Memorandum by The Handsworth Park Association
(TCP 33)
We welcome the Government's interest in town
and country parks and this opportunity to make a submission to
the Environment Sub-committee on the basis of our involvement
with Handsworth Park in Birmingham. Our focus is therefore on
a specific town park and our comments are organised round the
five themes the committee wishes to examine.
1. THE SOCIAL,
ECONOMIC AND
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT
OF PUBLIC
PARKS
Since the term "economic", particularly
now, seems to encompass "social" and "environmental"
benefit as a means of defining "value" these comments
will focus on that. Thus we may speak of the amenity value of
a park as a place where people may enjoy peace and quiet in the
open air; or the value to the community of a place where people
may interact outside their homes and gather for festivals and
entertainments, or where children may learn about nature other
than in front of a television and perhaps with the guidance of
teachers able to use the park as a classroom. The predominant
reality remains that the greatest monetary value is gained from
urban green space—including parks—in the form of profit
when it is developed for building houses, sports arenas, factories
or roads.
In the face of this economic "fact of life"
it is right we should be required to define—or redefine—the
economic benefits of public parks and our own park in particular
as something other than a land bank awaiting development—especially
as our own association sprang from the union of many local people
against a proposed housing development on part of the park. To
go by the recorded memories of whose who used Handsworth Park
prior to its decline, its benefit went without saying.[2]
These heartfelt recollections lacked the analysis needed to defend
that "benefit". Parks have lost rank as a public good.
Unlike Handsworth Leisure Centre which has been something of an
economic success, Handsworth Park has not presented itself as
similarly viable and so, like the local graveyard of St Mary's
Church, was among the casualties of a more commercially oriented
approach to the delivery of local government services.
But Handsworth Park was not at its inception
in the 1880s an immediately popular idea to many practically minded
residents. The idea of creating a "lung" in the city
was strenuously opposed by a cross-section of the voting community
who were ready to pay for a range of other local services—especially
better roads and sewers. Nor was Handsworth Park a charitable
bequest that could have enabled such an idea to avoid local resistance.
Though voluntary bequests were made for its gates and other features,
the local Board—having overseen the sewering, lighting and
paving of Handsworth as well as the provision of a free library
and clinic—had to gain local taxpayers' support for the
largest loan it had ever applied for in order to buy and lay out
much desired land, not for lucrative self-financing developing,
but as a public park for present and future inhabitants of the
area. As well as being a popular aesthetic achievement, Handsworth
Park was first of all a political achievement.
The inventiveness of politics is again needed
to settle the economic benefit of this park. In the 1890s we might
point to a Victorian calculation that a "green lung"
in a rapidly expanding and densely housed industrial city would
make for a more contented labour force or note the Chairman of
Handsworth Local Board reassuring contemporary bean counters that
the rates on the new and desirable houses that would shortly grace
the park's northern edge would comfortably fund the project's
loan interest and capital repayments. In the 1990s we could point
to a family of emerging ideas (or perhaps rediscoveries, after
a period of fragmented thinking) about how green spaces and especially
well appointed public parks contribute to the wealth of cities.[3]
The general view that the spaces between the buildings are as
important to an environment as the building is helpfully confirmed
in our case by recent studies of the operation of the housing
market in Birmingham. It is commonly understood—as in all
cities—that there are areas of smarter housing in Birmingham
and on its outskirts, but this research[4]
shows that as well as these familiar preferences there are, among
those who wish to live in the city, a high proportion who choose
homes where there is more access to open space. People, regardless
of the size of their own gardens (private space), prefer areas
with higher ratios of public green space to built environment
or to repeat this another way, the economic value of housing is
linked to that ratio in ways that emphasise the economic value
of parks in a very straightforward way.
2. THE CONDITION
OF PUBLIC
PARKS
Again it is most appropriate that the committee
should turn to examining the condition of our local park, since
the current state of Handsworth Park presents problems to anyone
advocating its current economic value to the community let alone
the city as a whole. The advent of CCT has meant that even those
contract workers who do arrive in the park will say when asked
"I don't work here—I work for (the grounds maintenance
contractor)" and have often had to be told by local people
which park they are in since their responsibility is for a number
of separate Birmingham parks. Handsworth Park is 63 acres and
has one visiting warden for some days in the week (note: the
resident of the Park Lodge does not carry out warden functions).
