A cormorant on Perch Pond

Image: © Marathon Taken: 17 Aug 2016

The park itself was not enclosed until 1545. In 1541, the previous owner Sir Giles Heron was beheaded at Tyburn for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. Wanstead Park began to take on its present form under Sir Joshua Child whose wealth was acquired through the East India trade. It was Sir Joshua's son, Sir Richard Child, who in 1715 commissioned Colin Campbell to design a palatial new mansion here which he intended to be to East London what Hampton Court was to the west. The final mansion though was a good deal more modest. The park was described at that time as one of the finest examples of the English Landscape Movement of the 18th century. The property's demise came soon after Catherine Tylney-Long, who had just inherited the estate, married the nephew of the Duke of Wellington. Within ten years she went from being the richest heiress in England outside the Royal family to being with her husband a quarter of a million pound in debt. The house contents, including furniture and art collection, had to be sold, and the mansion was demolished and sold for building stone in 1824. However, two of the original garden houses, dating from the mid-18th century when Wanstead House was still a private estate, survived. Following the Epping Forest Act of 1878, the mansionless park was acquired by the Corporation of the City of London. Wanstead Park was then formally opened to the public on 1st August 1882. Extending along the southern and eastern boundaries is a one-and-a-half-mile long chain of lakes - Shoulder of Mutton Pond, Heronry Pond, Perch Pond and Ornamental Water. This is Perch Pond, where a cormorant can be seen standing on a branch coming out of the water in the centre of the picture. For more information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanstead_Park and http://www.londongardenstrust.org/features/wanstead.htm

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