Open Spaces: With the Excerpt 'The Open Space Movement' by Charles Edmund Maurice

By Octavia Hill and Charles Edmund Maurice

Octavia Hill (1838–1912) was an English social reformer who concentrated on the welfare of city dwellers. Hill was a co-founder of the National Trust, as well as the Charity Organisation Society (now known as Family Action), which pioneered the home-visiting service that provided the basis for modern social work in the U. K. One of her main beliefs was that urban workers should have ample open spaces to enjoy and relax in, and she campaigned vehemently against destroying urban woodlands. In her 1877 essay “Open Spaces”, Hill argues for the protection of green spaces and against the destroying of existing green, open spaces in London, including Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields—spots that remain open spaces to this day thanks to her efforts. Read & Co. Great Essays is republishing this classic essay now complete with the excerpt “The Open Space Movement” by Charles Edmund Maurice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read & Co. Great Essays
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528790659

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OPEN SPACES

By

OCTAVIA HILL

WITH THE EXCERPT

The Open Space Movement

BY CHARLES E. MAURICE

First published in 1877

Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Great Essays

This edition is published by Read & Co. Great Essays,

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". . . So sing ho for the open spaces,

And aesthetes with kindly ways."

—

H. P. Lovecraft,

Arcadia

Contents

THE OPEN SPACE MOVEMENT

By Charles Edmund Maurice

OPEN SPACES

By Octavia Hill

THE OPEN

SPACE MOVEMENT

1875—1878

By Charles Edmund Maurice

The period recorded in the following letters (Life of Octavia Hill as Told in Her Letters, 1913) marks the inauguration of a movement, which Octavia considered almost as important as that housing work with which her name is especially connected—the movement for the preservation of open spaces. It will be remembered that, in her first efforts to deal with tenement houses, she had been particularly anxious to secure a house with a garden; and, failing  that, she had devoted a large part of her energies to laying out a playground, and brightening it by May Festivals, in which efforts she had the hearty co-operation of Mr. Ruskin, who sent his own gardener to plant the trees.

It was natural, therefore, that she should desire to keep open all outlets for her poor friends in Marylebone, which would enable them to enjoy the fresh air and open country.

Hence she became considerably alarmed, when she heard, in 1873, that some difficulties, which had hindered the destruction of the fields near the Swiss Cottage, had been removed; and that building plans were in preparation. The fields were dear to her, not only as the nearest country outlet for the Marylebone poor; but also as recalling her childhood, when they formed part of a wide stretch of open country where she and her sisters had played. She at once threw herself into the promotion of a scheme for saving these fields from the builder, and securing them as a recreation ground for the public. She enlisted the sympathy of Dean Stanley, Mr. Haweis and other well-known Londoners in the movement; while Mr. Edward Bond and Mr. C. L. Lewes and other Hampstead residents tried to stave off  the encroachments of the builders from Hampstead. But the agent, who had the building scheme in hand, when he found that the purchase money was likely to be raised, succeeded in throwing such difficulties in the way, that the scheme was