The park ponds are now unable to support water born life and so
are not a haven for bird life that relies on such food. Roads
surrounding the park are hazardous to cross. The list is familiar
and seemingly endless. The following is an extract from the concluding
section of an account of the founding of Handsworth Park:
In 1911 Handsworth Park came under the control
of Birmingham Corporation and there, densely surrounded by houses,
as its founders had foreseen, it thrived for half a century under
the guardianship of the City's Parks Committee and a ground staff
of at least 16 people. Many events were run as a matter of course
in Handsworth Park. It hosted the Birmingham Flower Show, annual
Jamborees for the Scouts and Girl Guides, horse shows, cycle races,
walking events and other local and citywide celebrations, until
during the 1970s as the problem of car parking and access reduced
its availability for city wide events and with the diminishing
power of Birmingham City Council to exercise their previous stewardship,
its fortunes faltered . . .
. . . Unlike Kew Gardens or Hyde Park in London
or Sefton Park in Liverpool—which inspired the creator of
New York's Central Park—larger history ignores the name
of Handsworth Park implying that this and other such parks not
on tourist itineraries, might have been valuable in their heyday,
but have little significance for the current population. Such
history regards a local history of the Park as mainly concerned
with enriching the memories of a shrinking minority . . . Another
generation is taking part in a different history—written
from a forensic perspective analysing urban pathology.
[5]They may
recount memories of an unattended and even risky space, recalling
teachers who warned them not to "cut across the park"
on their way to or from school. Some will say they feared the
place or that their parents never encouraged them to go there.
Less apprehensive residents—on foot or cycle—may remember
that the resulting emptiness could make Handsworth Park more serene
than many rural areas, and children will always find their pleasures.
Some will recall the hurling of sticks to gather conkers; others
with mild self-reproach, unaware of the pain they caused some
of their neighbours, may remember how they spray painted their
tags on old gravestones in St Mary's Churchyard and the sides
of buildings, while others will remember their frustration at
broken playground furniture, graffiti, neglected buildings, polluted
ponds, damaged trees, and the ever renewed detritus of a consumer
society. Students must sieve their evidence for selective views
of past and present, but having done that try their best to describe
what they have learned. On the evidence, Handsworth Park in the
1990s is not what it was, nor meant to be.
And here are the concluding sections of a detailed
survey of Handsworth Park, carried out in 1998 on behalf of the
local authority, which refers to its many positive features obscured
by neglect:[6]
Despite being in one of Birmingham's most crowded
neighbourhoods, Handsworth Park can still convey a feeling of
open, rural space. In the western area of the park the formality
of the tree-lined walks and features seems to balance with the
informality of the open areas, belts of trees and "village"
cricket ground. However, in the eastern area, this aspect of the
park's character has become eroded by the maturing trees, which
have gradually obscured the church, compromising the "village"
character so evident in early photographs. The gradual loss of
the views, the harsh resurfacing of paths and the lack of maintenance
have accelerated the urbanisation of the park.
In fact, Handsworth Park does not feel a particularly
secure place; it is not an area which would be welcoming at dusk
or on dull winter days. There is evidence of vandalism, but, in
comparison with other city parks, Handsworth has experienced relatively
little; it is significant that the park benefits from the presence
of mounted police, whose main stables are in the vicinity. (Note:
mounted officers are to be withdrawn by West Midlands Police—February
1999). We believe there is also a park keeper living in the
lodge; this role could be very important in securing the future
health of the park.
The number of apparently unemployed (unoccupied)
youths and men seen wandering around the park accentuates the
feeling of insecurity. Most of all, however, it is the degradation
of the landscape design and the failure of maintenance which really
give cause for concern. Shapeless, open areas where original paths
and features have been removed or become obscured; untended shrubberies;
neglected features; smelly litter bins and skips; and the considerable
extent of hard, modern surfacing—all contribute to the sense
of threat. This is exacerbated in the vicinity of the church,
which emphasises the fact that the park cannot be restored without
also attending to the condition of the graveyard. . . .
There is no doubt that Handsworth Park is a successful
design, one where everything from the basic landform to the elements
of planting and ornament were the outcome of careful consideration,
both of the site and the requirements of the local community.
There are theatrical contrasts of panoramic space and enclosure,
apparently wild nature and intricate artistic detail. All this
is linked by an elegant circulation system which afforded opportunities
for healthy exercise and ensured that every landscape incident
was visited and enjoyed.
Today, of course, it takes some time to perceive
all this. There is a melancholy quality, conveyed particularly
by the dark tree cover, the poor maintenance and lack of care,
and—less easy to resolve—the modern intrusions of
leisure centre and car parks. The latter have completely altered
the character of this park and ensured that attention and resources
have been removed from any of those facilities or features which
once appealed to the whole community and not just the young and
fit.
Notwithstanding these problems, the park has
long proved its value to Handsworth and still commands fierce
loyalties. Its attractions are surprisingly robust and, once measures
have been taken to unite the leisure centre with the heart of
the park, the whole has the potential to be a landscape of delight,
enhancing the lives of both residents of the locality and those
visiting from much further afield.
3. ROLE AND
RESPONSIBILITIES OF
VARIOUS AGENCIES
IN THE
MAINTENANCE AND
PROTECTION OF
PUBLIC PARKS
AND PUBLIC
POLICY ON
PARKS
A management guru said that solutions to problems
lay in answers to the questions "Who knows? Who cares? Who
can?" More and more people "know" and "care"
about what has happened to our park. The existence of this committee
suggests this applies to parks generally.[7]
How to enable the local council and other agencies
to be more responsive to the last question is critical to this
aspect of the committee's interest, but it was when city parks
ceased to be factored into local authority Standard Spending Assessments
that their decline accelerated. I interviewed a man who retired
from working in Handsworth Park in 1975. He showed me his retirement
card signed by 16 co-workers and gave me a thumbnail sketch of
each. Central-Local government financing arrangements contain
one answer to the "who can?" question.
If you consider the poor condition of the ponds
in Handsworth Park you must consider the need—if improvements
are to be achieved—for shared commitment from Severn Trent
Water Company, the Main Drainage Division of Birmingham City Council
Transportation Department, the City Council's Environmental Department
and the Environment Agency as the overseeing regulatory body.
It has clearly been helpful for the water company to have had
a Tame River Basin Strategy since the consultation process for
that strategy allowed our group to make an input on the state
of the ponds and the watercourses feeding them into the final
document.[8]
Information from the City Council's Conservation officer and the
creation of a City Conservation Strategy helped to focus attention
to the park ponds as an existing and potentially even richer nature
reserve along with other features of the park.
Similarly if more security is to be achieved
in and around the park there needs to be closer liaison between
the local police, the Ranger Service of the City Council's Leisure
and Community Services Department, Social Services and Urban Renewal.
Such liaison has been assisted by an SRB grant on Community Safety
to which our group contributed during the consultation process
where we drew attention to the current view of individuals and
schools that the park was not a safe place and that fear of traffic
in bordering roads added to fear of conventional crime in making
too many local people wary about visiting or allowing their children
to visit Handsworth Park.
The role of the local community is of course
crucial and the following "Inventory of activities[9]
", drawn up for local authority officers with whom we have
been participating in preparing a lottery bid on behalf of Handsworth
Park, gives an idea of how much can be achieved by a dynamic local
voluntary group committed to its local park and keen to widen
its base of community support (it is less important that all items
in the list are referenced than that the list gives a feel for
the range and detail of our activities in connection with Handsworth
Park):
Publications
Community Forum Report
on Handsworth Park: Barry Toon's 1994 illustrated overview of
problems and possibilities in the park
Conservation Strategy Response:
"Save Handsworth Park's" response by John Richfield
to the City's invitation to consult on a conservation strategy
for Birmingham. 1995
"The Founding of Handsworth Park 1882-1898"—A
history by Simon Baddeley (1996) sold by "SHP" and through
Soho House—reissued 1997
Tame Catchment Area Management Plan:
response by "SHP" to invitation to consult. Involved
tracing watercourses and beginning to liaise with range of separate
agencies able to begin to clean up the park ponds and restore
