This is London's centre for great occasions of pageantry and great moments of history. I have a faded photograph taken by my mother on her primitive box camera. It shows King George VI reviewing the ship's companies of HMS Achilles, Ajax and Exeter here on their return from the South Atlantic sinking of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in the 1939 Battle of the River Plate. The Household Guards' Sovereign's Birthday Parade and Trooping the Colour takes place here each June, and the Remembrance Day March Past of Veterans each November.
Historic St James's Park faces us from Horse Guards Parade, its entrance guarded by an uncompromisingly stark WWI memorial to the officers and men of the Royal Household Regiments of Foot who died in the trenches of Flanders. Henry VIII created this park by draining a marsh and stocking the area with deer for his private stag-hunts. Charles I walked through the park from St James's Palace to his 1649 execution at the Mansion House in Whitehall. His son Charles II enjoyed walking his spaniels in the park here. It was claimed by the infamous Titus Oates to have been the proposed venue for the King's assassination "with a silver bullet" in the alleged Popish Plot of 1678.
The King's quiet walks had soon become something of a Royal Progress, with hopeful petitioners waylaying him with pleas, and wayward damsels desiring to catch the roving Royal eye prior to warming the Royal bed and person.
Crossing the road from the Parade, my Lady and I took the path bordering the park lake to the bridge in the centre, and paused to enjoy London's finest view of Buckingham Palace at the lake's head before crossing over and heading north to the impressive wrought iron park gates leading on to The Mall. At this time of year the park's chestnut trees are dropping ripe nuts which will keep the many parkland grey squirrels happy in the winter.
