Anonymous

The Gardener's Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette

15th August 1863.

Once upon a time, a pedestrian, happening to find himself, some sultry summer's day, in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park, and desirous of pleasant exercise while inhaling the cool and freshening breezes which he might hope to find sweeping down from Primrose Hill, could have strolled the whole length of the park from south to north - a goodly promenade - under the shade of lines of trees of, we suppose, some 40 years' growth. On either side of a gravel walk of noble proportions, he would have found Horse Chestnuts, Limes, and Elms in quadruple ranks, forming three umbrageous avenues, with seats at intervals, the trees always furnishing a most refreshing shade, and at certain seasons superadding a most delicious sweetness.

All that was to change when the Commissioner of Works appointed William Nesfield 'to design formal gardens and open up avenues and vistas, presumably in an attempt to make the park more accessible to the public' (Nina Gibbs James-Fowler, Landscape into Architecture. University of London, 1997). There were gains as well as losses, the anonymous author acknowledged. 'The change principally consists in turning the most attractive parts of the Park into beautiful garden walks...The large Chestnut trees which lined the path have been cut down, and in their stead, the ground has been attractively laid out, and filled with the choicest shrubs and flowers.'

Instead therefore of sauntering down the leafy avenues, as of yore, the poor pedestrian, while panting for a cooling breeze as SOL darts down his fiery rays, is doomed to drag himself along the glaring expanse of hot and dusty or shingly gravel...while as compensation for the loss of shade he is permitted to refresh his eyes while gazing on beds of blazing flowers and plantations of fancy shrubs, fenced in as if only a favoured few were to be admitted to approach them.

But the promenade was sorely missed.