flow. 1996
Handsworth Park: Educational Package:
prepared for Maxine Howell at Welford Primary School. There are
already six schools being co-ordinated by Graham Winfield, A Governor
at St Peter's school who are expressing interest but awaiting
the refurbishment of Sons of Rest Pavilion. A video record has
been made of one class visiting the park in February 1999 and
displays prepared of the children's accounts. 1998-99
Cycle route link to Sustrans:
"SHP"s response to City Cycling Strategy document which
includes our proposal for a link between Handsworth Park and the
main Sustrans route through Birmingham. 1996
Management plan for St Mary's Graveyard:
"SHP" involved in setting up "Graveyard Planning
Group" to modify cutting regime and move towards meadow cut
and cassation of poisoning. New gates for the graveyard designed
by the children, constructed by a local craftsman and part funded
by Cemeteries Section of the City Council and officially opened
at a gathering led by the local vicar, the school and members
of "SHP" who have responsibility for opening and locking
gates. 1995-97
Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) "Community
Safety Proposals": contributions
by "SHP" to a joint bid for funds for programmes to
reduce the levels of crime and the fear of crime in the community—January
1998
Joint report for the DETR "Committee on the
Future for Allotments": outlining
case study of campaign to prove demand for threatened Victoria
Jubilee Allotments site (in collaboration with representatives
of threatened private allotment sites in South Birmingham). Continuing
campaign by sister organisation—the Handswoth Allotments
Information Group (HAIG)—to oppose plans to build houses
on 18 acres of private allotments adjoining the Park—linked
to campaign to build on "brown field" sites and restore
many derelict homes in Handsworth. 1998-99
Pamphlets
Water pollution in ponds: leaflet explaining complexity
of the problem and the agencies involved widely circulated and
available on request. 1996
Allotments in Handsworth: leaflet explaining location
of the allotments and their potential in order to confirm demand
for allotments in the area. 1996
Petitions
Swimming Baths: petition against building on the
site into the park: approximately 250 signatures. 1994
Park Lodge 2—following serious vandalism and
arson approximately 90 and 100 signatures 1994 and 1996
Traffic calming in Hamstead Road: approximately 60
signatures 1997. Sons of Rest Pavilion petition—approximately
400 signatures. 1997
Children's play area: petition signed only by local
children—300 signatures. 1999
Events
Picnic in the park 2. 1997—2-o'clock slot on
Sundays—safe hour in the park. 1997
Meetings
Regular public meetings since 1994.
Regular business meetings.
6 consultation meetings with City's "Landscape
Planning Group" preparing Heritage Fund Lottery bid. 1997
5 Graveyard management meetings (7 people).
Meeting with solicitor (Gary Death) re Charity status
and Karen Wright (and other meetings on Charity Status with accompanying
background work). 1998
Preparation by Dannie Peters of constitution for
new group "The Handsworth Park Association" ("HPA").
1999
Site Meetings
Councillors and officers tour of the Park. 1996
Meeting with Environment Agency, Severn Trent Water
and Transportation Department sewage agency officers. 1997
Meeting with National Trust officer re Lottery. 1997
Jeff Rooker MP-tour in park in October 1996
Schools/ranger/teacher at Playcentre 2. 1998
Simon Cooper/Robin Bryan checking contract compliance
2. 1998
Railway Development Society meeting re Handsworth
Wood and Soho Road rail stations re-opening review. 1998
Research
Companies House, Friendly Association Head Office
Maps, etc. papers for "History"
in Central Library. 1995-1997
Identification of trees: Environment Agency "Black
Poplar Survey". 1996
Visits
Sefton Park, Liverpool. 1996
The Living Churchyard and Cemetery Project, Stoneleigh
Park Warwick. 1997
Chumleigh Multi-Cultural Gardens, Southwalk. 1997
West Park, Wolverhampton. 1998
Monitoring
Contract monitoring work (photos, collecting contracts,
bills of quantity etc). 1997
Presentations
Handsworth Historical Society and Great Barr History
Societies. 1998
Ward area sub-committees. 1994
Handsworth One Group. 1997
Woodcraft Folk. 1997
Talk on seminar "Role of Parks in Urban and
Social Regeneration"—Birmingham University. 1998
Phone Communications
Miscellaneous and varied. John Richfield and Simon
Baddeley have used phones for recording responses to Allotments
Need Survey and for "Park Watch" enquiries.
