Bushy Park

Bushy Park
Bushy Park
Type	Public park
Location	Teddington and Hampton, London
Coordinates	51°24′46″N 0°20′17″W / 51.41278°N 0.33806°WCoordinates: 51°24′46″N 0°20′17″W / 51.41278°N 0.33806°W
Area	445 hectares (1,100 acres)
Operated by	The Royal Parks
Website	http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/bushy_park/

This article is about one of the Royal Parks in London. For other uses, see Bushy Park (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Bushey Park.

Bushy Park is the second largest of London's Royal Parks, at 445 hectares (1,100 acres) in area,^[1] and lies immediately north of Hampton Court Palace and Hampton Court Park.

It is surrounded by Teddington, Hampton, Hampton Hill and Hampton Wick, and is a few minutes walk from the north side of Kingston Bridge.

The Park is within the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London and most of it is open to the public. Its acid grasslands are mostly just above the 25 foot contour.^[2]

[edit] History

The area now known as Bushy Park has been settled for at least the past 4,000 years: the earliest archaeological records that have been found on the site date back to the Bronze Age. There is also evidence that the area was used in the medieval period for agricultural purposes.

When Henry VIII took over Hampton Court Palace from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1529, the King also took over the three parks that make up modern day Bushy Park: Hare Warren, Middle Park and Bushy Park. A keen hunter, he established them as deer-hunting grounds.

His successors, perhaps less involved in the traditional sporting activities, added a number of picturesque features, including the Longford River, a 19 kilometre canal built on the orders of Charles I of England to provide water to Hampton Court, as well as the Park's various ponds. This period also saw the construction of the Park's main thoroughfare, Chestnut Avenue, which runs from Park Road in Teddington to the Lion Gate entrance of Hampton Court Palace on Hampton Court Road. This Avenue and the Arethusa 'Diana' Fountain were designed by Sir Christopher Wren as a grand approach to Hampton Court Palace.

Chestnut trees in early Autumn

The Park has long been popular with locals, but also attracts those from further afield. From the mid-Nineteenth Century until World War II Londoners came here to celebrate Chestnut Sunday here and to see the abundant blooming of the trees along Chestnut Avenue; the tradition resumed in 1993.

Among those who have served as Ranger (an honorary position, long including residence at Bushy House) are King William IV, while Duke of Clarence (1797–1830). To ensure his wife and consort, Queen Adelaide, could remain at their long-time home after his death, he immediately appointed her as his successor as Ranger (1830–1849).

During World War I, Bushy Park was home to the King's Canadian Hospital, and between the wars it hosted a camp for undernourished children.

During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower planned the D-Day landings from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Camp Griffiss in the Park. A memorial by Carlos Rey [1] dedicated to the Allied troops who fell on D-Day now marks the spot where General Eisenhower's tent stood.

[edit] The Park today

One of the park's deer

Originally created for Royal sport, Bushy Park is now home to Teddington Rugby Club, Teddington Hockey Club (during the late 1800s, the modern game of field hockey was largely invented at Bushy), and four cricket clubs, including Hampton Wick Royal Cricket Club, Teddington Cricket Club and Hampton Hill Cricket Club.

It also has fishing and model boating ponds, horse rides, formal plantations of trees and other plants, wildlife conservation areas and herds of both Red Deer and Fallow Deer.

The park is also home to several lodges and cottages, Bushy House, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) at the Teddington end and the Royal Paddocks, and two areas of allotments, the Royal Paddocks Allotments at Hampton Wick and the Bushy Park Allotments at Hampton Hill.

Upper Lodge Water Gardens

As part of an ongoing upgrade of the Park facilities, including a new Pheasantry Café, the restored and largely reconstructed Upper Lodge Water Gardens were opened to the public in October 2009.^[3] The work was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

[edit] Transport

The closest railway stations are Hampton Court to the south, Hampton Wick to the east, Teddington and Fulwell to the north, and Hampton to the west. All are within a 10- to 20-minute walk.

Transport for London bus routes 111, 216, 265 and 411 pass the Hampton Court Gate on Hampton Court Road (the main southern entrance to the Park).

R70, R68 and 285 buses stop near the two Hampton Hill Gates off the High Street, while the R68 also serves the Blandford Road Gate (next to the NPL on Hampton Road, Teddington) before continuing to Hampton Court Green via Hampton Hill.

To the north the main Teddington gate on Park Road and a second on Sandy Lane are only served by an hourly 481 bus service. But the main gate is best reached, either on foot or by car, from Teddington's town centre, via Park Road, or from the railway station.

The main north and south Gates, connected by the Chestnut Avenue causeway, provide vehicle access to through traffic from 6.30am until dusk or 7.00pm in the winter months.

The public car parks are free, thanks in part to strong opposition from both the public and politicians of all parties to a plan by the Royal Parks to introduce charges in 2010. See the official map of Bushy Park [2].

This official plan omits one of the largest, most popular car parks, Upper Lodge (approx 500 metres west of Cannon Gate), foreshadowing Royal Parks decision to close it permanently on 8 November 2010, in favour of the new Pheasantry and Clapperstile car parks. However their combined capacity is unlikely to cope with parking demands on sunny weekends, with the potential for clogging nearby residential roads.