A new Royal Parks heritage centre could host amazing images from the city's history

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A collector today appealed to Londoners to help fund a new centre to house unusual photographs and artefacts from the Royal Parks.

Daniel Hearsum, owner of Grade II-listed Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park, is trying to raise £1.5 million towards a “heritage pavilion”.

The philanthropist, whose family bought and renovated the derelict mansion 22 years ago, has spent decades collecting more than 10,000 pieces of memorabilia relating to Richmond and the seven other Royal Parks in London. They include 720 books, 285 paintings, 489 photographs dating from 1870 to this year, and 18th century entrance tickets.

Mr Hearsum found many of them online because they were scattered around the world. One of the archive photographs shows Londoner Angela McWilliams walking her pet leopard, Michael, in Kensington Gardens in 1979. Others are of sheep shearing in 1948, also in Kensington Gardens, and swimming in the Serpentine at Hyde Park in 1933.

Pembroke Lodge has housed a “trial” visitors’ centre, operated by volunteers from The Friends of Richmond Park, since 2008. Mr Hearsum has planning permission to build a new slate-roofed centre on residential land, which would have interactive displays about the park’s heritage on six-month rotation. They would cover the park’s creation by Charles I in 1637, as well as its royal occupants, military uses and environmental history.

Thanks to funding from NatWest, the Hearsum family donated £550,000 to the project, and the additional £1.5 million will cover all building and operating costs, and an online archive about all the Royal Parks. Mr Hearsum said: “What was a hobby became a passion, a registered charity, and is now a massive collection.”

Andrew Scattergood, chief executive of The Royal Parks, said: “We support the concept of building a heritage centre in Richmond Park, which is subject to raising the required capital. We recognise the benefits that the centre will bring to visitors of this much-loved park and its place in the history of London.”

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