Discount Rates at The Bentley London - a Hilton Hotel

Discount Rates at The Bentley London - a Hilton Hotel

Do you know about Regent's Park's secret garden?

The Regent's Park secret garden as it is such a peaceful location with few visitors. It's a garden that was designed to be meditative, providing an elegant counterbalance to the busy pathways of the larger park. It's also a bit hard to find which helps with the mystique.Many visitors to Regent's Park may never find the secret garden, or even know if its existence, and that just makes it all the more exciting when you do.

Regent's Park was designed by John Nash (1752-1835) who was a government architect and friend of the Prince Regent. The large round park included a processional road to St. James's Palace, that we now know as Regent Street. 56 villas were planned for The Regent's Park but only 8 were ever built.
St John's Lodge
Located off the inner circle in Regent's Park, St. John's Lodge is one of two remaining garden villas included in John Nash's residential plan of 1811. (The other is The Holmes.) St. John's Lodge was the first villa to be built in Regent's Park in 1817-19 and remained a private residence until 1916.

The grounds had an informal layout until the 3rd Marquess of Bute purchased the lease to the Lodge in 1888.The Bute family did not extend their lease on St. John's Lodge as some of the land (5.5 acres) was taken back into Regent's Park in 1916 and it would have made their chapel near the lake inaccessible from the house. The chapel is no longer here but the Regent's Park nursery was established near the east of the garden and, I believe, that's now the Regent's Park Allotment Garden, which is just next door and also open to the public to visit.During World War One, the villa and outbuildings were used as a hospital for disabled officers, and later, in 1920-37, by the St. Dunstan's Institute for the Blind. Other occupants include the University of London's Institute of Archaeology, from 1937-1959, and by the history department of Bed ford College, from 1959-1983. A development company, Messila House, occupied the house from 1987-1994 before it was sold for £40 million.

Today the villa is a private residence again, owned by the Kuwaiti royal family and the royal family of Brunei, but the garden is open to all and has been available to the public since 1928.
St John's Lodge Gardens

In 1888, Lord Bute commissioned Robert Weir Shultz (1860-1951) to carry out works to the villa and grounds including 'a garden fit for meditation'.

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