Bushy Park

Bushy Park is the second-largest of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the south-west of London, in the borough of Richmond upon Thames.

Related Topics:
Royal Parks of London - London - Borough of Richmond upon Thames

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1100 acres (4.5 km²) in area, Bushy Park lies immediately north of Hampton Court Palace and Hampton Court Gardens, a few minutes walk west of Kingston-upon-Thames. It includes fishing and model boating ponds, horse rides, formal plantations of plants and trees, wild areas of bracken inhabited by many deer, and wildlife conservation areas. It is also home to several lodges and cottages, the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Paddocks.

Related Topics:
Hampton Court Palace - Hampton Court Gardens - Kingston-upon-Thames - National Physical Laboratory - Royal Paddocks

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Bushy Park is an appendage to the palace and honour of Hampton Court; and though far from assimilating to that splendid pile, it is better fitted for rural enjoyment, whilst its contiguity to the metropolis almost gives it the character of rus in urbe. The residence is a handsome structure, and its arrangement is altogether well calculated for the indulgence of royal hospitality. The park, too, is well stocked with deer. The pleasure grounds are tastefully disposed, and their beauty improved by the judicious introduction of temples and other artificial embellishments, among which, a naval temple, containing a piece of the mast of the Victory, before which Nelson fell, and a bust of the noble admiral, has been consecrated to his memory.

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The park is a thoroughfare, and the circumstances by which this public claim was established are worthy of record, as a specimen of the justice with which the rights of the community are upheld in this country. The village Hampden, in the present case, was one Timothy Bennet, of whom there is a fine print, which the neighbours, who are fond of a walk in Bushy Park, must regard with veneration. It has under it this inscription:?

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:"Timothy Bennet; of Hampton Wick, in Middlesex, shoemaker, aged 75, 1752. This true Briton, (unwilling to leave the world worse than he found it,) by a vigorous application of the laws of his country in the cause of liberty, obtained a free passage through Bushy Park, which had many years been withheld from the public." Regeneration (or the renewal of souls) is, however, a shoemaker's forte.

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