(^176) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
unsightly elements of the old rural landscape also affected many areas of
former common land which, having escaped enclosure, were now engulfed
in suburbs. Indeed, their survival in such contexts was often the consequence
of pressure from middle-class residents, backed up by the lobbying power of
the Commons Preservation Society. Commons in suburbanizing areas were
beginning a new career, as a recreational resource. Although increasingly
overgrown and neglected as traditional management practices declined,
they remained important for wildlife, and many became a battle-ground
between those wishing to turn them into areas resembling public parks,
and those who desired a more ‘rustic’ appearance. Fortunately, many of
the great commons surrounding London, such as Wimbledon Common or
Hampstead Heath, retained much of their rural character although as they
became surrounded by housing their wildlife underwent significant change.
During the first half of the twentieth century rook, skylark, stonechat, reed
bunting, pheasant, sand martin, nightingale, redstart, wood warbler and a
number of others were lost as breeding species on Hampstead Heath. But at
the same time, birds formerly rare increased in numbers, such as bullfinch,
jay, green and greater spotted woodpecker, wood pigeon and moorhen.^82
The heath continued to be home to numerous butterflies, with six different
species being recorded there in 1944, but it was noted that ‘the flora of parts
of the Heath to which the public has access has suffered somewhat from
their attentions’, although in railed-off areas plants like lesser spearwort
and marsh marigold (on pond margins) or red campion and guelder rose (in
wooded areas) continued to flourish.^83
parks and open spaces
The survival of elements of the rural landscape thus shades off without clear
division into the creation of new kinds of open space. Public parks went
through a number of stylistic phases in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The first, of early or mid-nineteenth-century date, were usually
created from scratch, generally as part of upper-class suburban developments.
Some, however, originated as the grounds of private mansions which were
acquired by civic authorities or others and devoted to public recreation,
while a few (especially in London) had still older origins, as royal deer parks
or former commons. In their design, early parks broadly resembled the
gardens laid out around country houses and were intended as improving
educational spaces, and places for peaceful promenade.^84 They usually
included, often within a very small area, a diversity of features: open water,
shrubberies, elaborate displays of flowers, lawns with free-standing trees,
and rockeries. Although much of the planting featured exotic species, large
numbers of indigenous plants either colonized from what was then nearby
countryside, or survived from earlier pastures or wood-pastures on the site.
Warren in the 1870s recorded no less than 181 species of flowering plant
elle
(Elle)
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