ABSTRACT
Public parks have rarely been considered in conjunction with the environmental movement. However, there is an argument for so doing. They were a crucial feature of city and town living, and they helped to form nascent thinking about the impact of the physical landscape on those who lived in it. Parks can more obviously be considered alongside such early twentieth-century innovations as garden cities, which placed a premium on combining elements of the urban and the rural in one design. Other developments, such as the provision of street trees and window boxes in poorer neighbourhoods, aimed to bring nature within the reach of all. There was a growing interest in the therapeutic value of access to green space. Many parks played an important role in providing recuperation for wounded soldiers during World War I. Robert Tait McKenzie pioneered rehabilitative techniques using hydrotherapy and massage at Heaton Park in Manchester, ensuring that the healing power of nature could be fully appreciated.
