I spent yesterday morning learning about the mysteries of Regent’s Park. Of course, one is aware of it as a Londoner, laid out north of the rest of the city in open farmland as a grandiose gesture of urban town planning to rival Paris towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars. But I had not realised the extent to which each of the Terraces is set back from the road and the vegetation has grown up in such a way that the epic scale of the stucco palaces and the way they are supposed to relate to one another is not really evident unless one pokes about behind the scenes.
I started at the back of York Terrace:-
In the distance was the corner pavilion of Cornwall Terrace:-
Chester Terrace (the terraces got grander as they were built to the east) is being renovated:-
I’m not sure that I had ever appreciated the theatrical grandeur of Cumberland Terrace, nearly the last to be built in 1827:-
I particularly liked the quality of the ironwork railings by Peachey of Regent Street:-
And ended up in Park Village West:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Thank you. One of the unsung triumphs of our Age is the quality of work in restoring our architectural heritage – most evident in the way that our great Cathedrals, like Wells, are being brought back to life, with a new generation of craftsmen learning about the beauties of working with stone and glass, and wood and metal.