page_title: Richmond Park
section_title: Friends of Richmond Park
hierarchical_section_title: Richmond Park / Organisation / Friends of Richmond Park
caption_attribution_description: English: Aix galericulata drake / Male Mandarin Duck at Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, London, United Kingdom.
context_page_description: Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, was created by Charles I in the 17th century as a deer park. The largest of London's Royal Parks, it is of national and international importance for wildlife conservation. The park is a national nature reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation and is included, at Grade I, on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. Its landscapes have inspired many famous artists and it has been a location for several films and TV series.
  Richmond Park includes many buildings of architectural or historic interest. The Grade I-listed White Lodge was formerly a royal residence and is now home to the Royal Ballet School. The park's boundary walls and ten other buildings are listed at Grade II, including Pembroke Lodge, the home of 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord John Russell and his grandson, the philosopher Bertrand Russell. In 2020, Historic England also listed two other features in the park – King Henry's Mound which is possibly a round barrow and another mound which could be a long barrow.
context_section_description: The Friends of Richmond Park (FRP) was founded in 1961 to protect the park. In 1960 the speed limit in the park had been raised from 20 to 30 miles an hour and there were concerns that the roads in the park would be assigned to the main highway system as had recently happened in parts of Hyde Park. In 1969, plans by the then Greater London Council to assign the park's roads to the national highway were revealed by the Friends and subsequently withdrawn. The speed limit was reduced to 20 miles an hour in the summer of 2004.
  In 2011, the Friends successfully campaigned for the withdrawal of plans for open air screenings of films in the park. In 2012, the Friends contributed towards the cost of a new Jubilee Pond, and launched a public appeal for a Ponds and Streams Conservation Programme in which the Friends, the Richmond Park Wildlife Group and Healthy Planet have been working with staff from The Royal Parks to restore some of the streams and ponds in the park.
  The Friends run a visitor centre near Pembroke Lodge, organise a programme of walks and education activities for young people, and produce a quarterly newsletter. The Friends have published two books, A Guide to Richmond Park and Family Trails in Richmond Park; profits from the books' sales contribute towards the Friends' conservation work.
  The Friends of Richmond Park has been a charitable organisation since 2009. It has 2500 members, is run by approximately 150 volunteers and has no staff.  Broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, former Richmond Park MP Baroness Susan Kramer and children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson are patrons of FRP. The chair (in 2019) is Ron Crompton, who also chairs the Royal Parks Friends Forum. The Friends Forum enables the chairs of all the Royal Parks Friends groups to meet regularly to discuss common issues and to make their views known to the chief executive of the Royal Parks, the Royal Parks Advisory Group and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
caption: Mandarin duck in the park
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