2-970-048 - /Heritage Images

The Band of the Royal Horse-Guards, Blue Playing in Kensington-Gardens, [London], 1856. '...the band of the Blues again played in Kensington Gardens, where the fineness of the weather attracted an enormous crowd. The total number of persons who entered the Gardens during the day was about 80,000...Instead of a programme composed of vulgar dance tunes, the band adopted one exclusively devoted to sacred music of the gravest character...there is reason to hope the question, whether the mass of people in this immense metropolis is better employed on Sundays in healthful recreation out of doors than in gloomy and silent reclusion'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.