Urban History (2021), 48, 552–571 doi:10.1017/S0963926820000449 RESEARCH ARTICLE Spaces apart: public parks and the differentiation of space in Leeds, 1850–1914 Nathan Booth1, David Churchill2* , Anna Barker3 and Adam Crawford4† 1Independent Scholar 2Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT 3Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT 4Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT *Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected] Abstract While the Victorian ideal of the public park is well understood, we know less of how local governors sought to realize this ideal in practice. This article is concerned with park-making as a process – contingent, unstable, open – rather than with parks as outcomes – determined, settled, closed. It details how local governors bounded, designed and regulated park spaces to differentiate them as ‘spaces apart’ within the city, and how this programme of spatial governance was obstructed, frustrated and diverted by political, environmental and social forces. The article also uses this historical analysis to provide a new perspective on the future prospects of urban parks today. Introduction How might an urban historian approach the Victorian municipal park? It was both an ideal space – a jewel in the civilized and harmonious city of the future – and an actual space in which people met, played, rowed and rallied.1 This immediately sug- gests two broad modes of investigation: first, a cultural history of how the park was represented, and how it imaginatively constituted collective identities and attach- ments; second, a social history of how the park was experienced in everyday life, and how it functioned as a crucible of wider social relations.