London’s Royal Parks are among its most beautiful and beloved spaces: just as much as the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace or St Pancras Station, the mere mention of Hyde Park or Greenwich Park is enough to evoke the capital in all its glory for residents and tourists alike. They have a magnificent history – some were royally owned as far back as the Norman conquest, others were acquired by Henry VIII during the Reformation and were great hunting grounds for successive monarchs – and since being opened to the public, they have hosted some of London’s great events, including the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and innumerable jubilees, international games and competitions and celebrations. Today, the Royal Parks are visited by over 77 million visitors. But what are the ingredients of these magnificent green spaces? We often think of wider landscapes of trees, grass, lakes, meandering footways, bedding displays and herbaceous borders. But the Royal Parks are much more than this. Defined as ‘parkitecture’, we find royal palaces, stately homes, villas, monuments, memorials, statues of national figures and war heroes, public art, often controversial yet inspiring, sculpture, bandstands, gates and railings of exquisite designs, fountains, refreshments rooms, lodges and pavilions, bridges and boathouses. Each of the Royal Parks is defined by its ‘parkitecture’, from the formality of Regent’s and St James’s Parks to the rurality of Bushy and Richmond Parks. This new book is a long overdue complete celebration of the many buildings and monuments of London’s Royal Parks with over 250 beautiful illustrations.

Paul Rabbitts has worked in parks for over 35 years, working across the UK, from Jersey, Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Watford, Southend-on-Sea and Norwich. He is a parks historian, an author of many books on the subject of the Royal Parks, ‘People’s Parks’, the icon of parks, the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand as well as complete biographies on Decimus Burton, Sir Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbons. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as the Royal Historical Society, along with a Member of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture.