Next month, Routledge Books will be re-publishing two classic books by Ann and Malcolm MacEwen. National Parks: Conservation or Cosmetics? (first published 1982) and Greenprints for the Countryside? The Story of Britain’s National Parks (1987).
Both books set out the tortuous history of the development of National Parks in the UK and recorded their current state in terms of landscape and nature conservation as well as economic health. Looking forward, the MacEwens saw the national parks not as specially protected oases but as experiments in integrated land management that could provide useful ‘greenprints’ for the harmonious management of the wider countryside.
Ann MacEwen was an architect and urban planner. Malcolm had had a career in journalism, editing the Royal Institute of British Architects’ RIBA Journal. Retiring to Wootton Courtenay in Exmoor, Malcolm was appointed in 1973 as a Secretary of State nominee to the first unitary Exmoor National Park Committee. There, alongside the Exmoor Society, he battled to stop the loss of moorland by ploughing and played an important part in raising the issue nationally, leading to the setting up of the Porchester Inquiry.
Malcolm MacEwen was the editor of the Society’s Exmoor Review from 1974 to 1978, an Executive Committee member (1973-9) and Society Vice President (1992-6). The republishing of these works cements the MacEwens as important authorities on the past and future of national parks.
Graeme Horn, Archive Volunteer, November 2025
