The Royal Parks of London

Eight parcels of Crown land, enclosed for hunting by Tudor and Stuart monarchs and opened to the public over the following centuries, are still owned by the Crown and run by a single charity on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. They range from 16 hectares of grass between Piccadilly and St James's Palace to 955 hectares of deer pasture in the south-west, which means the label covers everything from a lunchtime crossing to a full day's walking. What follows sets out the ones gathered here by size, origin and what is actually on the ground at each.

Places in this collection

  • Greenwich Park — 74 hectares in south-east London, enclosed in 1427 and the oldest enclosed Royal Park, landscaped in the 17th century by André Le Nôtre who…
  • Bushy Park — 445 hectares, over 1,000 acres, second in size only to Richmond and lying next to Hampton Court Palace. Wild fallow and red deer have been…
  • Richmond Park — 955 hectares, around 2,500 acres, created by Charles I in the 1630s as a deer park and now a National Nature Reserve. Red and fallow deer s…
  • The Green Park — 16 hectares, the smallest of the eight, enclosed by Charles II in 1668 on land Henry VIII had taken north of the Palace of Whitehall. It si…
  • St James's Park — The oldest of the Royal Parks, enclosed by Henry VIII in 1532 on the site of a medieval leper hospital and drained and landscaped under Jam…
  • Kensington Gardens — 107 hectares, about 265 acres, immediately west of Hyde Park and taken from the same Westminster Abbey holding by Henry VIII. The two parks…
  • Hyde Park — 140 hectares, roughly 350 acres, taken from Westminster Abbey by Henry VIII and opened to the public by Charles II in 1673. It is one of th…

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