Key

Steel key with a solid oval shaped bow with a crowned 'VR' inscribed on the obverse and 'Lord Templemore 14 Chapel Street' on the reverse. This key provided access to Hyde Park. Between 1790 and 1804, local householders paid the Office of Works to construct private gates through the park walls into Hyde Park. For at least another four decades after, the Office issued individually numbered, non-transferable keys, granting entry only during permitted hours. The key was engraved for Henry Spencer Chichester, 2nd Baron Templemore (14 June 1821-10 June 1906), an Anglo-Irish peer. 14 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square is listed as his town residence in the 1856 edition of Lodge's Peerage and Baronetage (Knightage & Companionage) of the British Empire. Unusually this key is not numbered and therefore may not have been issued.