The Walk encompasses many of London's historic landmarks. We see King Henry VIII's St James's Palace, once a medieval nuns' hospice for lepers and former London home of Prince Charles and sons William and Harry. Next door is Clarence House, the late Queen Mother's home, where Diana spent the night before her wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral. Prince Charles and his sons have recently moved in after its refurbishment and the ground floor rooms are open to the public for guided tours in the summer.
We pass Buckingham Palace, built by George IV and enlarged, enriched and embellished by Queen Victoria and succeeding monarchs. The State Rooms and Palace gardens are opened to the public during August and September each year while the Royal Family are in residence at Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands.
From Hyde Park Corner with its Constitution Arch, WWI memorials to the Fallen and the Apsley House museum to the Duke of Wellington, we pass Queen Victoria's grand Albert Memorial opposite the equally grand Albert Hall and reach the gates of Kensington Palace from whence Diana's funeral cortege emerged in solemn state for the procession through a silent London to Westminster Abbey.
Seven miles is a long walk. If, like mine, your limbs suffer from a surfeit of years, break your walk into two: stage 1, St James's and Green Park; stage 2, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Use Hyde Park Corner as your convenient start and end to both stages. You can take the London Underground or bus from here in all directions.
Stage 1 is visually and historically the most interesting. St James's Park is beautiful at any time of year, though it is perhaps at its most stunning in spring and early summer when some 500,000 spring bulbs bloom to complement the year-long succession of colourful border displays. Its lake teems with waterfowl; European and oriental ducks, geese and the Queen's swans, including descendants of the pair of black swans presented by the people of Australia after WWII.
The many Royal legacies of marbled grandeur and poignant memory in bronze that we see on our walk are softened throughout the year by a background of Spring parkland blossom, summer birdsong, the falling leaves of autumn and the winter mists.
