St James's Park

Listen for a moment. Under the traffic hum of central London there is a softer layer of sound here: the slap of webbed feet on wet gravel, the creak of a wooden bench, a goose complaining somewhere near the water. The paths are fine and pale, and they crunch underfoot. Willows lean over the lake, and their long branches almost touch the surface. You are standing in the middle of one of the most closely watched pieces of land in Britain, and yet the birds here act as if they own it.

This is Saint James's Park, and it is generally described as the oldest of London's Royal Parks. It sits inside a frame of power. Buckingham Palace stands at one end. Horse Guards Parade and the government buildings of Whitehall stand at the other. The Mall runs along the northern edge, and Birdcage Walk runs along the south. Prime ministers, monarchs and civil servants have crossed this grass for centuries, often on foot, often in a hurry.

The name comes from something much humbler than a palace. In the Middle Ages, a hospital for women with leprosy stood near here. It was dedicated to Saint James the Less, one of the apostles. The land around it was marshy and wet, fed by streams that ran down towards the Thames. It was not a place anyone visited for pleasure. It was a place on the edge of the town, kept apart for people the town preferred not to see.

That changed in the 1530s, when Henry the Eighth took the land. He replaced the hospital with a new royal residence, which became Saint James's Palace, and you can still find its brick towers just north of the park. Henry wanted the ground for deer and for hunting. So the first life of this park was as a private royal playground, enclosed and drained, and closed to ordinary Londoners.

Here is the first surprise. In the early seventeenth century, King James the First turned part of the park into a kind of royal zoo. Accounts describe camels, crocodiles and even an elephant kept here. He also kept exotic birds in cages along the southern edge of the park. That is why the road you may have walked along is still called Birdcage Walk. The cages are long gone, but the name stayed.

The next great change came after 1660, when Charles the Second returned from exile in France. He had seen the formal gardens of French palaces, and he wanted something similar. He had a long, straight canal dug through the park, with neat avenues of trees. Charles also opened the park to the public. By many accounts he walked here himself, with his dogs, and fed the ducks in full view of his subjects.

Charles loved a game called pall-mall, a little like croquet, played with a mallet and a ball along a long alley. The alley for the game ran near the edge of the park. That game gave its name to two of London's best-known streets: Pall Mall, and The Mall itself. So when you hear those names, you are hearing the echo of a royal hobby from more than three hundred years ago.

Now look at the water in front of you. It is not straight anymore, and that is the work of John Nash, the architect who reshaped much of Regency London. In the 1820s he turned Charles's rigid canal into a lake with soft, curving banks. He added winding paths and irregular groups of trees and shrubs. The aim was to look natural, as if the landscape had simply grown this way. In fact, almost every curve you see was planned.

And then there are the pelicans. This is the second surprise for many visitors. Pelicans have lived in this park since 1664, when the first ones arrived as a gift from a Russian ambassador to King Charles the Second. The tradition has continued ever since, with new birds arriving over the centuries. Today they often rest on the rocks near the lake, enormous and calm, and park staff feed them fish. Keep a respectful distance. They are larger than most people expect.

At the eastern end of the lake is Duck Island, a refuge for waterbirds. On its edge stands a small cottage with steep roofs and decorative timber, a little like a picture in a children's book. It was built in the 1840s for the Ornithological Society of London, a group dedicated to studying birds, and a keeper once lived there to look after the flock. Today the island is still a quiet space for nesting, away from the paths.

Walk out onto the Blue Bridge that crosses the middle of the lake. From here you get one of the best views in London. Face west, and Buckingham Palace sits at the end of the water, framed by trees. Turn around and face east, and you will see the towers and domes of Whitehall rising over the treetops, with the London Eye in the distance. On a still day, the buildings appear twice, once in the sky and once in the lake.

The park has also served the nation in harder times. During the First World War, the lake was drained, and temporary government buildings were put up on the lakebed to provide extra office space. It is a strange picture: desks and filing cabinets where the ducks swim today. After the war the water returned. It shows how close this green space has always been to the business of the state next door.

Before you leave, take one more look around. Notice who is here with you: office workers eating lunch on deckchairs, tourists pointing at pelicans, a squirrel waiting near your shoes for a crumb it probably should not get. Notice the sound of the water, and the noise of the city just beyond the trees. A marsh became a hunting ground, then a zoo, then a royal garden, and finally a park for everyone. As you walk out, listen for the gravel under your feet. It is the same sound Londoners have heard on these paths for generations.