Boundary wall The brick wall enclosing Richmond Park is long and up to high. Much of it is designated by
Historic England as a Grade II listed building.
Gates Six original gates When the park was enclosed in 1637 there were six gates in the boundary wall: Coombe Gate, Ham Gate, Richmond Gate, Robin Hood Gate, Roehampton Gate and Sheen Gate. Of these, Richmond Gate has the heaviest traffic. The present gates were designed by
Sir John Soane and were widened in 1896. The present
wrought iron gates of Roehampton Gate were installed in 1899. the Robin Hood roundabout on the
A3. Widened in 1907, Work started in 2013 to make the gates more suitable for pedestrian use and return some of the hard surface to parkland.
Other gates Chohole Gate served the farm that stood within the park on the site of the present Kings Farm Plantation. It is first mentioned in 1680. Petersham Gate served the Russell School, replacing the more ornate gates to Petersham Lodge. A disused carriage gate further up the hill was probably a tradesman's entrance to the school or to the Lodge stables. When the hospital was demolished in 1925, the entrance was made permanent, with public access, as a pedestrian gate. Ham Gate Lodge, built in 1742; Holly Lodge (formerly known as Bog Lodge) and the
game larder in its courtyard, built in 1735; Thatched House Lodge; and White Ash Lodge and its barns and stables, built in the 1730s or 1740s. The freebord or "deer leap" is a strip of land wide, running around most of the perimeter of the park. Owned by the Crown, it allows access to the outside of the boundary wall for inspection and repairs. Householders whose property backs on to the park can use this land by paying an annual fee.
Lodges Pembroke Lodge stands in its own garden within the park. In 1847, it became the home of the then Prime Minister,
Lord John Russell, and from 1876 to 1890 was the childhood home of his grandson,
Bertrand Russell. It is now a self-service restaurant and wedding venue.
Thatched House Lodge was the London home of United States General
Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Second World War. Since 1963 it has been the residence of
Princess Alexandra. It was originally built as two houses in 1673 for two Richmond Park Keepers, as Aldridge Lodge, and was enlarged in 1727, possibly by
William Kent, as a home for
Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister. The gardens include an 18th-century two-room
thatched summer house which gave the main house its name.
White Lodge was built in 1730 as a
hunting lodge for
George II by the architect
Roger Morris. Its many famous residents have included members of the Royal Family. The future king
Edward VIII was born at White Lodge in 1894; his brother
Prince Albert, Duke of York (the future George VI) and
the Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) lived there in the 1920s. In 1953
President Tito of
Yugoslavia stayed at White Lodge during an official visit to Britain. The
Royal Ballet School (formerly Sadler's Wells Ballet) has been based since 1955 at White Lodge, where younger ballet students continue to be trained. It is used by The Royal Parks as its base for a similar function today. and at Sheen Gate, which has a
bungalow (Sheen Gate Bungalow). Ladderstile Cottage, at Ladderstile Gate, was built in the 1780s.
Holly Lodge Cooper's Lodge was built on the site of Hill Farm in 1735. It was renamed Lucas's Lodge in 1771, Bog Lodge in the 1790s and Holly Lodge in 1993. Holly Lodge includes the
Holly Lodge Centre, a registered charity which provides an opportunity for everyone to learn from hands-on experiences, focusing particularly on the environment and in the
Victorian history and heritage of Richmond Park. The centre, which is
wheelchair-accessible, It was founded by Mike Fitt, In 2011,
Princess Alexandra, the Centre's royal patron, opened its Victorian-themed pharmacy, ''Mr Palmer's Chymist''. This includes the original interior, artefacts and dispensing records dating from 1865, from a
chemist's shop in
Mortlake, and is used for educational activities. The centre contains a replica Victorian schoolroom, and a
kitchen garden planted with varieties of vegetables used in Victorian times and
herbs cultivated for their medicinal properties.
Former buildings A 1754 map by John Eyre, "Plan of His Majesty's New Park", shows a
summer house near Richmond Gate. and his wife,
Joan Carlile, one of the first English women to practise painting professionally. Elizabeth,
Countess of Dysart, and her husband
Sir Lionel Tollemache took over Petersham Lodge when they became joint keepers of Richmond Park. After Tollemache's death the Lodge and its surrounding land were leased in 1686 to
Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, whose sister
Anne was married to the new king,
James II. It became a private park and was subsequently landscaped. By 1692 Rochester had demolished the Lodge and replaced it with a splendid new mansion in his "New Park". In 1732, a new Petersham Lodge was built to replace it after a fire. This Petersham Lodge was demolished in 1835. The cottage was destroyed by enemy action in 1944. The remains of the cottage can be seen in patches and irregularities in the wall 220 metres from Sheen Gate.
