Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
REGENT'S PARK
Regent's Park, Great Portland Street or Baker Street.
www.royalparks.org.uk
.
MAP
It was under the Prince Regent (later George IV) that Regent's Park began to take its current
form - hence its official title - and the public weren't allowed in until 1845 (and even then
for just two days of the week). According to John Nash's 1811 masterplan, the park was to
be girded by a continuous belt of terraces, and sprinkled with a total of 56 villas, including a
magnificent pleasure palace for the prince himself. The plan was never fully realized, but
enough was built to create something of the idealized garden city that Nash and the Prince
Regent envisaged. Pristine, mostly Neoclassical terraces form a near-unbroken horseshoe
around the Outer Circle, which marks the park's perimeter along with a handful of hand-
some villas.
By far the prettiest section of the park is
Queen Mary's Gardens
, within the central Inner
Circle. As well as a pond replete with exotic ducks, and a handsomely landscaped giant
rockery, a large slice of the gardens is taken up with a glorious
rose garden
, featuring some
400 varieties surrounded by a ring of ramblers. Along the eastern edge of the park, the tree-
lined
Broad Walk
forms a stately approach (much appreciated by rollerbladers) to the
park's most popular attraction, London Zoo.
