The Hyde Park, London reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Hyde Park, London

Hyde Park is a 630 acre (2.5 km²) park located in London, England, and one of the Royal Parks of London. The park is divided in two by the Serpentine Lake.

Sites of interest in the park include Speaker's Corner (located in the north-east corner near Marble Arch) and Rotten Row which is the northern boundary of the site of the Crystal Palace built by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The western boundary of the park is West Carriage Drive (The Ring), which divides the park from Kensington Gardens. To the south-east is Hyde Park Corner. South of the Serpentine Lake is the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial, an oval stone ring fountain opened on July 6, 2004.

The land was acquired by Henry VIII in 1536 from the monks of Westminster Abbey. Much of the layout dates back to the work of architect Decimus Burton in the 1820s.

The park has been the venue for some famous rock concerts, including those featuring Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Roy Harper and Jethro Tull.

Poem

At Rotten Row around a tree

With Albert's help did Mr P

His stately pleasure dome design:

The greatest greenhouse ever seen;

A glass cathedral on the green,

Beside the crystal Serpentine.

(from 'Joseph and His Amazing Crystal Palace' by John Greatrex, parodying Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

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