Kensington Gardens

Kensington Gardens was originally the western section of Hyde Park, which had been created by Henry VIII in 1536 to use as a hunting ground. Beginning under Queen Anne, it was designed by Henry Wise and Charles Bridgeman in order to form a landscape garden, with fashionable features including the Round Pond, formal avenues and a sunken Dutch garden. It was separated from the remainder of Hyde Park in 1728 at the request of Queen Caroline. Bridgeman created the Serpentine between 1726 and 1731 by damming the eastern outflow of the River Westbourne from Hyde Park. The part of the Serpentine that lies within Kensington Gardens is known as "The Long Water". At its north-western end (originally…

(erected on the site of the existing Peter Pan children's playground) is inspired by Peter Pan.]] The land surrounding Kensington Gardens was predominantly rural and remained largely undeveloped until the Great Exhibition in 1851. Many of the original features survive along with the Palace, and there are other public buildings such as the Albert Memorial (at the south-east corner of Kensington Gardens, opposite the Royal Albert Hall), Queen Caroline's Temple, the Serpentine Gallery, and Speke's monument. Queen Victoria had commissioned the Italian Gardens and the Albert Memorial during a series of improvements. Another feature is the bronze statue of Peter Pan by George Frampton standing on…

]] In his 1722 poem Kensington Garden, Thomas Tickell depicted the area as inhabited by fairies. The park is the setting of J. M. Barrie's book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, a prelude to the character's famous adventures in Neverland. Both the book and the character are honoured with the Peter Pan statue by George Frampton located in the park. Rodrigo Fresán's novel Kensington Gardens concerns in part the life of J. M. Barrie and of his creation Peter Pan, and their relationship with the park, as well as the narrator's own. The opening scene of Wilkie Collins’s story "Mrs. Zant and the Ghost" (1887) takes place in Kensington Gardens – the section that "remains nearest to the old Palace…