TV/Radio (Studio and OB)Newspapers
Ava Ming show (BBC). 1998
Carl Chinn et al (BBC). 1996-1997—1998-1999
Various outside broadcasts with TV and Radio
"Lord of Handsworth" story Evening Mail/BBC/Cable
Playground story, etc., in all local papers and many
other stories in Evening Mail and Metronews. 1995
"Private Investigations" (currently
being filmed) BBC, White City
Voluntary Work
Litter picks 2
Graveyard gates project with St Mary's Church and
school
Graveyard graffiti removal and estate management
Leisure Centre graffiti removal
Sons of Rest repairs and graffiti removal
Monitoring grounds maintenance
Traffic monitoring
"Parkwatch" liaison with Thornhill Road
Police
Survey of users of park with City Council
Bird survey list
Leaflet Delivery/Subs Collection etc
Regular team sub collection and membership drive
led by Dulcie Szereter
4. THE FUNDING
OF PUBLIC
PARKS
For us the issue of funding revolves round the
political assertion that the Park is by definition a "public
good". A way to secure a certain idea of green space would
be to make it private like the Botanic Gardens in Edgbaston, Birmingham
which charge for entrance or the Winterbourne Gardens attached
to Birmingham University which are supported by annual subscription.
These exquisite spaces preserve a certain version of Handsworth
Park's splendour, with few (though skilled) staff and minimal
security through being exclusive and inaccessible by price and
location. But when the Earl of Dartmouth, using a silver key,
unlocked the ornate Hamstead Road gates[10]
of Handsworth Park on 30 March 1898, he declared in a loud voice
that Handsworth Park was to be "open to the people for ever".[11]
There are many causes not all fathomable—but
the least acceptable of all the explanations for what has happened
is that Handsworth Park was once better looked after because it
was a pleasure garden for the area's now departed rich. Handsworth
Park, like many city parks has lost the stewardship needed to
maintain Lord Dartmouth's declaration. Its founders, though prosperous,
never meant this park to be exclusive to those who could afford
it. As the civic gospel of municipal improvement spread from Birmingham
into the estates of Handsworth, its local government leaders saw
a park as a benefit for the district. Following the setting up
of an education board and a free library, the adoption and proper
kerbing of roads, street lighting, tramways and the construction
of sewers, influential voices in the district began to speak of
the need for a "lung" in the city. They did not pursue
such an idea simply out of expediency or to raise the value of
their properties. Such self-interest was present—used unashamedly
to strengthen their case among the practically minded citizens
of Handsworth and more covertly to mitigate social conditions
that might spur political unrest—but opposition to the Park
from some of those who would be paying for it was at times so
intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried
the project through.
One off funding from a source such as the National
Heritage Lottery would be of great benefit to Handsworth Park
in providing funding to replace lost features such as gates, railing,
trees and shrubs and to repair the water flow through the park,
but the key funding must be continued revenue support for stewardship—by
skilled wardens and gardeners. This income could be supplemented
by appropriately bonded local entertainments and festivals. Obviously
it would be preferable if park staff could be drawn from the local
population and if their source of funding could foster local attachment.
Here, if ever, is a case for a revival of a parish rate—a
tax that is attached to a sense of place, already supported by
keen local voluntary work committed to the manifold acts of husbandry
that go to create or renew a sense of place.
5. OTHER MATTERS
In our discussions of Handsworth Park with the
local authority we find ourselves returning continuously to limitations
in the local authority's capacity to think about or imagine Handsworth
Park in the way that seems normal to those of us who live near
it and visit it regularly.
Where the local government officers we deal
with (not all) perhaps have to think of a bounded space for which
they have responsibilities defined by their job description and
budget we think of an area with more permeable boundaries.
Thus we cannot think of access to the park without
thinking about the state of traffic on surrounding roads, nor
can we think about the park's paths without imagining how they
can be used by walkers and cyclists to visit not only the park
but to get via the park from one area of Handsworth to another.
Such thinking also connects to our hope of having
a link from the park to the main SUSTRANS route through the city,
and thinking about transport by cycle we recall the closed-down
railway stations of "Handsworth Wood"—actually
in the park—and "Soho Road", a few hundred yards
south of the park, on the working line that runs through the centre
of the park and was there before the park was founded.
We cannot think about security in the park without
thinking about the role of local schools in using the park as
a classroom or about ways in which different agencies might collaborate
to teach a new generation respect for the park they visit during
school or pass through on their way to and from school, nor can
we think about the playgrounds for younger children in the park
without thinking about how these fit into the larger picture of
play and sport in the park and its linkage to the activities of
the Leisure Centre which at present operates almost entirely separately
from the park in which it is located.
While we celebrate the park as a local space
we want to see how it fits into an overall strategy for using
and protecting green space across the city.
