8 Secrets HIDDEN Inside Hyde Park! скачать в хорошем качестве

8 Secrets HIDDEN Inside Hyde Park!

London's smallest police station, some 200-year-old graffiti, and a secret pet cemetery are just some of the secrets hidden inside Hyde Park! Stay tuned to see them all! 1. Deer Park. Hyde Park wasn't always a public park, it was created by Henry VIII who reclaimed the land from the monasteries in order to create a Deer Park to use as his private hunting grounds and it wasn't until the 17th century that Charles I opened it to the general public. In 1728, George II separated Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park to give to his wife by damming River Westbourne to create the Serpentine Lake. 2, Pet cemetery If you go down to Victoria Gate Lodge on Bayswater Road and peek through the fences and hedges you may catch a glimpse of hundreds of mini gravestones. It started in 1881, when a terrier called Cherry died, the dog belonged to friends of the lodgekeeper who allowed them to bury the dog in the lodge's gardens, the word spread, and over the next 20 years over 1000 pets were buried in the gardens it was closed in 1903 due to lack of space and now only opens to the public on rare occasions. 3. The Peter Pan Cup Even though it wasn't until 1930 that a section of the Serpentine lake was transformed into an outdoor swimming pool, people swam in the lake long before that and a Christmas swimming race held there by the Serpentine Swimming Club dates back to 1864. It wasn't until 1904 that the competition got the name The Peter Pan Cup and this was because that year, J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, donated the prize to celebrate Peter Pan's first appearance on the London Stage. Now every year at 9 AM on Christmas day, members of the Serpentine Swimming Club don their swimming costumes to take part in a 100-yard handicap race in the barely above zero-degree waters of the Serpentine. 4. Ye Olde Graffiti This summer house was designed by William Kent for Queen Caroline and after completion in 1735, it became known as Queen Carolines Temple. In the early 1800s, it was opened to the general public and some vandals decided to leave their mark on the walls inside of the temple, just imagine that for a second, 19th-century graffiti artists, in top hats and tails tagging with quills and ink wells. This graffiti still remains there today, 200 years later! 5. Speakers' Corner Located on the Northeast edge of the park and overlooking Marble Arch. Speakers' Corner is marked out by a set of stairs and a sign, even though it was never really was used by anyone. People did gather together inside the park to preach and protest and the park has even had people like George Orwell and Karl Marx preach socialist philosophies within its grounds, but there never was a specific area where the talks took place, Speakers' Corner was only made to commemorate that they did. 6. Weird Statues Hyde Park has lots of sculptures dotted all over it and some of them are pretty weird, The Elfin Oak is a group of elves and fairies carved into a hollow Oak tree trunk, The Norwegian War Memorial is just a large granite boulder, and The Reformers' Tree looks like something from The Lord of the Rings, other odd sculptures include, The Two Bears Fountain, The Physical Energy Statue, The Peter Pan Statue, The Boy and the Dolphin Fountain, The Still Water fountain, that is a giant horse's head balancing on its tongue, and a sculpture of a massive child's hand playing with a 4-meter sports car. 7. The Smallest Police Station. Just off the southeast corner of the park, you'll find Wellington Arch, which, although it may not appear so at first sight, is actually hollow! In 1883, one of the hollow pillars of the arch was used as the park keeper's lodge and the other was used as a Police Station, giving it the title of The Smallest Police Station in London, however, it only held the title until 1920 when a smaller station was built inside an ornamental lamp post at Trafalgar Square. The Wellington Arch Police Station was closed in the 1950s and the hollow arch was left empty until 2001 when it was opened to the public as an English Heritage site. 8. First Artificially Lit Street Rotten Row is a track that links the Serpentine to Hyde Park Corner and it got its name from the corruption of the French, Route du Roi, or Route of the King. It was called this because King William III, built, and used it to travel between St James's Palace and Kensington Palace. Due to the number of highwaymen in the area at the time, the king had the road lit with 300 gas lamps and this made it the first street in Britain to be illuminated artificially. Do you know any secrets about Hyde Park? comment below! And if you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe for more! Get more Tips here! http://www.destinationtips.com