Bright lights, empty city

LAST year, John Goodall memorably described the architectural revelation of the empty City of London (‘London in lockdown’, April 22, 2020). However, the pandemic has also left a legacy of discovery through familiarising the famous London parks—in this case, central London’s linked St James’s, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens—their secrets revealed and knowledge amplified.

To buy a picnic in Westminster’s Petty France from the Royal Artisan Bakery, with its irresistible window display, was an obligatory start. A stroll to the 1841 Swiss Chalet in St James’s Park provided a delicious waft of January winter sweet from one of John Nash’s ‘floriferous’ Regency shrubberies. The chalet, once the bird keeper’s house, now a meeting venue, has a garden that is (usually) open to the public. A path, dividing formally arranged vegetables from informal