Bushy Park

Bushy Park is the second largest of London's royal parks, 445 hectares of grassland and woods immediately north of Hampton Court Palace in Teddington. Henry VIII enclosed it with the palace in 1529 to hunt fallow and red deer with the court, and their descendants still graze freely among visitors. The baroque Chestnut Avenue with Christopher Wren's Diana Fountain was laid out in 1699 as a ceremonial axis for William III's Hampton Court. During the Second World War the park housed General Eisenhower's headquarters, from which the Normandy landings were planned. Today deer watching at dawn, the weekly parkrun with over a thousand participants and walks through the water gardens are the staples. If you know Richmond Park, this offers the same wild feel with fewer crowds.