The Hamilton council was also involved in 1859 in another booster scheme. They had arranged with the county council that the two parties would jointly purchase land on the western limits of the city to develop as a site to house the provincial exhibition which was then rotating between London, Toronto, and Kingston. It was hoped that the crowds which, would be associated with the exhibition would stimulate the again faltering economy.[20] The land was cleared and graded and a large glass walled, domed building as well as several smaller buildings were erected to house the exhibits. The Prince of Wales opened the first exhibition and dedicated the Gore Park fountain on his visit to the city in 1860.
The Gore had been designed and planted in the formal, symmetrical style common to small public gardens in England at the time. The exhibition grounds attempted to emulate the Crystal Palace exhibition grounds and park at Sydenham, England. The Crystal Palace was an elaborate glass building designed for use as a "Winter Garden and Garden under glass".[21] The Hamilton building was a less elaborate copy of the Sydenham building and was given the same name. It is likely the city and county councils hoped their exhibition would benefit from the other's reputation and that their replica of the famous building would heighten interest in the exhibition and draw larger crowds to it.
The exhibition was the city's purpose for the land. Hamilton's citizens used the area as recreational space almost from the beginning. The Crystal Palace building was used by theatrical groups, fraternal and ethnic societies, and myriad other community groups. The grounds were used for races and for lacrosse and baseball games. The Hamilton city council minutes record the widespread use of the exhibition grounds but the councillors do not see the land as park space. The exhibitions held on the grounds decline in importance to the city economy, and the Cemetery and Parks committee repeatedly urges the sale of the grounds to enable the purchase of a park or parks.[22] This suggestion is made each year despite the continuing interest of Hamiltonians in its recreational potential. In 1891 the Crystal Palace was condemned and razed but the land was not sold. Instead council decided to develop the land as Victoria Park. Gore Park and a later acquisition, Wellington Park, had been developed as small formal gardens. Victoria Park was much larger and would be developed differently.
A new type of public park had become popular. In England landscape architects, influenced by Romantic philosophy, had developed a new theory of park design. This development can be viewed in the work of two landscape architects. At first the old formal gardens were simply made less symmetrical and, therefore, more natural. [23] Gradually a new pattern of park design became evident in the work of Lancelot Brown. His principles were first used on grounds adjoining private estates but were taken up later by public park designers. The Brownian landscape park had an encircling belt of trees to block out the view outside the park, clumps of trees set in the middle region of the park and a winding lake whose ends were concealed. This type of design became known as Picturesque because it would create a vista suitable for a painter to take as his subject.[24] John Claudius Loudon refined the natural Picturesque park. He asserts
| the present prevailing taste for botany and agriculture, and the introduction, from other countries, of many new plants which thrive in the open air in our climate, have called for a change in the manner of laying out and planting grounds as shall display these new plants...This change has given rise to a school which we call the Gardenesque; the characteristic feature of which, is the display of the beauty of trees, and other plants, individually. According to the followers of the Picturesque School, trees, shrubs, and flowers were indiscriminately mixed and they were left to grow up and destroy one another, as they would have done in a natural forest. According to the Gardenesque School, on the contrary, all the trees and shrubs planted are arranged in regard to their kind and are thinned out to such distances apart as may best display the natural form and habit of each.[25] |
Visitors to England form North America saw these kinds of parks and carried their design principles home with them.
One such visitor was Frederick Law Olmsted of the United States. Olmsted, a landscape architect, was named superintendent of work on New York's Central Park. This park would be North America's first large public park. It's design and ultimately the development of public parks in North America were shaped by Olmsted's experience of English parks and his view of the purposes of landscape architecture.[26] Together with his partner, Calvert Vaux, he submitted a design for the park to the city council and it was selected.
Olmsted accepted the English idea of the public park as an urban reform measure and saw the purpose of his profession as one of social service.[27] He would design parks which would be an antidote to urban ills. Speaking of such a park he stated:
| We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day's work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling. nothing of the bustle,and jar of the streets, where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them. Practically, what we most want is a simple, broad, open space of clean greensward, with sufficient play of surface and a sufficient number of trees about it to supply a variety of light and shade This we want as a central feature. We want depth of wood enough about it not only for comfort in hot weather, but to completely put out the city from our landscapes.[28] |
Central Park was the first deliberately planned public park in North America. It became a model for park design in other North American cities.
This new North American park became known as a 'pleasure ground'. By the 1890's when Hamilton council decided to develop Victoria Park the features of the pleasure ground had become standardized.[29] The pleasure ground was walled or fenced to prevent the encroachment of the city on the carefully manipulated park environment. The public entered through elaborate entrances. Within the park the paths or drives were winding and circular so that they would contrast with the depressing grid pattern of the city. Usually a drive circled the edge of the park and various pathways crossed through the park. Vehicle and pedestrian traffic were separated. Trees and shrubs were used to screen the park and to define specific areas within it. Grass was important as it pleasantly contrasted with the pavement of the city. Park users were expected to use the paths provided and 'Keep off the grass' signs were common. Artificial lakes with meandering shore lines were an important feature as the water merged with the sky and was suggestive of infinity rather than the finiteness of the urban grid. Natural shore lines and beaches received little attention from pleasure ground design. If there were any buildings in the park they were of rustic log cabin designs and were hidden by arrangements of trees. Buildings were considered an intrusion of the outside world. Playing fields for sport were also considered unworthy of inclusion in the pleasure ground. Public demand sometimes forced the inclusion of such fields on park land and when that occurred they were placed near the edge of the park and screened by trees. The only prominent artificial feature of the pleasure ground was the formal promenade which featured statuary, fountains, and floral displays. This was, the kind of park the Hamilton city council envisioned Victoria Park becoming.
The Crystal Palace grounds had been used by Hamilton's citizens as recreational space. They held meetings there and used the grounds to play baseball, lacrosse, and other games.[30] Victoria Park was developed as a pleasure;ground and the recreational needs of those residents who had used the exhibition grounds were largely ignored.[31] An area for baseball was set aside but council was more interested in the other improvements it was making to the park. A drive circled the park, trees and shrubs were planted, and walkways with benches spaced along them were provided.
A class bias is clearly evident in the development of Victoria Park as a pleasure ground. The men who sat on the council were members of or had access to various athletic and social clubs and, therefore, did not need to use park land for recreational facilities. The working class could not afford the membership or user fees of these clubs and so did not have access to many recreational facilities.[32] An area was set aside in Victoria Park for a baseball field only because of the agitation of the Hamilton Trades and Labour Council. The labour council minutes record a resolution to demand such facilities from the city council.[33] Some time after that resolution the city council minutes mention a baseball field at Victoria.
In 1895 Hamilton's citizens approved a by-law, submitted to them at the municipal elections, for the purchase of a park in the northeastern section of the city. Woodland Park was purchased and developed as a pleasure ground.[34] A baseball field was not included in the layout of the park. Hamilton now had four official city parks. They were acquired by city council and administered by the Parks and Cemeteries committee of council.