London - Hyde Park - Rotten Row - a photo on Flickriver

London - Hyde Park - Rotten Row

            The Postcard

A postally unused Woodbury Series postcard. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in England.

The back the card states that a halfpenny is required for inland postage; this dates the card to before the middle of 1918, which is when rates were doubled to one penny in order to help pay for the Great War.

Rotten Row

Rotten Row (to the right of the picture) is a broad track running along the south side of Hyde Park in London.

Rotten Row was established by William III, who created the broad avenue and lit it with 300 oil lamps in 1690 - the first artificially lit highway in the UK.

Rotten Row is a common street name in towns and villages in England and Scotland.  It describes a place where there was once a row of tumbledown cottages infested with rats (raton), and goes back at least to the 14th. century.

In the 18th. century and onwards, Rotten Row became a popular meeting place for upper-class Londoners.  Particularly on weekend evenings and at midday, people would dress in their finest clothes in order to ride on horseback along the Row and be seen by others.  

The adjacent South Carriage Drive (on the left in the photograph) was used by society people in carriages for the same purpose.

Rotten Row is still maintained as a bridleway to ride horses in the centre of London,  but it is little used - there are few horses in central London, although the Household Cavalry, stabled nearby at Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, exercise their horses there.  

The IRA Car Bomb

A sad day in the Regiment's history was the 20th. July 1982,  when the IRA set off a car bomb by remote control as The Queen's Life Guard were passing.  Four men and seven horses were killed.

To this day, each time the The Queen's Life Guard pass where the bomb was detonated, they bring their swords down from the "slope" to the "carry",  coupled with an "eyes right" or "eyes left" as an ongoing tribute.

Taken on: October 21, 2023

Tags:

postcard

old

nostalgia

nostalgic

London

Hyde

Park

Rotten

Row

Woodbury

Series

Household

Cavalry

barracks

Knightsbridge

car

bomb

IRA « less

Sets appears in: • Horses and Other Equines • London

Stats: 180 views

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