Park of the week

120. The Green Park

The Green Park, one of the Royal Parks of London, is in the City of Westminster, Central London. It was created by King Charles II in 1660, so that he could walk from Hyde Park to St. James’s Park without leaving royal soil. 

It was landscaped in 1820 and has many trees but no lakes, buildings or formal flower beds although there are narcissi naturalised in the grass. One acre has been designated as the Queen's Meadow and includes a wide range of wildflowers. Buckingham Palace is on the south side of the park.

There are two refreshments points in The Green Park where you can buy snacks and drinks. The closest Underground Stations are Green Park and Hyde Park Corner.

The park contains three war memorials. The Canada Memorial is in the east. Near to Buckingham Palace are the Memorial Gates which pay tribute to the five million people from India, Africa and the Caribbean who served in two world wars.

In the west of the park is the Bomber Command Memorial, commemorating the 55,573 young men who died flying with Bomber Command during World War II; more than the number who serve in the entire Royal Air Force today. Although World War II could not have been won without Bomber Command, the memorial wasn’t erected until 2012. 
At the heart of the memorial is a bronze sculpture of a Bomber Command aircrew. Within the memorial, the space is open to the sky with an opening designed to allow light to fall directly onto the sculpture. This is shown below – the sky was an improbably blue colour when I visited.

I visited the memorial as close as I could get to Armistice Day, to pay my respects to my father’s cousin, Maitland Ellick. He and my father were the same age. I already knew that Maitland had joined the RAF, and been killed in 1944, aged twenty-two. Recently, I found out more. He was a sergeant, an air gunner in a Lancaster III Bomber (a plane in which I am particularly interested), nicknamed The Queen of Sheba. On 31st March 1944 they were on their way to bomb Nuremberg, but the plane was blown up north of Frankfurt by a German night fighter ace, Martin Becker. Although the pilot and bomb-aimer were thrown clear, surviving to fall into enemy hands, the rest of the crew were killed. Maitland is buried in Hanover War Cemetery. The inscription on his tombstone reads God gave us strength to bear the loss. What it cost to lose him no one will ever know.

Judith Field

Green Park, London SW1A 1BW