Cedars Park sits on the site of Theobalds Palace, one of the great vanished royal residences of England. The palace was built in the 1560s, briefly grander than any of Elizabeth I's official houses, taken into royal hands by James I in a forced swap with the Cecil family, and largely demolished by Parliament in the 1650s.
What is left today is a pleasant municipal park: lawns, mature trees (including the venerable cedars that give the park its name), a small lake, a walled garden and the remains of some of the old palace foundations and outbuildings. The 17th-century Old Palace House, a fragment of the former gatehouse range, can be glimpsed across the park. It is a peaceful retreat for an hour's walk if you are visiting the Eleanor Cross and want something green nearby; a short walk west of the town centre.