Where did ladies walk in Regency era London?

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rosehips

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I'm trying to get a sense for where the upper class tended to go versus the lower class. Hyde Park was open to the public, and by the Regency period had split from Kensington Gardens. I can't find information one when Kensington opened to the public, other than it was once a week in 1733 and that in 1837 it was fully opened to the public. I'm having trouble finding sources that talk about Hyde Park aside from the 1814 Great Fair. Does anyone know more about how the park was used and by whom?

Were there other outdoor spaces where you might go for a promenade if you were a proper lady in early 19th century London?

Thanks!
 
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angeliz2k

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You should probably look into pleasure gardens--Vauxhall and Ranelagh especially. There were also various smaller ones around the city. I'm also thinking of St. James's Park (not a pleasure garden, but a pretty good place to promenade).

For the most part, I think the ideal for upper-class ladies would be to not take walks, especially where they might have to mix with the lower classes. They would be likely to take a turn in the garden/grounds of the house where they were staying, if the house had one. In town, they might simply take carriages from place to place and never walk much at all. If one wanted to show oneself off, one would ride around in one's open carriage. Taking a walk would be more of a country pursuit.

Keep in mind that taking a walk might 1) get you sweaty or dirty, 2) harm your expensive clothes, or 3) give you a tan if you aren't careful. These are things a lady would try to avoid. That doesn't mean a lady wouldn't take a walk, of course, just that she would be be conscious of these things.
 
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rosehips

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Thank you so much for those leads! And for the advice. I definitely will keep all of that in mind. I have it in my head that people met each other in parks. So if the lady is riding in the open carriage, would she then stop alongside another carriage and chat with the people riding in that one?

Were parks a place where you might get away with passing a note, or otherwise flirting with someone you were interested in romantically?
 

Pastelnudes

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If you Google 'Royal parks', that should give you a good place to start. There's eight of them, and they've always been tended to by the Royal family, hence they're cleaner and smarter than the others.

Hyde Park, for instance, is pretty much the same today as it was then, with horses trotting along the paths, and small boats you can hire to go on the river.

Grosvener Square is right in the centre of London.

As far as carriages stopping to chat, I can't picture it. Perhaps the 'roads' weren't wide enough for two way traffic, or something like that. And horse manure. Don't forget the manure.
 

rosehips

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Thanks for the replies! I've tried to give you reputation but the webpage is being very weird for me. Anyway, please know I appreciate it. :)
 

talktidy

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I'd look up Rotten Row, too. Less for walking than riding, but riding was what the upper classes chose as their exercise du jour.
 

frimble3

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So if the lady is riding in the open carriage, would she then stop alongside another carriage and chat with the people riding in that one? [QUOTE/]
I imagine even if the park road was wide enough for two vehicles, if they both stopped to chat, there would be much honking of horns, or whatever the horsedrawn equivalent is. Shouting and cursing? A traffic jam is a traffic jam.

Were parks a place where you might get away with passing a note, or otherwise flirting with someone you were interested in romantically?
[QUOTE/]
Based on my skimpy knowledge of the era, I'd say no. First, passing a note would require leaning way over the side of the carriage, and probably the receiver would have to do the same. Hardly subtle. Might as well holler "I love you, good-lookin'!" across the expanse.
And, a lone woman making a public spectacle of herself, trying to communicate with an unrelated male, would at the least be considered 'fast'. I would think that a 'nice' young woman would travel with a friend or chaperone to avoid giving that impression.
 

rosehips

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Thanks for the tip, talktidy.<p><p>frimble, yes, for sure they'd need a chaperone. I'm actually trying to figure out if ladies ever drove themselves places, as well. Like, a gig only held two people, from what I'm reading. I'm not certain whether that includes the driver, but if it doesn't, I suppose a lady just wouldn't ride in a gig? If anyone knows, please enlighten me.<p><p>I've ordered two writer's guides on the period but in the meantime I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find answers to questions like this online.<p><p>I would also *love* a simple map of London and outskirts that shows where the fashionable residential areas were, maybe also old versus more new money, wealthy professional/middle class/poor residential areas, and also all the various commercial areas were. I've found a couple of maps but they are *not* simple. I just want to be able to say "he lived in Westminister" and to feel confident that I'm situating him in a neighborhood that matches his class.
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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I'm actually trying to figure out if ladies ever drove themselves places, as well. Like, a gig only held two people, from what I'm reading. I'm not certain whether that includes the driver, but if it doesn't, I suppose a lady just wouldn't ride in a gig? If anyone knows, please enlighten me.

It depends on how you decide to write your FMC. How outrageous do you want her to be? How much would her family let her get away with?

Women could drive their own carriages. BUT they'd have a groom there with them (as would a man). The groom's job is to drive when necessary, jump down and hold the horses when the driver wants to stop somewhere, and could count as a chaperone depending on her family. Many carriages had a small seat in the back for the groom to sit on. Or even just a shelf to stand on with a hand grip.

I doubt your fashionable lady would be driving a gig by herself (with groom) in London. I'd go with a phaeton or curricle. But she'd have to be a fairly good driver to handle even a pair of horses, especially in London traffic. Having her groom drive her with her maid next to her would probably be fine. Even better if it's her chaperone, mother, grandmother, aunt, or older married sister.

How wealthy is she or her family? An unmarried woman owning her own personal carriage would be quite wealthy. If she wants to promenade on Rotton Row in Hyde park, being driven there by a groom or driver in company with a suitable chaperone is completely unremarkable especially in the family's baroche or landau (check dates on when which kinds of carriages were popular and with whom). Walking in Hyde park (not on Rotton Row, but there are lots of foot paths) would also be unremarkable and more easy to pass a note.

