Green Park

While it is correct to call it The Green Park it is pedantic and if the knowledgable Andrew Jones eschews the definite article so will I.

Preface

”When the lockdown was imposed in March 2020, I realised, like most of us, that I would have to change my habits quickly in order to manage the sudden restrictions on my movements. For years I had been travelling to faraway places three or four times a month and spending my weekends in galleries, auction houses and museums or visiting buildings in distant cities.

And then all that suddenly stopped.

Now, I am fortunate to live in a historic part of London, on Piccadilly overlooking Green Park. And I was even more fortunate not to fall ill (or to have family fall ill) during this time. On the first day of the Lockdown, I resolved that I would spend what would normally be my commuting time walking in the park as my permitted daily dose of exercise.

I had always been conscious of the better known buildings in the neighbourhood: Spencer House, Lasdun’s 26 St James’s Place, The Ritz and its William Kent annex. But on my first walk of the Lockdown, I started to see just how many interesting buildings there were, both architecturally, and with a little reading, historically. And as I warmed to my subject, I realised that even the aesthetically less interesting buildings had the most varied history.

And so I set about researching and writing about one building a day. As long as it was clearly facing the park (or had at some point faced the park – as is the case with Apsley House or Marble Arch), it would qualify. Since moving here 15 years ago I had assembled a small collection of books about the neighbourhood and, as every public library was closed, these, together with the web, were my sources.

I posted my daily building on Instagram and soon found myself in an interesting dialogue with various followers. Had I seen this building? Did I know about a particular association of that building? I once had a job interview there etc. I would typically post early in the m,Irving before work, having finished my research and pictures the night before, and then the dialogue would start as followers would comment.

For 48 days I documented every building on Green Park starting with Lancaster House and moving anti-clockwise up the Queen’s Walk, along Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner and down Constitution Hill, ending at Buckingham Palace. And then on Day 48, I realised that I was having such fun that I embarked on a series of monuments and structures of Green Park, working my way back and clockwise, until I had completed these also.

The Lockdown started at the end of winter and continued into Spring. The photographs I took reflect this – the trees are wintry to begin with and bursting with luscious green foliage by the end. Looking back, I could not have photographed the front of many of these buildings in the same way had the Lockdown started later (or had I gone clockwise). There was also practically no traffic, the days were sunny and the air remarkably fresh.

In this book I have published my Instagram posts with minimal editing. Each piece is, therefore, limited to around 2,200 characters and the photographs are almost all taken with my smartphone. The research is limited to the resources I had available at the time.

I hope you enjoy this book, both as a guide to this wonderful pocket of London and as a memento of the strange confinement brought about by  Covid-19.

Andrew Jones, London, June 2020.”