ABSTRACT
Despite its location at the heart of one of the world’s most vibrant cities, St James’s Park is quintessentially a bucolic landscape. Radically redesigned in 1827, it represents a major step in the development of ‘the park’ in England from private rural estates to public facilities. Although not publicly owned, St James’s Park was ‘probably the first English town park to be laid out entirely for public use’ (Chadwick 1966: 30). It therefore occupies a pivotal position in the evolution of western landscape design from ‘landscape gardening’ for private estates to ‘landscape architecture’ for public (and private) clients. 1 The park was designed by John Nash (1752–1835) – whose land-scape designs were strongly influenced by Humphry Repton (1752–1818). It provides a significant transition from the work of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716–83) and the ‘English landscape movement’ via Repton to Joseph Paxton (1803–65) at Birkenhead and from there, however indirectly, to the work of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) in New York and Boston.
