I had long been contemplating doing a walking tour in London. The first and the only one i had done before was more than a year ago where we went for a walk around Hamstead heath. So, last sunday did a walk around the Regent's Park. One of London's premier area. After finishing off all my weekend morning chores, started pretty late in the after noon (around 1 PM) from home and took the picadilly line from Hounslow East and changed over to the Northern line at Leister square station to reach Chalk farm Station from where this walk started. From the chalk farm station, walked towards the Primrose Hill through an old looking (may be victorian) iron bridge and walking along a busy lane.





Had to do a small trek to the top of the primrose hill (just takes a round 10 mins). The view from the top was awesome. You could see most of the london attractions from there like the Canary Warf, London eye, St Pauls, Bt Tower (this was the most prominent of them).








Decented the hill and walked towards Reagent park through the St Mark's church. The entry to the regent park from here was again through a smaller iron bridge. Could see part of the lovely regent canal (plan to do a walk along the canal soon). The path had a series of John Nash's Terraces on the left side of the walk overlooking the park. John Nash was a renowned English architect and an architect to the Crown. Prince Regent had engaged him to architect the area around what was called the Marleborne Park (now its Regent's Park). Prince Regent (who later became King George lV) wanted to have this area as an exclusive area for the premire community. This park was originally leased out to the Duke of Portland by the Crown. This was initially used as hunting ground. It was after this lease in the early 18th century that Prince Regent engaged John Nash on this Masterplan. The original plan was to have a summer palace built for the Prince and a series of villas built for people close with the Prince's family around the park.









All the developments planned as per the original masterplan did not see the day though as Prince Regent subsequently planned to move to Buckinham palace.Out of the 50 odd villas planned only around 8 were built. The proposed summer palace was also not built.

Some where mid way, there was a very nice looking drinking water fountain in the form of a church. On examining it further, came to know that the same was gifted by a Parsi businessman from Bombay during the period of the english rule.




From there walked towards the lake inside the park. On the way were lot of football pitches filled with people playing. Also on the right hand side on the path was "The Hub", which is a recent develpment and hosts multi sprots facility with a swanky looking cafe on the top of it. There were a lot of people boating in the lake and one could see a huge variety of ducks, swans and fowls. Well..i am not an expert Ornitholist like Salim Ali but can definitely tell a Swan from Ducks. On this side of the park, the London Mosque's Dome was prominently visible.






I had to cross over the lake to further on my walk. On the way to the Band stand, there were a large collection of flowers on the right side of the path. The band stand is the place where the disaster of IRA bombing which killed 7 Bandmen. There is a placade put up there in their rememberance. Good that the problem is approached a positive turn in the
past decade.This area of the park where the band stand is built is called as the Holme Green.




The London Zoo is also part of the Regent's Park. Winfield house, the official residence of the US Ambassador to Britain is also located inside the Regent's park (though could not see it as it is private). The London Business School is also in the borders of the park.

Primross Hill as well as the Regent Park come under the Royal parks of the Crown's Estate.

After spending some time in the company of flowers, moved on to Queen Mary's Garden. This hosts a fabulous garden, the triton fountain and an large open theatre.




After seeing most parts of the Regent park, what was left of the plan was to see some of the fabulous residential area around this. The first to see was the Chester terrace. This was one of John Nash's architecture. Whole of the residential area around the park had the rich look. It gave a teste of how regency looks...

I then walked towards the chester terrace. This is street with all the houses architected by John Nash. This is a street in Camden for all official purposes. All the houses in this street are Grade 1 listed buildings. Both ends of the street has a huge arch with the name "Chester Terrace" engraved on them on a blue background.There are two blue plaques on the street, one for Charles Robert Cockerell and one for John Salmond.






Once out of this street, moved towards the Perpendicular road where tere was yet another huge set of terrace houses called the cambridge terrace. As we walk further there was the Royal College of Physicians.



Out of curiosity checked out at a later time, the kind of going rates for houses near this place and look what..a decent looking apartment would cost around GBP 500 thounsand upwards and a house cost to the tune of GBP 2 million and higher. The ones in Chester Terrace would cost upward of 3.5 million.

Had a quick glimpse of the Park cresent, another fantastic building architected by John Nash, from across the road and started moving towards the Baker Street Station to catch the Tube back home. En route walking, saw the Royal Academy of Music, Madamme Tussards and London planetarium from outside.





Entrance to the Madamme Tussards Museum and Poster about the new addition

There was a statue of Sherlock Holmes in front of the Baker Street station. Boarded the jubilee line and changed over at Green Park for Picadilly Line back home...