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Richmond Park, London

View of central London from Richmond Park

Richmond Park remains today much as it looked when Charles the First created this great hunting park in 1637. He introduced two thousand deer, and built an eight mile wall to contain them.

Perhaps Richmond Park has survived so long because when the time came in the nineteenth century for idealised rural spaces to be created in and near the new industrial urban centres, this old deer park already fitted the bill. In the seventeenth century Charles the Second went with the fashion of the times and turned the old royal chase in St James's Park into formal gardens. In Richmond Park there was generally speaking no such formality. Two long vistas were built in the eighteenth century, but these really served to emphasise the great open space of the park. The Pen Ponds dug in 1746 looked like natural lakes. While the formality of St James's Park was replaced in 1827 by John Nash to create the new naturalistic look, Richmond Park already had this look, and continued on as it had done for centuries.

 

View from the grounds of Pembroke Lodge

Richmond Park is also the setting for Pembroke Lodge, originally the site of a cottage for the park molecatcher, later an impressive Georgian Mansion. Hunters who rushed around Richmond Park wanted the rough excitement of the hunt. But they wanted their excitement without the risk of molehills which might trip them up. I'm reminded of the kind of characters Ernest Hemingway wrote about, wanting to get back to nature, while carrying a nice can of peaches in syrup in their knapsack. This is really what a place like Richmond Park is all about, an idealised vision of nature, which we can enjoy without leaving the comforts of urban life.

At the entrance to the grounds of Pembroke Lodge is a memorial to the eighteenth century nature poet James Thompson, who spent the last twelve years of his life in Richmond. The memorial carries a poem by John Heneage Jesse dedicated to Thompson, which begins:

Ye who from London's smoke and turmoil fly

To seek a purer and a brighter sky...

Getting to Richmond Park, I had arrived at Victoria station to find the Underground line closed. So I look a train to a vast wilderness of railway lines called Clapham Junction. There I found the line to Richmond closed. So I caught a bus, which made slow and painful progress through heavy traffic on the South Circular. Whilst stationary at a set of traffic lights, an ambulance squeezed by the bus, followed by two opportunistic motorcycle couriers. Then we came to a halt for twenty minutes, caught in the queue which built up behind the road accident the ambulance was attending. Finally after two hours in the traffic of south London I walked out into open space in Richmond Park. It was wonderful to leave behind the smoke and turmoil. Walking in the park I enjoyed an idealised nature. The final line of Thompson's memorial poem said that the poet encouraged his readers to "view in nature's beauties nature's God." But the beauties I saw were created by man working with nature to make an idealised haven above the city stretched out below.

Pembroke Lodge was the home of Lord John Russell, British Prime Minister, 1846 - 1852 and 1865 - 1866. The Cabinet met here to make its decision to embark on the Crimean War. Lord John Russell's grandson, Bertrand Russell, grew up at Pembroke Lodge. Russell wrote that he became accustomed to the wide horizons, provided by Richmond Park. Perhaps parks can be looked upon as places to provide people in towns a glimpse of a wider horizon.

The park offers a range of leisure and refreshment facilities. There's a playground at Petersham Gate, a cafe at Roehampton gate, with refreshment points at Pen Pond car parks and Broomfield Hill. There are two eighteen hole golf courses and a driving range. Local stables offer horse riding in the park.

Opening Times: The park opens daily at 7am in the summer, 7.30am in the winter and closes at dusk.

Directions: the nearest Underground station is Richmond. The park is about a fifteen minute walk from the station, through Richmond, and then up Richmond Hill. A bus, 371 or 65, provides a service on the three quarters of a mile journey to the pedestrian entrance at Petersham Gate. There are six car parks in Richmond Park. From the M3/A326, come off at Richmond and follow signs. Click here for an interactive map centred on Richmond Park.

Access: Richmond has some inclines, but the paths are well maintained. There are standard toilet facilities at Pembroke Gate with ramped access. There are also toilets at Richmond Hill Gate, which have one extra wide cubicle.

Contact:

General contact for Richmond Park: 020 8948 3209

For horse riding, telephone: 020 8948 3209

For cycle hire, telephone: 07050 209 249

For fishing,telephone: 020 8948 3209

For golf, telephone: 020 8876 1795