We cannot think about staff in the park without
being drawn to the possibilities of sponsored apprenticeships
in estate management and horticulture in association with local
colleges, nor about wildlife and conservation without thinking
of the 18 acres of private allotments currently threatened with
building development immediately adjacent to the southern edge
of the park, and thinking about allotments brings us to issues
of sustainability and local food growing as part of the role of
the whole space that we think of as Handsworth Park.
When we think of Handsworth Park and the adjoining
Victoria Jubilee Allotments we also think of the church of St
Mary's and the graveyard and its association with the remains
of the founding fathers of the industrial revolution—Watt,
Murdock and Boulton—and the link of this building with Soho
House Museum hardly half-a-mile away celebrating the work of the
Lunar Society.
When we think about the ponds in Handsworth
Park, hoping that one day they may again be used for boating as
at West Park, Wolverhampton (also landscaped by Richard Hartland
Vertegans) we think of the surrounding water courses that run
from other parts of Handsworth, usually culverted, to the river
Tame and beyond and reflect on the possibility of being able to
reopen these water courses as a reminder that surface water drains
away across the whole area and that road grills in the gutters
are not places down which it is all right to dispose of sump oil,
detergent and other pollutants.
Finally while we recall the history of the park
and draw on it to make sense of the present we know that whatever
it becomes will be uniquely and originally connected to the current
and future population of Handsworth and its surrounding districts.
2 We had some lovely summers there when we were kiddies./
When I was young we used to spend virtually all our school holidays
in the park./ We went down to Handsworth Park practically every
day to meet all the other young mums and their babies./ There
was skating on the pool./ When the boathouse was there you hired
a boat to go round the pool./ It really was an interesting place.
And they always had the Scout's Rally there once a year./ And
the flower show was there in those days. The dog show. The Park
House where you got ice creams. The cabbage patch where you went
to play football./ Bands in the bandstand on a Sunday./ There
used to be a group of old Sikh gentlemen playing cards by the
boathouse./ The park used to be packed; crowded out with kiddies,
all with a bottle of pop or something like that to last you for
the day./ Mothers with prams and pushchairs going through./ Oh
there was tennis, bowls, tiddlers in the pool. It was a beautiful
park then. (extracts from recorded accounts collected by S.
Baddeley during 1995) Back
3
Ken Worpole and Liz Greenhalgh (1999) The Richness of Cities:
Final Report (Comedia/Demos). Back
4
Geographic information systems analysis of the operation of the
housing market: Birmingham City Council Housing Department-courtesy
of Dr Alan Elkin, Deputy Director of Housing, lead officer for
Handsworth Ward Sub-Committee. Back
5
An exception is apparent in the photographic record of African-Caribbean
presence in Handsworth by Vanley Burke (Sealey, M(ed)(1993) Vanley
Burke: A Retrospective (Lawrence and Wishart: London) see especially
pp. 26, 39, 45, 49, 55, 63, and especially pp. 74-75 the tableau
of a crowd overlooking the Handsworth Park bandstand in 1975. Back
6
Handsworth Park Landscape Survey (1-2 September 1998 "Rain,
brightening, overcast late afternoon." Grid Ref: SP 054905)
by Dr Hilary Taylor, Parlkands Consortium. Back
7
Conway, H (1991) People's Parks: the Design and Development of
Victorian Parks in Britain (Cambridge University Press), Greenhalgh,
L and Worpole, K (1996) People, Parks and Cities: A Guide to Current
good Practice in Urban Parks: A Report for the Department of the
Environment (London: HMSO), Grove-White, R (1996) Public Parks,
Public Authorities, and Public Sensibilities (Unpublished draft
received January 1996) (Centre for the Study of Environmental
Change [CSEC]: Lancaster University), Alan Barber (1998) "Best
Value" for Public Parks, ILAM Seminar, London. Back
8
Tame Catchment Area Management Plan Consultation Report-response
by John Richfield for "Save Handsworth Park"-March 1996.
The author with assistance from other "SHP" members
traced and photographed the course of the Handsworth Brook while
preparing this report on the now degraded water sources polluting
the ponds in the Park. Back
9
Inventory of activities by "Save Handsworth Park" prepared
for Adrian Rourke, Birmingham Design Services, Landscape Practise
Group, Department of Leisure and Community Services, Birmingham
City Council-October 1998. Back
10
Not the present gates. The originals went, with the other fine
Victorian railings, to assist the war effort in 1939. Back
11
Handsworth Herald and North Birmingham News, 2 April 1898-Birmingham
Central Library. Back
| 
