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Top Attractions in Hyde Park

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The VA is located in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area that has become known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum has been free since 2001. The VA covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The museum owns the worlds largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Since 2001, the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme, which has seen a major overhaul of the departments, including the introduction of newer galleries, gardens, shops and visitor facilities.

Rotten Row

Rotten Row is a broad track running for 1,384 metres along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to the Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used. Rotten Row was established by William III at the end of the 17th century. Having moved court to Kensington Palace, William wanted a safer way to travel to the previous St. Jamess Palace. He created the broad avenue through Hyde Park, lit with 300 oil lamps in 1690– the first artificially lit highway in Britain. The lighting was a precaution against highwaymen, who were comparatively common in Hyde Park at the time. The track was called Route du Roi, French for Kings Road, which was eventually corrupted into "Rotten Row". In the 18th century, 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 along the row and be seen. The adjacent South Carriage Drive was used by society people in carriages for the same purpose. In 1876, it was reconstructed as a horse-ride, with a brick base covered by sand. The sand-covered avenue of Rotten Row is still maintained as a bridleway and forms part of Hyde Parks South Ride. It is particularly convenient for the Household Cavalry, stabled nearby at Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, who exercise their horses there. Members of the public also ride there, although few people have stables close enough to make use of it. However, there are commercial stables nearby, Hyde Park Stables and Ross Nye Stables, that offer horse hire and riding lessons to the public. Michael Crichtons 1979 feature film, The First Great Train Robbery, is set in 1855, and includes a scene in which the character Edward Pierce escorts Emily Trent on a supposedly romantic ride along Rotten Row. A Royal plaque commemorating 300 years of Rotten Row was erected in 1990. "ROTTEN ROW The Kings Old Road, Completed 1690 This ride originally formed part of King William IIIs carriage drive from Whitehall to Kensington Palace. Its Construction was supervised by the Serveyor of their Majesties Roads, Captain Michael Studholme and it was the first lamp-lit road in the Kingdom. Designated as a public bridleway in the 1730s, Rotten Row is one of the most famous urban riding grounds in the world."

Queen Elizabeth Gate

Queen Elizabeth Gate, also known as the Queen Mothers Gate, is an entrance consisting of two pairs and two single gates of forged stainless steel and bronze situated in Hyde Park, London, behind Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner. There is also a center feature made of painted cast iron. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 to celebrate the 90th birthday of her mother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It cost £1.5 million to construct, raised by private individuals and public funding, under the patronage of Prince Michael of Kent. The stainless steel and bronze gates, railings and lights were designed and made by Giusseppe Lund. The center piece, featuring a red lion and a white unicorn, was designed by sculptor David Wynn. The organic nature of the forged steel reflects the Queen Mothers love of flowers, particularly those from a cottage garden. Her life spanned most of the century and this is represented by a flow from formal symmetry at the base of the gates upwards to an increasing freedom of line at the top. Many of the elements are free to move when touched and the whole structure vibrates when moved. This is in direct contrast to the heavier rectilinear gates found in other entrances to the park. Although much admired there were initial concerns that the metal was rusting due to a misunderstanding of the nature of the gates coloring which was in fact a deliberate creation of chromium oxides with the application of heat. This treatment has since proved to be extremely durable thanks to the initial intensifying of the chromium content on the surface by the use of electro-polishing

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