She could also ride on Rotton Row if she's a decent rider--and riding side saddle requires IMO more skill than riding astride. With groom in tow.

If her family approves of the match, she mightn't need to pass notes. But if she does, other places to do it--provided the two of them could work out a time for both of them to be there--would be the Panorama, Somerset House (viewing art), a balloon launch, at the lending library, at a confectionery shop like Gunthers, The Royal Menagerie, The British Museum, if they're both at the same party or musical offering. Or if her maid will help her pass notes.

If her family is fairly conventional, she could no doubt go places with her maid and a groom and/or driver as chaperones. But most places she'd be with whatever older woman is in charge of her--mother, hired chaperone, aunt, etc.

Let me gift you with The Regency Redingote. She's a bit repetitive and I could wish for more citations but what I've checked has been good data. And she delves into less well known areas of the Regency. Here are the articles in her transportation tag.

Try looking through Wikipedia and Google for novels and diaries and books of letters written around the time you're writing about. That will also give you ideas on what would and wouldn't be acceptable. The Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg have good archives of books written during that time that are now out of copyright so available on line and for free.

Have fun!
 

angeliz2k

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rosehips, I don't think you're going to find a map like that. I think you simply need to be familiar with London if you're going to write about it that way (and you don't necessarily have to; you don't necessarily have to name a particular neighborhood or shopping area). It actually shouldn't be too hard to Google areas of London and read about their histories. I believe a lot of the shopping areas were the same then as now: Oxford Street, Bond Street, etc. I believe the Regent's Park area would've been fashionable (to live in, that is; there's a Georgian crescent there at the Regent's Park Tube station), but don't quote me on that. And, natch, the fashionable area changed from era to era. You might want to dive into some histories of the development of London to get an idea of the landscape, and then read up a bit on individual areas, like Mayfair and Marylebone.

Also, a lady would almost certainly not go out alone, especially if she were young and unmarried. She might take a walk around the grounds of a place where she is staying or is familiar with, or perhaps go out alone in an emergency. It would be different for working-class women who had to get from place to place and couldn't always wait around to be chaperoned.

Stopping to chat in the parks with other drivers wouldn't have been impossible. You couldn't chat for long or say anything very private, of course, for reasons already mentioned in this thread. You might very well be able to get close enough, though, to extend a hand across to the other carriage as if in greeting and pass a letter.

ETA: I cross-posted with Ultragotha, who has some great info for you. :)
 
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lonestarlibrarian

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It's post-your-period (you're 1820, max), but Charles Booth did a poverty study in 1898. He then made color-coded maps, that showed the income levels of various streets and neighborhoods in London. They ranged from vicious slums full of abject poverty, to neighborhoods of chronic want, to poor (populated by families surviving on 18s-21s/week), to mixed neighborhoods populated by poor and comfortable alike, to the fairly comfortable, to the middle class well-to-do, to the wealthy upper-middle-class and the upper-class.

Neighborhoods might have changed from your period to his--- something that was fashionable in your time might not be fashionable by his, and something in his time might not have been built in yours, and streets may have appeared/disappeared/changed/been renamed--- but it at least gives you an idea as to the general layout of what was comparatively safe to what was outright dangerous.
 

rosehips

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Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the help. ULTRA, that's great to know about grooms, and thank you for the links. I will definitely read those articles.
Angel, thanks, it's good to get different perspectives. I have very much been giving Google a workout but sometimes I come up short. It's my own fault. I want to know very precise things sometimes, that are hard to find out. For example, my heroine is from an old, respectable family, but which has fallen on hard times. So I think her residence should be in a respectable neighborhood, but probably not the most fashionable one. She's also not royal. So for instance when I read about the St. James area I'm scratching my head, wondering if it's too high class.
lonestar, I've been looking at that one and a Charles Dickens map, but I find the color coding of the Booth map hard to decipher. There are two orange-reds that are very similar but refer to very different income levels. I wish they'd branched out and used purple and blue and green or something. :tongue
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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If your heroine's family has fallen on hard times, then having a carriage at all will be a stretch. It requires storage for the carriage, servants to maintain it, money to repair it, and servants to drive it (either driver or groom or possibly both) and then there's the stabling for the horses and their feed and the grooms to look after them. This is not cheap. Having one town carriage might be doable. More than one would suspend my disbelief.

If her family is old and respectable (and broke) then she's probably NOT driving her own curricle or phaeton. She might be driven by the coachman or groom in the family's landau or baroche. But only when more senior members of the household don't require it.

OTOH, inexpensive pastimes like viewing the panorama (one of the articles on Regency Redingote has the schedule of what was displayed at the panorama when) or viewing the paintings at Somerset House would be quite unremarkable and she could arrange to see her gentleman friend there.

She would NOT walk down St James street itself. That was only for men. Ladies of Quality Did Not Go There. But she could walk to any shopping or libraries near her house. Or be driven to a shopping area and then walk from shop to shop. Or walk on any of the foot paths in any of the Royal or public parks. Or walk to friends' houses for morning visits (which took place, confusingly, in the afternoon). This article has some information on congestion.

As Angeliz2k said, she would not be going out in public by herself. There would always be someone with her. Mother, aunt, chaperone, maid, governess, brother, father, married cousin or sister--someone. It was actually quite difficult for a young unmarried lady of quality to go about on her own. Her very clothes would tell everyone how out of place she was and raise suspicions.

Check out this article that may give you some starting points on where your family might live near London. Here's another that looks interesting.
 

rosehips

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ULTRA, thank you so much. More excellent information and further reading! I really appreciate it, you're an immense help. I'm also anxiously awaiting the writing guides I ordered. I'm having so much fun with this story but my picky side really wants the details right. I have another question but as it's very different I'll start a new thread. Thanks again to all for your help. It's very much appreciated.
 
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