Bandstands: Pavilions for music, entertainment and leisure

In 1833, the Select Committee for Public Walks was introduced so that `the
provision of parks would lead to a better use of Sundays and the replacement of
the debasing pleasures.' Music was seen as an important moral influence
and `musical cultivation ... the safest and surest method of popular culture',
and it was the eventual introduction of the bandstand which became a
significant aspect of the reforming potential of public parks.
However, the move from the bull baiting of `Merrie
England' to the ordered recreation provided by bandstands has never been fully
comprehended. Likewise, the extent of changes in leisure and public
entertainment and the impact of music at seaside resorts often revolved around
the use of seaside bandstands, with the subsequent growth of coastal resorts.
Music in public spaces, and the history and heritage of the bandstand has
largely been ignored. Yet in their heyday, there were over 1,500 bandstands in
the country, in public parks, on piers and seaside promenades attracting the
likes of crowds of over 10,000 in the Arboretum in Lincoln, to regular weekday
and weekend concerts in most of London's parks up until the beginning of the
Second World War. Little is really known about them, from their evolution as
`orchestras' in the early Pleasure Gardens, the music played within them, to
their intricate and ornate ironwork or art deco designs and the impact of the
great foundries, their worldwide influence, to the great decline post Second
World War and subsequent revival in the late 1990s. This book tells the story
of these pavilions made for music, and their history, decline and revival.