Historical Recollections of Hyde Park Author:Thomas Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: finest specimen of brick-work in the kingdom, and. excites the admiration of both architects and builders, many of whom visit it as a curiosity. It has been conv... more »erted into a green-house, anil is filled in the autumn with exotic plants from the Royal Gardens. PALACE GREEN, At which the visitor arrives on passing through the garden gate south of the Palace, originally called the Moor, was formerly the military parade when the court was held here, the royal standard being hoisted daily. The principal entrance to the Palace is from this Green, and its remarkable features are, a fine row of elms, a barracks, and guard-room for the foot, a circular stone water-house, originally built for a summer-house, by Queen Anne; the bell-tower, a singular structure, built by Sir John Vanburgh, whose heavy style of architecture can never be mistaken, and who was contemporary with Sir C. Wren, and a range of building southward, perhaps intended for the accommodation of a troop of cavalry, but now used as a receptacle for the equipages of the illustrious persons residing at the Palace. Westward of Palace Green is the kitchen gardens and forcing-houses, extending northwards, and consisting of about twenty acres. Just within the wall of these grounds, is a water-house, or conduit, built by King Henry VIII. in 1536, it is a low brick building, the walls of great thickness, and in excellent preservation ; it has four gable ends, the roof being covered with brick instead of tiles; on a late inspection by the compiler of this pamphlet, he observed a young ash plant growing on the roof between the gables, which had attained the height of nearly four feet. This building was erected by Henry, for the purpose of conveying water from a conduit enclosed within it to a house at Chelsea then lately ...« less