Description
Book SynopsisPeople's Parks - The Design and Development of Public Parks in Britain' identifies the principal national and international influences on park development from the nineteenth century until the present, including their historical and cultural significance. Municipal parks made an important contribution to our urban environment, and they developed within a social, economic and political context which affected people's attitudes to recreation - what became known as 'rational recreation'. The promoters of parks wanted to encourage education and particular forms of recreation, and parks reflected this in their design, buildings, statues, bandstands and planting. This book is a thorough update and re-evaluation on Hazel Conway's influential book, published in 1991, adding and evaluating an extra 100 years of history, through the Victorian era, to the war years, the impact of the Garden Cities movement, and the great decline of parks from the 1970s onwards. The impact of the Heritage Lottery Fund's urban parks programme from the 1990s is covered, along with that of austerity and the Covid pandemic. The book concludes by evaluating the role of parks today and potential for the future.
Trade ReviewThis very handsome, well-designed, and superbly illustrated volume gives us a pretty good and comprehensive flavour of the Victorian public park, with its often splendid buildings. * The Critic *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Hazel Conway and Paul Rabbitts 1)Public parks and municipal parks 2)The need for parks 3)Pioneering parks development 4)The park movement 5)Design and designers 6)Lodges, bandstands and the cultivation of virtue 7)Local pride and patriotism 8)Plants and park maintenance 9)Permitted pastimes 10)Recreation grounds, parks and the urban environment 11)Public parks 1885 -1914 12)Later municipal park designers 13)Garden cities and the new towns movement 14)Sport, physical activity and recreation in public parks in the inter-war years 15)Parks management - a changing perspective 16)Decline, revival and renewal - the role of parks in 21st century Britain Appendix A Summary of main legislation promoting early park development Appendix B Chronology of main municipal and public park developments between 1800 and 1885 Bibliography About the authors Notes Acknowledgement of subscribers and supporters Index
