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PLAN OF HYDE PARK as it was in 1725
This retrospective plan of Hyde Park was produced from an earlier plan held in the Vestry Room in St George's Church, Hanover Square. Its title features at top right, with the scale bar at top left. At over 340 acres of land the largest of all the royal parks, Hyde Park was originally a hunting ground for deer, boars and wild bull. Bequeathed to the monks of Westminster after the conquest of Geoffrey de Mandeville in the 1140s, the park was appropriated by Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. The park was opened to the public at the beginning of the 17th century, and remained a deer hunting ground until 1768.
The British Library1800