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Dr Katy Layton-Jones

Profile summary

Professional biography

I am a cultural historian and historical consultant based in the School of History. My research focuses on visual histories, landscape, and the urban realm. Having completed my PhD at the University of Cambridge, I was appointed Research Associate at the University of Liverpool where I was engaged on the Liverpool Parks and Open Spaces research project, co-funded and supported by the ESRC, English Heritage, and Liverpool City Council.

I have taught subjects ranging from the history of London to Worlds’ Fairs to urban theory and conservation, art history, and the birth of consumer society. I am a member of the International Advisory Boards for Urban History and Midland History. Between 2015 and 2017 I served on the advisory panel for the AHRC-funded The Future Prospects of Urban Parks research project at the University of Leeds and I am a Board Advisor for The Parks Alliance. In 2016 I gave evidence to the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee on public parks. I have published for academic, public, and professional audiences. In 2014 I authored the National Review of Research Priorities for Urban Parks, Designed Landscapes and Open Spaces (English Heritage, 2014) followed by a critical History of Public Park Funding and Management (1820 – 2010) (Historic England, 2016), and Uncertain Prospects: public parks in the new age of austerity (The Gardens Trust, 2016). I have been a contributor to the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, for which I’ve written on subjects including: sex in Victorian public parks, funeral warehouses, the Art-Treasures Exhibition, panoramas, and war cemeteries.

My media appearances include BBC Radio 4’s Making History, The Matter of the North, and The Verb, the BBC television series, People’s Palaces: The Golden Age of Civic Architecture, and Channel 4's Prince Albert: A Victorian Hero Revealed. My first book, Places of Health and Amusement was published by English Heritage in 2008. My monograph, Beyond the Metropolis: the image of urban Britain 1780 – 1880 was published by Manchester University Press in 2016. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Publications

[Book Review] Greening the City: Nature in French Towns from the 17th Century. By Charles-François Mathis and Émilie-Anne Pepy. (2021-11)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Urban History, 48(4) (pp. 754-756)


How to Lay Out a Very Large Garden Indeed: Edward Kemp’s Liverpool Parks, their History and Legacy (2018)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Garden History, 46(Suppl. 1) (pp. 72-82)


The Parks Conundrum (2014)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Context: Institute of Historic Building Conservation(133) (pp. 18-21)


A Commanding View: Liverpool’s Public Parks, 1722-1870 (2013-03-01)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Cultural and Social History, 10(1) (pp. 47-67)


Topographical Prints and the Image of Bristol, 1795-1860 (2010)
Layton-Jones, Katy
The Regional Historian(21) (pp. 28-33)


Introduction: Visual Collections as Historical Evidence (2008-06)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Visual Resources, 24(2) (pp. 105-107)


The Synthesis of Town and Trade: Visualising Provincial Urban Identity 1800-1851 (2008-05)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Urban History, 35(1) (pp. 72-95)


Visual Quotations: Referencing Visual Sources as Historical Evidence (2008)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Visual Resources, 24(2) (pp. 189-199)


Re-Presenting Manchester: The Art-Treasures Exhibition in Manchester 1857 (2005)
Layton-Jones, Katy
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 87(2) (pp. 123-142)


Beyond the metropolis: the changing nature of urban Britain, 1780-1880 (2016)
Layton-Jones, Katy
ISBN : 978-0-7190-9969-4 | Publisher : Manchester University Press


Places of Health and Amusement: Liverpool’s Historic Parks and Gardens (2008-06-15)
Layton-Jones, Katy and Lee, Robert
Informed Conservation
ISBN : 978-1873592915 | Publisher : English Heritage | Published : Swindon


Manufactured landscapes: Victorian public parks and the industrial imagination (2018-05)
Layton-Jones, Katy
In: Dick, Malcolm and Mitchell, Elaine eds. Gardens and Green Spaces in the West Midlands since 1700 (pp. 120-137)
ISBN : 9781909291553 | Publisher : University of Hertfordshire Press | Published : Hatfield


What has the future of urban parks to do with their past? (2016-06-22)
Layton-Jones, Katy
In: von Lunen, Alexander and Griffiths, Sam eds. Spatial Cultures: Towards a New Social Morphology of Cities Past and Present. Design and Built Environment (pp. 128-138)
ISBN : 9781472450296 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon and New York


A Legacy of Ambivalence: Industrial Exhibitions, Pleasure Parks and Urban Green Space (2013-03-26)
Layton-Jones, Katy
In: Itzen, Peter and Muller, Christian eds. The Invention of Industrial Pasts Heritage, Political Culture and Economic Debates in Great Britain and Germany, 1850–2010 (pp. 132-152)
ISBN : 978-3-89639-910-6 | Publisher : Wissner | Published : Augsburg


A Picturesque Port or a Sublime Scene? The Bristol Docks (2013)
Layton-Jones, Katy
In: Poole, Steve ed. A City Built Upon the Water: Maritime Bristol 1750-1900 (pp. 138-154)
ISBN : 9781908326102 | Publisher : Redcliffe | Published : Bristol


New Perspectives in British Cultural History (2007-04)
Crone, Rosalind; Gange, David and Jones, Katy eds.
ISBN : 1 84718 155 4 | Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing | Published : Newcastle