Hyde Park Corner

Hyde-Park-Corner,—the corner which embraces the W. end of Piccadilly and Knightsbridge by the turnpike.

Hyde-Park-Corner is the south eastern corner of the Park, by the side of Apsley House, the town mansion of the Duke of Wellington.

Hyde Park Corner, the great west-end entrance into London. A turnpike gate with double lodges stretched across the road as late as October 1825. The triple archway, combined with an Ionic screen, leading into Hyde Park, and the Triumphal Arch at the top of Constitution Hill were designed by Decimus Burton, and erected 1828. The fine friezes to the triple gateway are after the Elgin marbles by Henning jun. The Triumphal Arch was exactly opposite the entrance to Hyde Park, but in 1888 it was removed to its present position, and a portion of Constitution Hill thrown into the open roadway. There were cottages here in 1655, most probably built on "the small portion of waste ground, near Hyde Park Comer," which, March 26, 1617, James I. granted to Hector Johnson, "with power to build thereon."¹ From the middle of the reign of George II. till the erection of Apsley House in 1784 the small entrance gateway was flanked on its east side by a poor tenement known as "Allen's Stall." Allen, whose wife kept a movable apple-stall at the park entrance, was recognised by George II. as an old soldier at the Battle of Dettingen, and asked (so pleased was the King at meeting the veteran) "what he could do for him." Allen, after some hesitation, asked for a piece of ground for a permanent apple-stall at Hyde Park Corner, and a grant was made to him of a piece of ground which his children afterwards sold to Apsley, Lord Bathurst. In the Crace collection, now in the British Museiun, is a careful drawing of old Hyde Park Corner, showing Allen's stall and the Hercules' Pillars; but a still more curious view of the stall and adjacent buildings is contained in Bickham's large engraving on eight sheets, showing Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens as they were in 1766. There is also a capital coloured view by Dagaty, dated 1797.

At the King's coming to town, the whole Court went to meet him ; the Parlia- ment sent Sir Maurice Berkeley, with four Knights more, to welcome him. The Speaker with his Mace went beyond the Park Comer to bring him in.—Chamberlaine to Mr. Winwood, April 5, 1606 (Winwood, vol. ii p. 204).

When the Plague [of 1625] was somewhat assuaged, it fell to Judge Whitlocke's turn to go to Westminster Hall to adjourn Michaelmas Term, from thence to Reading; and, accordingly, he went from his house in Buckinghamshire to Horton, near Colebroke, and the next morning early, to Hyde Park Corner, where he and his retinue dined on the ground, with such meat and drink as they brought in the coach with them, and afterwards he drove fast through the streets, which were empty of people, and overgrown with grass, to Westminster Hall, where he adjourned the Court, returned to his coach, and drove away presently out of town.—Whitelocke, ed. 1732, p. 2.

George Fox's meeting with Oliver Cromwell is noticed under Hyde Park. In the first half of the 18th century Hyde Park Corner held the place the Euston Road now holds as a headquarters for statuaries. The Bushnells, the great contractors for the statues and carvings with which architecture was then somewhat profusely adorned, had their establishment here "in the lane leading from Piccadilly to Tyburn."² Thomson's Countess of Hertford in 1740 speaks of the statues at their country seat as "Hyde Park Statues."

If you please you may go see a great many statues at the statuaries at Hyde Park Comer.—A New Guide to London, 12mo, 1726, p. 83.

June 6, 1746.—I am much obliged to you for the care you take in sending my Eagle by my Commodore cousin, but I hope it will not be till after his Expedition. I know the extent of his genius; he would hoist it overboard on the prospect of an engagement, and think he could buy me another at Hyde Park Corner with the prize-money.—Walpole to Sir Horace Mann.

April 4, 1750.—I return to the Earthquake which I had mistaken; it is to be to-day. This frantic terror prevails so much that within these three days eleven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park Corner, with whole families removing into the country.—Walpole to Mann, vol. ii p. 202.

Soon as I enter at my country door,
My mind resumes the thread it dropt before;
Thoughts, which at Hyde Park Corner I forgot,
Meet and rejoin me in my pensive grot.—Pope.

He [Pope] then learned his accidence at Twifford, where he wrote a satire on some faults of his master. He was then a little while at Mr. Dean's seminary at Mary-le-bone; and sometime under the same, after he removed to Hyde Park Corner.—Spence's Anecdotes, by Singer, p. 259.

On the site of the Hercules' Pillars public-house and other petty taverns, was built Piccadilly Terrace, by the brothers Adam. [See Hercules' Pillars.]

He [Savage] was once desired by Sir Richard [Steele], with an air of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir Richard waiting for him, and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to inquire, but immediately seated himself with Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with the utmost expedition to Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired him to come thither that he might write for him. They soon sat down to the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the meanness of the entertainment, and, after some hesitation, ventured to ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their pamphlet, which they concluded in the afternoon. Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard would call for the reckoning, and return home; but his expectations deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for; and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production for sale for two guineas, which, with some difficulty, he obtained. Sir Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning.—Johnson's Life of Savage.

[See St. George's Hospital; Apsley House.] The bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt, was erected by public subscription in 1846. The subscription amounted, it is said, to £36,000. It was removed from the Triumphal Arch to Aldershot when the arch was shifted; and a new equestrian statue of Wellington by Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A., has been placed in the open space opposite the entrance to Hyde Park.

And the carriage drove on taking the road down Piccadilly; where Apsley House and St. George's Hospital wore red jackets still; where there were oil lamps; where Achilles was not yet born; nor the Pimlico arch raised ; nor the hideous equestrian monster which pervades it and the neighbourhood.—Thackeray, Vanity Fair, chap. xxii.

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¹ Cal., State Pap., 1611–1618, p. 452.
² See also Ralph's Critical View of Public Buildings, 8vo, 1734, and Art. "Bushnell," in Walpole's Anecdotes.