Viewpoints of
St Paul's from King Henry's Mound, before the
Manhattan Loft Gardens development was built There is a
protected view of
St Paul's Cathedral from King Henry's Mound. From Sawyer's Hill there is a view of central London in which the
London Eye,
Tower 42 (formerly the NatWest Tower) and
30 St Mary Axe ("The Gherkin") appear to be close to one another.
King Henry's Mound King Henry's Mound, which may have been a
Neolithic burial barrow, was listed in 2020 by Historic England To the west of King Henry's Mound is a panorama of the
Thames Valley. is protected by a "dome and a half" width of sky on either side. In 2005 the then Mayor of London,
Ken Livingstone, sought to overturn this protection and reduce it to "half a dome". In 2009 his successor,
Boris Johnson, promised to reinstate the wider view, though approving a development at
Victoria Station which, when completed, will obscure its right-hand corner. New gates − "The Way" − which can be viewed through the King Henry's Mound telescope, were installed in 2012 on the edge of Sidmouth Wood to mark the 300th anniversary of St Paul's. In December 2016, it was reported that
Manhattan Loft Gardens, a 42-storey 135m-tall apartment building under construction in
Stratford, an area of London not covered by these planning restrictions, had "destroyed" the view from the park as it can now be seen behind the framed view of the cathedral's dome. The developers said that "Despite going through the correct planning processes in a public and transparent manner, at no point was the subject of visual impact to St Paul's ever raised" by the
Olympic Delivery Authority or the
Greater London Authority and that they were looking into the issues raised by the development. In November 2017, the Friends of Richmond Park reported that their campaigning on the issue had resulted in the Mayor of London,
Sadiq Khan, instructing London planners to consult the
Greater London Authority on planning requests for high-rise buildings which, if built, could affect the visibility of St Paul's from established viewpoints. His instruction has now been incorporated into planning procedures across Greater London.
Plantings and memorials flowering in
Isabella Plantation in springtime '') in Prince Charles' Spinney Between 1819 and 1835,
Lord Sidmouth, Deputy Ranger, established several new plantations and enclosures, including Sidmouth Wood and the ornamental Isabella Plantation, both fenced to keep deer out. it is a major visitor attraction in its own right. It is best known for the flowering, in April and May, of its
evergreen azaleas and
camellias, planted next to its ponds and streams. There are many rare and unusual trees and shrubs. The Jubilee Plantation was created in 1887 to commemorate the
Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Prince Charles' Spinney was planted out in 1951 with trees protected from the deer by fences, to preserve a natural habitat. The
bluebell glade is managed to encourage native British bluebells. Teck Plantation, established in 1905, commemorates the Duke and Duchess of Teck, who lived at White Lodge. Their daughter Mary married
George V.
James Thomson and Poet's Corner Poet's Corner, at the north end of Pembroke Lodge Gardens, commemorates the poet
James Thomson (1700–1748), who was living in Richmond at the time of his death. A curved metal bench inscribed with lines by Thomson and known as ''Poet's Seat'' is located there. Sculpted by Richard Farrington, it was based on an idea by Jane Fowles. Benches, also sculpted by Farrington, Poet's Corner is linked to King Henry's Mound by the John Beer Laburnum Arch, named after one of Pembroke Lodge Gardens' former charge-hands. The arch has a display of yellow
laburnum flowers in May.
Ian Dury musical bench memorial bench In 2002 a "musical bench", designed by Mil Stricevic, was placed in a favoured viewing spot of rock singer and lyricist
Ian Dury (1942–2000) near Poet's Corner. On the back of the bench are the words "Reasons to be cheerful", the title of
one of Dury's songs. In 2015 the bench was refurbished and the
MP3 players and solar panels were replaced with metal plates on which a
QR code can be scanned via visitors'
smartphones. Visitors can access nine
Ian Dury and the Blockheads songs and hear Dury's
Desert Island Discs interview with
Sue Lawley, first broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 on 15 December 1996. ==Nature==