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Rotten Row is a broad track running along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used as such.
In the 18th century, Rotten Row became a popular meeting place for upper-class Londoners. Particularly on weekend evenings and at midday, people dressed in their finest clothes to ride along the row and be seen. The adjacent South Carriage Drive was used by society people in carriages for the same purpose. In 1876, it was reconstructed as a horse-ride, with a brick base covered by sand.
The sand-covered avenue of Rotten Row is maintained as a bridleway and forms part of Hyde Park's South Ride. It is convenient for the Household Cavalry, stabled nearby at Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, to exercise their horses. Members of the public may also ride, although few people have stables close enough to make use of it. Commercial stables nearby, the Hyde Park Stables and 'Ross Nye Stables, offer horse hire and riding lessons to the public.
A Royal plaque commemorating 300 years of Rotten Row was erected in 1990.
Michael Crichton's 1975 novel and the subsequent feature film The First Great Train Robbery, set in 1854/5, has 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. The First Great Train Robbery. Dir. Michael Crichton. United Artists, 1979.
In Bram Stoker 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula, Jonathan and Mina Harker briefly visit "the Row" after solicitor Peter Hawkins' funeral and interment, "...but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home..." (Sept 22). After this, they go to Piccadilly, where Jonathan is astonished to see Dracula in England for the first time.
In Patrick Hamilton’s novel “The Plains of Cement” (1934), the ageing Mr Eccles takes the barmaid Ella for a walk in Hyde Park, “alongside Rotten Row”.
In To Let by John Galsworthy, the third book of The Forsyte Saga, Soames Forsyte, walking from Knightsbridge to Mayfair in 1920, stops to contemplate "the Row" and the social decline exhibited there over sixty years of his experience.
In the Netflix series Bridgerton, season two, episode three, Jack Featherington suggests “Rotten Row, perhaps?” as a place to promenade with a lady he intends to spend time with. Again, in season three, episode two, Penelope Featherington states to her mother she is going to “Rotten Row to get a little fresh air”. In season four, episode two, Benedict Bridgerton attempts to find his mystery lady along the Row.
The locale also served as backdrop for events in many of Georgette Heyer's Regency romance novels.
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