Welcome to Richard Clarke's website.
Having been a secondary school history teacher for 36 years and prison tutor for three I now focus on developing my interest in landscape history and on fostering an interest in others as a speaker, tutor, writer, guide and researcher (house and church).
I am available for consultation in areas such as:
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Illustrated talks;
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Presentations;
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Guiding;
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Articles;
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Research.
Recent Posts
13th February, 2019. History of Public Parks, 27.
Oak Road Playing Fields (see picture above) is one of my favourite areas in Hull and leads me into my final ‘features’ of public parks section, that being Recreation Grounds/Playing Fields. It must be... [more]
12th February, 2019. History of Public Parks, 26.
Thomas Hayton Mawson (s.p.b.) published his autobiography in 1927 (by which time he was suffering from Parkinsons Disease), this cataloguing his 50 year career as a garden, park and town designer. The book was entitled... [more]
10th February, 2019. History of Public Parks, 25.
The picture above shows the ‘Tea House’ at Belle Vue Park, Newport, S. Wales. It reflects the Park’s designer’s fondness for rustic structures in public parks, the designer being Thomas Hayton Mawson, 1861-1933. Mawson... [more]
6th February, 2019. History of Public Parks, 24.
The picture above shows part of the ornamental pond located in Pearson Park, Hull with the Victorian conservatory in the background, closed now for a long time and without the sub tropical plants it once... [more]
5th February, 2019. History of Public Parks, 23.
The bandstand (s.p.b.) at People’s Park, Grimsby stands to the right off the above picture. Travis Elborough in his book A Walk in the Park (s.p.b.s) is of the opinion that ‘the common park bandstand’... [more]
3rd February, 2019 History of Public Parks, 22.
Another feature of late-Victorian parks was the bandstand. Despite having a similarity with market crosses such as the one in Beverley Saturday Market Place purpose-built bandstands have a relatively short history, the first, allegedly,... [more]