Paul A. Rabbitts

Dr Paul Rabbitts was born in 1965 in rural North Yorkshire and graduated at Sheffield City Polytechnic with a BA Honours in Geography (1987) followed by a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh University (1989) and a PhD at the University of East Anglia (2025). He is a qualified landscape architect and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Chartered Member of the Institute of Horticulture as well as Chair of the Parks Management Association. He has worked for local authorities in the Channel Islands, Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Watford, Southend-on-Sea as well as in a large global engineering consultancy based in the NE of England. Currently Parks Manager in Norwich, he is a passionate advocate for public parks and in particular the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand. His interest stems from the early responsibility for one of the first Lottery funded parks restoration projects in Carlisle and he has project managed many since then. His first book was in 2011 on the iconic bandstand and was followed rapidly by books on Regent's Park (2012), Richmond Park (2013), The Royal Parks (2013), Bandstands of Britain (2014) as well as the first history of Cassiobury Park in Watford (2014). This was followed by a book on the first history of Hyde Park (2015) in 80 years. Many other books have followed including Great British Parks (2016) and a social history of the bandstand for Historic England published in 2018, a biography of Decimus Burton (2021) and THE book on public parks, People's Parks – The Design and Development of Public Parks in Britain (2024). He is a UK leading expert on public parks and bandstands and has been asked by many groups to assist in localised restoration projects up and down the country and is a regular speak on all things bandstands and public parks. He is also a major campaigner on the value of public parks nationally, contributing to the ongoing debate on their current plight.