Kennington Park, which stretches for some distance along the Kennington Road, and lies to the east of the Oval, was known as Kennington Common till only a few years ago, when it was a dreary piece of waste land, covered partly with short grass, and frequented only by boys flying their kites or playing at marbles. It was encircled with some tumble-down wooden rails, which were not sufficient to keep donkeys from straying there. Field preachers also made it one of the chief scenes of oratorical display. It consisted of about twenty acres. It was suddenly seized with a fit of respectability, and clothed itself around with elegant iron railings, its area being, at the same time, cut up by gravel walks, and flower-beds, and shrubberies. It also engaged a beadle to look after it. And so it became a park, and--it must be owned-an ornament to the neighbourhood.

During the holiday season, Kennington Common in the last century was an epitome of "Bartlemy Fair," with booths, tents, caravans, and scaffolds, surmounted by flags. It also had one peculiarity, for, as we learn from In Merrie England in the Olden Time, it was a favourite spot for merryandrews, and other buffooneries in open rivalry, and competition with field-preachers and ranters. It was here that Mr. Maw-worm encountered the brickbats of his congregation, and had his "pious tail" illuminated with the squibs and crackers of the unregenerate.

During the year 1739, when the south of London was a pleasant country suburb, George Whitefield preached frequently on this common, his audience being generally reckoned by tens of thousands. In his "Journal," under date May 6th in that year, he thus remarks: "Preached this morning in Moorfields to about 20,000 people, who were very quiet and attentive, and much affected. Went to public worship morning and evening, and at six preached at Kennington. But such a sight never were my eyes blessed with before. I believe there were no less than 50,000 people, near fourscore coaches, besides great numbers of horses; and what is most remarkable, there was such an awful silence amongst them, and the word of God came with such power, that all, I believe, were pleasingly surprised. God gave me great enlargement of heart. I continued my discourse for an hour and a half; and when I returned home, I was filled with such love, peace, and joy, that I cannot express it." On subsequent occasions Mr. Whitefield mentions having addressed audiences of 30,000, 20,000, and 10,000 on this same spot. The example thus set by Whitefield was soon afterwards followed by Charles Wesley, with an equal amount of fervour. In June, 1739, Charles Wesley being summoned before the Archbishop of Canterbury to give an account of his "irregularity," he was for a time greatly troubled; but Whitefield, whom he had consulted for advice in this emergency, told him, "Preach in the fields next Sunday; by this step you will break down the bridge, render your retreat difficult, or impossible, and be forced to fight your way forward." This counsel was followed, for in Charles Wesley's diary, June 24th, 1739, occurs this passage :-- "I walked to Kennington Common, and cried to multitudes upon multitudes, `Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.' The Lord was my strength, and my mouth, and my wisdom."

"Kennington Common," wrote Thomas Miller, in his "Picturesque Sketches in London," published in 1852, "is but a name for a small grassless square, surrounded with houses, and poisoned by the stench of vitriol works, and by black, open, sluggish ditches; what it will be when the promised alterations are completed, we have yet to see." That the place, however, has since become conpletely changed in appearance we need scarcely state, for it was converted into a public pleasureground, under the Act 15 and 16 Vict., in June of the above-mentioned year. It now affords a very pretty promenade. What was once but a dismal waste, some twenty acres in extent, is now laid out in grass-plats, intersected by broad and well-kept gravelled walks bordered with flower-beds. A pair of the model farm-cottages of the late Prince Consort were erected in the middle of the western side, near the entrance, about the year 1850. More recently, in addition to the improvements effected by the change of the Common to an ornamental promenade, a church, dedicated to St. Agnes, was built on the site of the vitriol works.

On the first formation of the "park," the sum of � 1,800 annually was voted by the Government; but this sum was subsequently reduced, until, in the year 1877, it was only � 1,370; and these reductions had been made although there had been an increase in the total sum devoted to public parks.