11. HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS.
STATIONS. South side: Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge, on the Piccadilly Tube; Kensington High St., on the Metropolitan Railway. - North side: Marble Arch, Lancaster Gate, and Queen's Road, on the Central London Tube. OMNIBUSES along Piccadilly and Knightsbridge, Nog. 9, 14, 19, 33, 96; along the Bayswater Road, Nos. 32, 38, 112, 184, 185.
Hyde Park Corner, the large triangular open space at the west end of Piccadilly and at the south-east angle of Hyde Park, is the busiest centre of traffic in London (78 vehicles per minute in the daytime in 1923). Opposite Apsley House is an equestrian statue of Wellington, by J. E. Boehm (1888), on a pedestal guarded by a Grenadier Guard, a Highlander, a Welsh Fusilier, and an Inniskilling Dragoon. Close by stands the Royal Artillery War Memorial for 1914-18, by C. S. Jagger and Lionel Pearson, with expressive bronze figures boldly relieved against the massive stone background. To the south a heroic figure of David, by F. Derwent Wood (died 1926), is the Machine Gun Corps War Memorial. On the left is the arch at the top of Constitution Hill. On the west side of Hyde Park Corner, at the beginning of Knightsbridge, is St. George's Hospital (334 beds), founded in 1733 in Lanesborough House, which gave place in 1829 to new buildings by William Wilkins, considerably extended since. Dr. John Hunter (1728-93), the famous surgeon, died suddenly in this hospital. On the north side of Hyde Park Corner is the principal entrance to Hyde Park, a triple archway designed by Decimus Burton in 1828 and adorned with reproductions of the Parthenon frieze, by Heming.
Grosvenor Place leads to the south to Victoria Station, running between the gardens of Buckingham Palace on the east and the region of Belgravia on the west, and passing the Czechoslovak Legation (No. 8). At No. 15 Grosvenor Crescent is the League of Nations Union.
