Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
The oldest of London’s eight royal parks, St James’s Park began life as a marshy deer park enclosed by Henry VIII in 1532. James I added the first formal gardens and a menagerie here — Birdcage Walk, along the southern edge, remembers his aviary — before John Nash reshaped the old canal into today’s curving lake in the 1820s. Pelicans have lived on it since 1664, when the Russian ambassador gave a pair to Charles II, and their descendants remain the park’s best-known residents. Free and open every day, with Buckingham Palace at one end, it’s a short stroll from the Thames Path.
