Month of the Dead - The Dark Secrets of Hyde Park

Join Jonathan Grun, journalist and emeritus editor of the Press Association for a 1 hour guided walk exploring Hyde Park's dark history.

Uncover the story of sites like the Tyburn gallows, an execution site for over 600 years where 24 felons could be hung simultaneously to an audience of ticket paying onlookers and Speakers' Corner where the convicted could voice their last words.

The walk will end with an exclusive tour of Hyde Park's pet cemetery which is rarely open to the public. This graveyard was opened in 1881 and became the final resting place of many dogs and cats, as well as a monkey and countless birds. The epitaphs on their stones quote everything from Shakespeare to the Bible and offer a fascinating insight into the Victorian mentality. It seems names for pets were no less silly then – the headstones bear inscriptions to Scamp, Smut, Chin Chin, Pupsey, Chips and Fattie among others. Originally each grave had its own area for flowers, but the owners of the pets have long passed meaning only grass is seen here today.

The cemetery became so popular with the capital’s pet owners that it had to close to new burials in 1915. Not everyone appreciated its charms however: George Orwell commented that is was ‘perhaps the most horrible spectacle’ in London.