[Hyde Park: Rotten Row in the reign of George IV.] Autograph Letter Signed by J. King, complaining at length about ‘Patricians’ whose horses trample the grass of the ‘People’s Park’, leaving the place ‘like a Sandy Desert the Verdure all destroyed’.

A nice piece of London ephemera, the subject being Rotten Row, which runs along the south side of Hyde Park. 2pp, 4to. On wove paper with watermark ‘J WILMOT / 1823’. Forty-one lines of text. Having been torn in two vertically (presumably by the irate recipient) the item has been repaired in an unusual way: with the two pieces sewn back together from top to bottom. Otherwise in fair condition, lightly aged and creased, with slight loss to one edge from breaking of seal or wafer. Folded for postage. No information is forthcoming about the author of the letter, but from the contents he is clearly not a Tory. The matter is one about which he clearly feels strongly, and the tone is verging on the obsessive. He begins: ‘Sir / May I without offence be allowed to ask you a Question - for whom is the Expence for the repair of that matchless Ride from Hyde P[ark]. C[orner]. to Kensington being incurred? It cannot be for the Gentlemen who usually ride in the Park for they are now allowed to ride on both sides of the Road on the Grass - most carefully avoiding this Repaired Ride - Now after the handsome Grant that has been made to His Majesty [for] the Repair of his Castle and Parks, certainly some one ought [to] look after the People’s Parks and a few hundred should be expended in beautifying and improving them. At this Moment the footpath parallel to this Ride is covered with Weeds and Grass the Bank of the Serpentine trodden in by Cows, and is in a most filthy state’. He complains that the public money spent on the parks ‘is mostly to pay the Rangers, their deputies, &c. not for the Improvement of the Place which by a little attention might challenge any Public Row in Europe’. He continues with reference to: ‘Keeping the Horsemen to theh Horseroad’ and ‘Ld. Sydney’, and complains of ‘the Many Right Honbles. [...] committing this trespass for the next 2 Months, for Trespass it certainly is, these Patricians have no more right to trample the Grass for 2 mo. than for the public in general have for the other 10 - Lord Northumberland is the person the Public understand to whom they are most indebted for this unkindness but it certainly neither shews taste nor feeling in his Lordship that because his horse may have a soft place for his feet the Dear little Children with their attendants are to be expelled from this favorite Spot during the most pleasant time in the Year’. After the two months ‘his Lordship and his Companions’ will retire, leaving the place ‘like a Sandy Desert the Verdure all destroyed’: they are ‘permitted to deface the People’s Park and they go to their ow where a Sheep is scarcely permitted to crop their pleasure grounds’. He suggests the erection of ‘a rail running on both sides of the Road from H. P. C. to Kensington so as to exclude the Horsemen from trampling the grass’. He concludes: ‘I live in the Vicinity and I can safely say that the footpaths have not been cleaned or in any way attended to for years’.