St James's Park: The Pelicans of the Blue Bridge
Why is it significant?
Stop in the middle of the bridge and turn slowly on the spot. To the west, framed by willows, the pale front of Buckingham Palace. To the east, across the water, a skyline of turrets and domes that looks more like a fairy tale than a government district.
Key Facts
| Place | St James's Park: The Pelicans of the Blue Bridge |
|---|---|
| Address | Blue Bridge, St James's Park, London SW1A 2BJ, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.50270, -0.13520 |
| Part of Walk | Crowns, Pelicans and Bearskins: Royal London from The Mall to St James's |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in the middle of the bridge and turn slowly on the spot. To the west, framed by willows, the pale front of Buckingham Palace. To the east, across the water, a skyline of turrets and domes that looks more like a fairy tale than a government district. It is one of the best free views in the whole city, and Londoners queue for photos here on a summer evening.
St James's Park is the oldest of the royal parks. Henry VIII took this soggy meadow in the 1530s to stock with deer, next to his new palace of St James's. James the First kept a royal menagerie here, with camels, crocodiles and an elephant, which, the story goes, was given a gallon of wine a day. Then Charles the Second came home from exile in France in 1660 and redesigned it in the French manner, with a long straight canal, and opened it to the public.
Now look for the large white birds on the rocks at the water's edge. In 1664 the Russian ambassador presented a pair of pelicans to Charles the Second, and there have been pelicans in the park ever since. They are not shy. They stroll across the paths, sit on the benches next to tourists, and in 2006 one was filmed swallowing a live pigeon whole, to the horror of the people eating their sandwiches nearby.
At the eastern end of the lake hides Duck Island. Charles the Second invented a title, the Governor of Duck Island, and gave it, with a salary, to the French writer Saint-Evremond, an exile like himself.
This park also saw one of the saddest walks in English history. On a freezing morning in January 1649, Charles the First was marched across it under guard, from St James's Palace to his execution in Whitehall. He wore two shirts, so that he would not shiver and let the crowd think he was afraid. Leave the bridge on the north side, turn left along the Mall, and stop beside the cream house behind the garden wall.