The real property of the crown may be thus classified : 1. lIonours, manors, and hundreds, not in lease.
2. Other lands in the occupation of the crown, either for the per sonal convenience of the sovereign or for the public service.
3. Forests, deices, and wastes.
4. Lands, tenements, and hcreditaments, held of the crown by lease.
5. Fee-farm rents, issuing out of lands, tenements, and heredita meets, held of the crown in fee-simple.
Tho second class comprises the following royal palaces and houses :— Buekinghain Palace; • St. James's Palace ; Windsor Castle; the palaces of Hampton Court, Kensington, and Whitehall ; the King's House at Winchester ; the Palace of Greenwich (converted into a hospital for seamen); Somerset House (used as public offices); the New Palace of Westminster, including the houses of parliament, Westminster Hall, and courts of law. The following palaces and buildings have been pulled down and their sites used for other purposes :—Carlton House ; the 3Iews • Newmarket Palace. The following parks are also included in this class :—St. James's, llyde, Bagshot, Bushey, Greenwich, Hamp ton Court, Kew Gardens, Richmond, and Windsor. This class is now tinder the supervision of the Board of Works mentioned below.
In the third class are included not only the royal forests which [have preserved their jars regalia, but several numinal forests and chaces, wan-ens, wastes, &c. The following is a list of the real forests :—In Ilerks, Surrey, and Wilts, Windsor Forest ; in Essex, Epping Forest ; in Gloucestershire, the Forest of Dean ; in Hampshire, Here Forest, New Forest, and the Forest of Woolnier and Alice Holt.
In 1851 the offices were finally separated, and to the Board of Public Works and Buildings, and to the officers of this board, was consigned the important task of providing for the people public walks and access to the national buildings and collections. The duty of the state in this
respect has only been recognised of late years, and perhaps we owe it to our intercourse with the continent, and especially with France, that it has been at all acknowledged. Fifty years ago Ilyde Park and Ken sington Gardens were the only public places of recreation open to the crowded and hard-worked population of London ; since then, beside the improvements in those two places, and the formation of new streets and squares in those parts of the metropolis of which the land either belongs to the crown ur has been purchased by parliament for public improvements, there have been opened the large parks and gardens of . St. Jamas Park, the Regent's l'ark, and Primrose 11i11, at the west end north ; the Victoria Park at the north-east ; and Kennington Park and Battersea l'ark at the south-west of London. The palace and grounds of Hampton Court have been repaired and adorned, and the collection of pictures has been arranged and enlarged ; and Kew Gar dens have been enlarged, filled with the rarest and choicest plants and flowers, and improved by the addition of magnificent conservatories and a new museum, and both Hampton Court and Kew Gardena have been thrown open gratuitously to the public. In Kensington Gardens an Italian garden has been laid out with fountains, statuary, and carving; which though not of very remarkable excellence or originality, are at leant superior to anything of the kind hitherto given to the public.