Hyde Park

(W8) Was formerly much celebrated for its deerhunts, foot- and horse-races, musters and coach-races, boxing-matches and Mayings. (Reference: Timbs's Curiosities of London, p. 16) About the time of Domesday Book, the manor of Eia was divided into three smaller manors, called respectively Neyte, Eabury, and Hyde. The latter still lives and flourishes as a royal park under its ancient name, no doubt of Saxon origin.

The manor of Neyte became the property of the Abbey of Westminster, as did also that of Hyde, which remained in the hands of the monks until seized upon by King Henry VIII at the time of the Reformation. Henry's main object in appropriating this estate seems to have been to extend his hunting-grounds to the north and west of London. He had previously purchased that plot of ground which afterwards became St. James's Park. Marylebone Park (now the Regent's Park and surrounding districts) formed already part of the royal domain; and thus the manor of Hyde, connected with these, gave him an uninterrupted hunting ground which extended from his palace of Westminster to Hampstead Heath.

In July 1536 a proclamation was issued in which it was stated that "As the King's most royal Majesty is desirous to have the games of hare, partridge, pheasant, and heron preserved in and about the honour of his palace of Westminster, for his own disport and pastime, no person, on the pain of imprisonment of their bodies, and further punishment at his Majesty's will and pleasure, is to presume to hunt or hawk, from the palace of Westminster to St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and from thence to Islington, to Our Lady of the Oak, to Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath."

It was probably about this period that the manor of Hyde was made into a park-that is, enclosed with a fence or paling, and thus became still better adapted for the rearing and preserving of game. (Reference: Thornbury's Old and New London, vol. Iv, p. 376)