds, and even a monkey.
A lack of space and changing tastes during the First World War made the cemetery less fashionable. Only a tiny handful of burials have taken place there since 1915 the last being a regimental mascot in 1967.
The cemetery can only properly be viewed by appointment now but it is still possible to glimpse the little headstones and their inscriptions through the railings.
The author of this blog is a fully qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide. He runs unique walking tours in London, see tabs for details.
