I grew up a short walk from Regent’s Park.  For much of my childhood it was simply the place I went with friends to play football, and I don’t suppose I gave much thought to how lucky I was to have nearly 500 acres of green space on my doorstep.  I knew nothing of its long history and paid no attention to its many features.  It had grass, lots of grass, and that’s all I wanted.

I strolled through the park recently on a warm, sunny morning, simply using it as a short cut from Camden Town to Marylebone.  I hadn’t been there for many years and had forgotten how lovely it is.  It’s a place stuffed full of treasures: rose gardens, historical monuments, an open air theater, and, of course, London Zoo.  It has one of my favorite fountains, endowed by “a wealthy Parsee gentleman of Bombay as a token of gratitude to the people of England for the protection enjoyed by him and his Parsee fellow countrymen under the British rule in India”.  Best of all, Regent’s Park, in spite of its size, feels like a community park, a place to be enjoyed by Londoners, with none of the “keep off the grass” nonsense you see elsewhere.  And it still has hundreds of kids playing football.