| Rotten Row | |
| Rotten Row from Hyde Park Corner. It is now this empty much of the time. | |
| Location | Hyde Park, London, UK |
| Length | 1,384 metres (4,541 ft) |
| Construction began | 1690 |
| Direction | East-West |
| Start | Hyde Park Corner |
| End | Serpentine Road |
| Known for | Equestrianism |
| Passes through | Central London |
Rotten Row is a broad track running for 1,384 metres (4,541 ft)[1] along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to the Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen.[2] Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used.
Rotten Row was established by William III at the end of the 17th century. Having moved court to Kensington Palace, William wanted a safer way to travel to the previous 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. This was called Route de Roi, French for King's Road, and this became "Rotten Row".[3]
In the 18th century, Rotten Row became a popular meeting place for upper-class Londoners. Particularly on weekend evenings and at midday, people would dress in their finest clothes in order to ride along the row and be seen.[2] The adjacent South Carriage Drive was used by society people in carriages for the same purpose.[2] In 1876, it was reconstructed as a horse-ride, with a brick base covered by sand.[1]
The sand-covered avenue of Rotten Row is still maintained as a bridleway and forms part of Hyde Park's South Ride. It is particularly convenient for the Household Cavalry, stabled nearby at Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, who exercise their horses there. Members of the public also ride there, although few people have stables close enough to make use of it. However, there are commercial stables nearby, Hyde Park Stables, that offer horse hire and riding lessons to the public.
Michael Crichton's 1979 feature film, The First Great Train Robbery, is set in 1855, and includes a scene in which the character Edward Pierce (portrayed by Sean Connery) escorts Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) on a supposedly romantic ride along Rotten Row.[4]
"Rotten Row" is used in at least 15 places in England and Scotland, 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 goes back to the 14th century or earlier, predating the London derivation.[5] Other historians have speculated the name might be a corruption of rotteran (to muster),[6] Ratten Row (roundabout way), or rotten (the soft material with which the road is covered).[7]