About the Research Historical Analysis There Are More Than 27,000 Parks and Green Spaces Across the UK
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The Leeds Parks Project About the Research Historical analysis There are more than 27,000 parks and green spaces across the UK. In Contemporary study The historical analysis comprises three parts: Leeds, there are 7 major parks and 62 community parks. The contemporary study comprises four parts: • Acquisition period: We used digitised newspaper Our research explores the social role and purpose of urban public parks • Leeds parks survey: 6,432 people responded to our collections and archival material to explore the both at the time of their foundation in the Victorian era and today. citywide public survey which ran from June to acquisition and early life of each case-study park, November 2016. covering three years before and after their opening. Our aim is to understand everyday experiences and future expectations of parks in Leeds to sustain and support them in the life of the city. • Adult parks users: Interviews with 60 adult • Newspaper sample: Using British Newspapers residents explored how our case-study parks are Online, we ran keyword searches for each park to This project combines historical analysis of the park movement with a used, valued and managed as well as hopes and explore social uses and experiences following contemporary study of park life. fears for the future. acquisition, up until 1914. Our research provides a broad analysis of parks across Leeds, and in- • Young people’s views: 9 focus groups with young • Archival research: We visited West Yorkshire people explored what they like and dislike about Archive Service and the British Library, piecing depth research into three case-study parks: Woodhouse Moor, parks, how they use them and what they would like together the social history of each park using Roundhay Park and Cross Flatts Park. to change or improve. municipal records, maps and pamphlets. • Park governance: Interviews with park managers, This approach helped us to understand the processes friends groups and various city services explored by which parks in Leeds were acquired, and everyday the vision, management, regulation and upkeep of experiences of parks as spaces of social mixing in the Leeds parks as well as expectations for their future. nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. New Photographic Archive of Case-Study Parks Leeds Parks In-depth research on three parks in Leeds, each of which was originally opened for public use We have curated a digital archive of images of during the Victorian era: Woodhouse Moor, parks over time, using photographs submitted Roundhay Park and Cross Flatts Park. by members of the public and Leeds Parks and Countryside. These parks draws out the diverse: • Social ideals and purposes of parks The collection is hosted by the Leeds Library • Scale and social profile of users and Information Service and is accessible via • Experiences of park life, from the ceremonial the Leodis website: www.leodis.net through to the informal Image reproduced courtesy of Leeds Parks and Countryside The Birth of the Park Movement in Victorian Britain Parks for the People Parliamentary origins By the early nineteenth century, there were a limited number of urban Victorian progress Concerns about the shortage of urban green space green spaces, such as royal parks, common and waste lands, botanical In the early Victorian period, slow progress was made led to the formation of the Select Committee on Public gardens and cemeteries. With the growth of cities and enclosure of in providing public parks. Though major parks opened Walks in the 1830s. Their report called for the common lands, there was increasing public concern regarding the in several towns in the 1840s, cities such as Leeds had provision of further public parks to promote public shortage of open spaces, especially for working-class city-dwellers. yet to join the park movement. health and orderly conduct. Given these public ‘Whilst the Wealth, Importance and Population of [large] Towns The pace of change quickened from the 1850s. Often benefits, the Committee argued that providing parks at considerable expense, local authorities seized the was ‘a duty of the Government’. have augmented…no adequate provision has been made for Public opportunity to purchase lands for public recreation, and This report helped to kick-start the park movement, as Walks, or any reservations of Open Spaces, giving facilities for thus safeguard parts of their towns and cities from local authorities and wealthy individuals increasingly future improvement.’ (Select Committee on Public Walks 1833) future development. sought to provide parks for the people. By the 1840s, a major movement was underway to provide ‘people’s Over time, local authorities paid increasing attention to By the 1850s, public parks had become a parks’ in towns and cities. Unlike many existing green spaces, these park design. One influential model was the elliptical characteristic feature of Victorian social reform. would be freely accessible to the public throughout the year, and adorned layout of Sefton Park in Liverpool, which designated Hence, it was fitting that London’s Hyde Park was specific parts of the park for different uses.. used to host the Great Exhibition, a major celebration with paths, gardens and recreational facilities. By the late nineteenth century, along with seaside holidays and organised sports, park-visiting By the turn of the twentieth century, park management of social and commercial progress, in 1851. was a major duty of local government. In Leeds, the had emerged as a major part of popular culture. Council managed over 20 parks and recreation grounds by 1910. The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London (1851) Plan for Sefton Park, Liverpool (1867) Industrial Leeds and the Struggle for Green Space Parks for a Developing City A booming industrial city The park movement in Leeds emerged out of the growth of the growth of Common lands under threat The early nineteenth century witnessed a tremendous the city and its industrial base. Pollution and overcrowding worsened, Even as the city grew, there remained large areas of expansion in urban industry. In Leeds, the major while at the same time the enclosure of formerly common lands common land, especially in the suburbs and out- industries were woollen textiles, engineering, threatened many existing green spaces on the outskirts of town. townships. However, a flurry of enclosure acts between metalworking, clothing and chemicals. Mechanisation the 1780s and 1830s concentrated landownership in gathered pace from the 1820s, leading to the In this context, public figures called for parks to help improve living the hands of a wealthy few, and left the former construction of large textile mills. The acceleration of conditions and preserve public access to green space. Parks in the city common lands ripe for development. industry fuelled rapid population growth. were often referred to as ‘the lungs of Leeds’, as it was expected they By the mid-nineteenth century, the loss of common 200,000 would improve public health by supplying fresh air and ensuring against lands injected a sense of urgency to the search for over-development. Social reformers also hoped parks would promote green space, as urban development continued apace. 150,000 social mixing, in a city segregated along lines of social class. ‘Opportunities still exist, but are rapidly passing Parks were integral to idealised visions of an improved future city, and away, for securing open spaces for the health and 100,000 became in time prominent symbols of Victorian civic pride. recreation of the inhabitants.’ (James Hole, social reformer, 1866) 50,000 The Lungs of Leeds Social Mixing ‘Provide for [the people] means of rational ‘The great toiling hive of Leeds, will highly 0 recreation, such as public gardens and appreciate…the pleasure of associating 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 promenades, where they may be able, with those other classes of society with after ten or more hours’ work in a stifling which they only occasionally come in Urban and industrial growth brought with it a host of atmosphere, to breathe freely Heaven’s contact.’ social and environmental problems. In particular, genial, bracing, unadulterated air’ (Leeds Times 1856, on Sunday afternoon residents worried that new, polluting industries posed (Leeds Times 1854) concerts in public parks) a major threat to public health. These concerns fed into the campaign to acquire public parks as green spaces of ‘healthful recreation’. Cramped and insanitary court housing in central Leeds, resulting from mass urbanisation (1899) Woodhouse Moor: The Original Leeds Public Park Preserving an Historic Green Space The Council takes control Improving the Moor Woodhouse Moor was an historic area of open land. Leeds residents felt For many years, individuals had claimed common they had a right of public access to the Moor, which had existed since In the early years, the Moor was in poor condition – it rights to graze cattle and other animals on the Moor. was not properly drained or lit, and there was no ‘time immemorial’. For centuries, they had used the Moor as a site of coherent plan for its design. Bringing the Moor into public ownership protected it recreation, political demonstration and military assembly. from encroachment, yet it also challenged the exercise From the 1880s, there was a concerted effort to of common rights, which were extinguished under the By the 1850s, the people of Leeds had become concerned that the Moor improve the Moor, laying walkways, planting gardens, Leeds Improvement Act 1866. was under threat from encroachments upon the land, including rubbish erecting a bandstand and establishing a gymnasium dumps, cow houses, pig sties and even cottages. on Monument Moor. By 1900, the look of the Moor had Regulating behaviour been transformed. In 1854, a public campaign was launched to acquire the Moor and to Soon after acquisition, the Council sought to regulate However, there was also opposition to such public conduct on the Moor.