Rotten Row is a broad track running along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used as such.

History

thumb|left|An 1833 map of Hyde Park. Rotten Row is marked as The King's Private Road

thumb|left|Rotten Row and the South Carriage Drive c.1890-1900, photomechanical print

Rotten Row was established by William III at the end of the 17th century. Having moved the court to Kensington Palace, William wanted a safer way to travel to St. James's Palace. He created the broad avenue through Hyde Park, lit with 300 oil lamps in 1690—the first artificially lit highway in Britain. The lighting was a precaution against highwaymen, who lurked in Hyde Park at the time. The track was called Route du Roi, French for King's Road, which was eventually corrupted into "Rotten Row".

In the 18th century, Rotten Row became a popular meeting place for upper-class Londoners. Particularly on weekend evenings and at midday, people dressed in their finest clothes to ride along the row and be seen.

In Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula, Jonathan and Mina Harker briefly visit "the Row" after solicitor Peter Hawkins' funeral and interment, "...but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home..." (Sept 22). After this, they go to Piccadilly, where Jonathan is astonished to see Dracula in England for the first time.

In Patrick Hamilton’s novel “The Plains of Cement” (1934), the ageing Mr Eccles takes the barmaid Ella for a walk in Hyde Park, “alongside Rotten Row”.

In To Let by John Galsworthy, the third book of The Forsyte Saga, Soames Forsyte, walking from Knightsbridge to Mayfair in 1920, stops to contemplate "the Row" and the social decline exhibited there over sixty years of his experience.

In the Netflix series Bridgerton, season two, episode three, Jack Featherington suggests “Rotten Row, perhaps?” as a place to promenade with a lady he intends to spend time with. Again, in season three, episode two, Penelope Featherington states to her mother she is going to “Rotten Row to get a little fresh air”. In season four, episode two, Benedict Bridgerton attempts to find his mystery lady along the Row.

The locale also served as backdrop for events in many of Georgette Heyer's Regency romance novels.

Other locations

"Rotten Row" is a location in at least 15 places in England, Scotland, South Africa and Zimbabwe, such as in Lewes, East Sussex and Elie, Fife. It describes a place where there was once a row of tumbledown cottages infested with rats (raton) and dates to the 14th century or earlier, predating the London derivation. Other historians have speculated the name might be a corruption of rotteran (to muster), Ratten Row (roundabout way), or rotten (the soft material with which the road is covered). There is Rotten Row Magistrates Court in Zimbabwe which is located on Rotten Row Road in the capital of the Southern African nation. The road connects to Prince Edward Street in the Avenues and Charter and Cripps Roads in the south of the Magistrates Court. The only other Rotten Row is a road in the South African town of Winburg near Bloemfontein.

See also

  • Ladies Mile, Clifton, a similar social promenade in Bristol

References

  • The Fashionable Hour in Hyde Park—description of Edwardian parading on Rotten Row.
  • Poem by Frederick Lampson on Rotten Row.
  • Hyde Park and Kensington Stables and Ross Nye Stables - possibly the only two remaining stables near Hyde Park.