Now this bandstand is one I like.
It is in North Park Lodge in Darlington, has its own facebook page and last year was damaged by a group of mindless vandals. *
Happily, bandstands are making a comeback, although it was a close-run thing for many.
Anyone old enough to remember municipal bandstands in their heyday will have watched their slow decline.
It was a combination of things from that war time push to recycle old iron which robbed the stands of their ornate pillars and roof, to successive budget cuts and finally that simple fact that they fell out of fashion.
So, when I was growing up our band stand which had long ago had become just a brick and stand was just somewhere that on rainy days you played.
No one sat in deck chairs enjoying a selection of music as the sun was reflected on the shiny brass instruments and park authorities looked upon them as old unfashionable blots on the landscape.
According to one new book on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient. The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples. **
The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.
All of which leaves me to thank Yvonne Richardson who allowed me to share this one of her bandstands.
Location; North Lodge Park Darlington
Picture; the bandstand, North Lodge Park Darlington, from the collection of Yvonne Richardson
*North Lodge Park bandstand in Darlington vandalised, The Northern Echo, September 12 2018 https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/16836344.north-lodge-park-bandstand-in-darlington-vandalised/
**A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56
Happily, bandstands are making a comeback, although it was a close-run thing for many.
Anyone old enough to remember municipal bandstands in their heyday will have watched their slow decline.
It was a combination of things from that war time push to recycle old iron which robbed the stands of their ornate pillars and roof, to successive budget cuts and finally that simple fact that they fell out of fashion.
No one sat in deck chairs enjoying a selection of music as the sun was reflected on the shiny brass instruments and park authorities looked upon them as old unfashionable blots on the landscape.
According to one new book on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient. The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples. **
The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.
All of which leaves me to thank Yvonne Richardson who allowed me to share this one of her bandstands.
Location; North Lodge Park Darlington
Picture; the bandstand, North Lodge Park Darlington, from the collection of Yvonne Richardson
*North Lodge Park bandstand in Darlington vandalised, The Northern Echo, September 12 2018 https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/16836344.north-lodge-park-bandstand-in-darlington-vandalised/
**A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56
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