City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN HIDDEN somewhere, deep in the Ministry of Works, is the Bailiff of the Royal Parks. I do not like to think of him in that dreary building, Lambeth Bridge House. I see him in a brown uniform with gold braid on it to show that he is Admiral of all park keepers, and wearing a cocked hat with feathers in it to imply forestry. His house should be one of those Swiss or Gothic lodges, approached through a path marked Private, in the middle of a public open space and away from the sounds of telephones and type- writers. But wherever he lives, and Whitaker tells me his 'name is Major Hobkirk, his department has just published an interesting little half-a-crown pamphlet on the Royal Parks of London, by Richard Church, with maps and plans and drawings. The dimmest Royal Park is Bushy and the best known, Hyde. But the most prominent feature of any Royal Park is the plane trees in the Mall and in the Green and St. James's Parks. These were planted by a great landscape gardener, the late Lord Redesdale, who deserved to be men- tioned in this pamphlet for the service he did to the London landscape. There is no mention either, and no illustration, of the many beautiful Georgian lamposts which survive in the Royal Parks and shame, by their elegance, the boroughs which surround them.
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