Hyde Park

Hyde Park covers about 142 hectares in the City of Westminster in central London, between Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner and Kensington Gardens to the west. It is one of the eight Royal Parks managed by The Royal Parks charity and is Grade I listed.

Henry VIII took the land from Westminster Abbey in 1536 to use as a hunting ground. Charles I opened it to the public in 1637. The park hosted the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace and has been the site of many demonstrations, concerts and celebrations.

The Serpentine lake, created in the 1730s, divides Hyde Park from Kensington Gardens and offers rowing boats, pedal boats and open-water swimming at the Serpentine Lido in summer. Speakers' Corner, near Marble Arch, has been a place for public speaking since the nineteenth century. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, the Rose Garden and Rotten Row, a historic riding track, are other well-known spots.

Entry is free, and the park opens early in the morning and closes at midnight. The Winter Wonderland fair takes over part of the park from November to early January. Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Knightsbridge and Lancaster Gate Underground stations are on its edges.

Queen Caroline split Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park in 1728, which is why the two now feel like separate parks joined at the Serpentine and the Long Water. In the 18th century the park was a favourite duelling ground, with 172 duels and 63 deaths recorded. Speakers' Corner dates its free-speech role to 1872, and Chartists, suffragettes and anti-Iraq War marchers have all gathered there.

Music has a long history here. The first rock concert took place in 1968, Queen's free concert in 1976 drew the largest known crowd in the park, and Live 8 was staged here in 2005. The Lido on the Serpentine opened in 1930, and in 2012 the park hosted the Olympic triathlon. Near Albert Gate a memorial recalls the 1982 IRA bombing that killed four soldiers and seven horses.