A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution by Travis Elborough – review

There’s plenty to look at in this enjoyable stroll through the history of our public parks, despite a few omissions

In 1850, Frederick Law Olmsted, an American journalist and farmer, arrived in Liverpool from New York. Perturbed to find some of the other guests at his temperance hotel smoking, he and his companions soon moved on to Birkenhead, then a genteel but rapidly expanding new town. There, he tried to buy some buns, only to be told by the baker that he should on no account leave Birkenhead without seeing its wondrous new park, a 226-acre quasi pastoral paradise designed by Joseph Paxton on what had previously been a gorse-infested common prone to “unhealthy mists”. In 1847, some 56,000 people had attended its opening, a figure substantially bigger than the town’s then population.

The plight of many parks is obvious: gates are closed, lavatories remain out of order, litter is an increasing problem

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