The cult of nature

What renders the air of the capital city less noxious, particularly in the summertime, is its parks and squares, often referred to as the “lungs of London,” a phrase not particularly elegant. Yet, it is evident that the oxygen released by the multitude of trees strives to counteract the acidic carbon emitted by the chimneys. These green oases may initially strike the foreign traveler as peculiar amidst the chaotic, unplanned arrangement of houses.

For three years, I resided in close proximity to Hyde Park. I observed it through my house windows at all hours and in every season. Before the war, on Sunday mornings, I witnessed gentlemen in tall hats strolling with their families between noon and one p.m. after church, set against the backdrop of rhododendrons and azaleas. […] I listened to orators predicting the end of the world and the demise of the Lords Chamber, all within the same speeches as today; I saw elderly gentlemen taking winter swims in the Serpentine, greeted by the cries of peacocks.

[…] Parks represent the enduring remnants of conventual gardens and monastic orchards that were repurposed following the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties. Their dense turf and untamed grass, the vibrant symphony of colors from abundant flowers, the presence of sheep, peacocks, and squirrels endow London with the charm of a private park—a feature absent in the Bois de Boulogne, the Prater, or the Tiergarten. Parks disregard our orderly rows. Their trees remain untrimmed, and their nature refrains from morphing into architectural forms; flowers bloom without conforming to any order or perspective.

The same impression arises when one visits the parks: their style and dimensions are distinctly different from ours. St. James’s Park is a genuine countryside, and an English one at that: vast old trees, genuine meadows, a sizable pond teeming with ducks and waterfowl, cows and sheep leisurely grazing on the perpetually fresh grass. […] These people harbor a deep love for the countryside. One only needs to delve into their literature, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from Thompson to Wordsworth and Shelley, to find ample evidence of it. What a contrast with the Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées, and the Luxembourg gardens! Generally, the French garden, exemplified by that of Louis XIV, is akin to a living room or an open-air gallery, ideal for strolling and conversing in company. In the English garden […] one is better off alone; the eyes and soul engage in a silent conversation with nature. In the Bois de Boulogne, we attempted to construct a park in this style but erred by introducing a cluster of rocks and waterfalls; an artificial impression immediately escaped it, causing a jarring effect; the discerning eyes of the English would surely have sensed it. […]

Stendhal aptly noted that a young English girl can cover more distance on foot in a week than a young Roman girl might in an entire year. The Northern temperament, with its athletic inclination, yearns for the invigorating effects of fresh air and physical exercise.

This park (Regent’s Park) resides in a secluded neighborhood, where the rumble of cars fades away, and you become oblivious to London; solitude surrounds you. The sun was shining, but the air bore a constant weight of moist clouds that, like mobile watering cans, intermittently released rain every quarter of an hour. The expansive wet meadows exuded a delightful softness, and the verdant surroundings dripped with a gentle, monotonous sound onto the still water of the ponds. As I entered a greenhouse, I encountered splendid orchids, some adorned in the opulent velvet of the iris, others in hues of indescribable, delicious, melted tones—all permeated by a light with a palpable vitality, akin to a living flesh or a woman’s breast; a hand feels both eager and hesitant to touch it. Palm trees gracefully raised their trunks in the warm atmosphere nearby.

It may come as a surprise to those who see nothing but narrow streets and acres of rooftops that, according to the latest Land Cover Map taken from the Landsat satellite, “over a third” of London’s total land area “is semi-natural or mown grass, tilled land and deciduous woodland.”

From the early medieval period onward, almshouses and taverns, schools and hospitals had their own gardens and private orchards. The city’s first chronicler, William Fitz-Stephen, noted that “the citizens of London had large and beautiful gardens to their villas”. Stow recorded that the grand houses along the Strand had “gardens for profit” while within the city and its liberties there were many “working gardeners” who produced “sufficient to furnish the town with garden ware.” […] 

Today, there are many “secret gardens” within the City itself, those remnants of old churchyards resting among the burnished buildings of modern finance. These City gardens, sometimes comprising only a few square of grass, or bush or tree, are unique to the capital; they have their origin in the medieval or Saxon period but, like the city itself, they have survived many centuries of building and rebuilding. Seventy three of them still exist, gardens of silence and easefulness. They can be seen as territories where the past may linger […].

The image of the garden haunts the imaginations of many Londoners. Among the first painted London gardens is Chiswick from the River by Jacob Knyff. This urban garden is small in scale, and set among other houses. It is dated between 1675 and 1680; a woman walks along a gravelled path, while a gardener bends down towards the earth. They might have appeared in the twentieth century. Albert Camus wrote, in the middle of that century, “I remember London as a city of gardens where the birds woke me in the morning.” In the western areas of London of the twenty-first century almost every house either has its own garden or shares a community garden; in northern areas such as Islington and Canonbury, and in the southern suburbs, gardens are an integral feature of the urban landscape. In that sense, perhaps…

It has always been said that Londoners love flowers; the craze for “window gardening” in the 1880s represented only the most prominent manifestation of the window boxes or window pots to be seen in almost all prints of the London streets from generation to generation. But the most striking sign of the London passion for flowers comes with the London flower-seller. Scented violets were sold upon the streets, while in early spring primroses were “first cried.” […] Then as the taste for floral decoration extended, particularly among middle-class Londoners, flowers, like everything else in the city, became a commercial proposition, and many of the outlying suburbs began production and distribution on a large scale. The entire north-western corner of Covent Garden Market was given over to the wholesale vendors of roses and geraniums and pinks and lilacs, which were then sold on to shops and other dealers.

Female vendors at the Royal Exchange or the Inns of Court hawked moss-roses; the violet girl was to be seen on every street and the “travelling gardener” sold wares which were notorious for their short lives. The price of commerce, in London, is often death and the city became nature’s graveyard. Many millions of flowers were brought into London only to wither and expire. The establishment of large extra-mural public cemeteries, located in the suburbs, in turn led to an enormous increase in the demand for flowers to place upon the newly laid tombs.