London: Royal Parks Study - Terry Farrell
PROPOSALS TO REINSTATE PUBLIC ACCESS
RIVER, PALACE AND LANSCAPED PARK
KENSINGTON GARDENS & HYDE PARK
PALACE, PARK AND LANDSCAPED GARDENS
REGENTS PARK AND PRIMROSE HILL
PARK AND LINKS TO URBAN TOWNSCAPE
RIVER AND LANDSCAPE
Summary of Royal Parks Review by Terry Farrell
During the last four years I have been a member of the Royal Parks Review Group. Initially we looked at Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, with a report on our findings for these parks being published, and also a conference being held at the Queen Elizabeth 2nd Conference Centre.
We then looked at the remaining inner parks - St James's. Green Park and Regent's Park, the work on these being completed in May 1993 with a conference at Regent's College, Regents Park. Finally, during the last year or so we have been looking at the outer Royal Parks - the riverside parks of Greenwich the east and Richmond and Bushy to the west.
Each member of the Group looks at specialist subject areas - horticulture, sports and leisure, tourism and so on. Park managers, and local politicians have been to the meetings and there has been wide consultation, all under the excellent leadership of our Chairman, Dame Jennifer Jenkins. I have found it a very interesting and informative experience - in short I learnt a lot about a particularly fascinating aspect of London; after all, our green parks set London apart from most world cities by their generosity, scale and their special character, (all are uniquely based on the idea of the rural idyll contained within the urban scene).
My particular remit was to look at the large scale design of landscape and buildings together. Within this remit one of my particular interests has been the role of what was royal (and private) and is now in the public realm and how to make the best of this changed situation. There is no doubt that royal privilege and royal heritage created very special places of exceptional value; that they are now largely in the public domain enriches London immeasurably, but these qualities should not be debased, should not be municipalised. What is the essence of these qualities and what is the real way forward today now that we do not have an all powerful monarchy, yet the parks are not fully in the public domain? One serious shortcoming today is that the parks can sometimes seem a physical manifestation of a national identity crisis, i.e. the royals do not enjoy them as they used to, but then neither does the populace use them as their designers intended.
For instance, take the Grand Royal Axis at Greenwich. Most people do not know this exists.
The demise of royal use has not led to the populace walking up the royal route. We all still go round to the tradesmen's entrance; up and down side streets and into side entrances to visit the great spaces and great buildings there. There is a multiplicity of overriding ownerships and access routes; neither the royals nor the people use the grand route - one of the finest in the world; indeed, with the combined association of Britain's three great architects (Wren, Hawksmoor, Inigo Jones), the naval history and the history of astronomy and navigation here - this (hidden) great axis links a site of world status. How the original designers would cringe if they saw it today. More to the point, how would they re-adapt their masterpiece to suit modern circumstances?
All of the Royal Parks suffer from a similar lack of vision of how society today could use the parks in an inspiring way, Just as Greenwich should be grand and awesome and Versailles-like, so should the other parks regain their splendour, but for the benefit of the modem democracy we live in. The relationship between Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens falls far short of the original designer's intentions and neither royalty nor the people win. The original design sequence was from the front door to the interior of the building out to the intimate gardens and then to the landscape beyond. But the occupied parts are introverted, with petty gardens and no relationship with the park beyond. It appears to be a less than happy, almost siege-like situation that results from the security that is thought to be necessary to protect the royal family today. The public on the other hand, go in a side door to see the Palace, and whilst they have full access to the park side of the garden they look over the fence with little appreciation of the original grand plan - the continuum from indoors to outside as one great set piece
The connection between St James's Palace and St James's Park is a loss to us all except in name. To come down from Picadilly to a great and wonderful building with its axially placed clock tower, but then not to progress to the park beyond is surely a rather sad thing for everyone. The fence on to the Mall, like the wall around Buckingham Palace, indicates royalty in a state of siege; the two sides, public and royal, divide up a great design by a high wall at the most crucial point of inter-related design. When the public are admitted they can have no grasp of the original order - of the designed realisation of a vision of buildings and landscape. Nobody is winning, particularly not the architects and landscape designers who created such wonderful places. The Palace walls diminish London.
At Regent's Park, pedestrian routes from the vantage point of Primrose Hill down into London's centre are blocked by age old concepts of private interest that are not relevant today, whilst the public pays for the upkeep of the central spaces. I believe some routes through Park Square and the Zoo need to be released to the public realm in order to allow Nash's vision to be reinterpreted for modern times. The wonderful view from Primrose Hill and the Broad Walk should be linked directly with a pedestrian avenue through the Zoo; and then further south, the Broad Walk should continue through Park Square and Park Crescent gardens (taking up very little land to do so) and thus link Regent's Park, the tube station and Portland Place, in one great accessible and direct vista.
The Royal Parks need a socio/cultural vision. This is not an anti-royalist argument, I do not want to turn them into less "designed", less royal parks like Battersea or Hampstead Heath, but nor should Royal Parks be too backward looking like sterile husks which sustain the appearance of usages that no longer exist.
Hyde Park Corner seems to epitomise the confused value judgements visibly writ large. Then is a grand royal route up Constitution Hill, through the Wellington Arch, and through the Decimus Burton screen, connecting Green Park to Hyde Park. This is hardly ever used, but is visually pre-eminent. The car is the next dominant visual user, running round and round the roundabout. The real park users (pedestrians) travel under the ground from Green Park to Hyde Park, like moles, in the most disgraceful, sensory deprived rat runs. With adjustments to the traffic lights, the pedestrian can travel on the surface along the route of Kings (without depriving the Monarchs of their occasional usage), through the great arches and screens. St James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens should be connected in splendour for everyone. Royalty and public can benefit, but the real winner is the style and splendour of the original London designs for linked landscape and buildings, which will live again to the full.
Parks and pedestrians go together. Action should be taken at Park Lane, Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Regent's Park and its connections, and Greenwich, so that they could all, quite simply, be experienced as fully accessible, fully enjoyable, wonderful public places of world stature.
Up river, the various aspects of the study are still emerging. Hampton Court is experienced as a complete set piece; perhaps it is a loss that there is no royal residence - can there be no happy balance to give life and accessibility? Unlike the French, we have still a royal family, and the museum-like quality of Versailles does not need to pervade the great British places. They can, and should, seem alive and still lived in, but co-habited in some way with no barriers, to express the singularity of the original design concept (and hopefully a united sense of purpose of royals and public as joint custodians of our heritage). But at least you can today see all Versailles and other empty palaces all as the designers over history intended - for me the designers are now the important figures in history. Power created the opportunity but the designer's vision, fantasy, skill and work actually realised these places as we see them now, and these places now exist as testimony to their work and their artistry.
When it comes to the future of the Royal Parks, we must not tinker round the edges. They are among the most original and sublime man-made environments in the world. At present they are neither the royal wonders of yesterday, nor the fully accessible and public treasures of today. The Royal Parks Review Group's work should be a real beginning to make London's green 'trapped countryside" work even better for all of us - for royalty and the people; we should, on all sides, combine to keep faith with the original inspired design achievements, even though society and the political order has evolved and changed.
27 June 1995
© Terry Farrell & Partners 1999
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