David is an acknowledged expert on the conservation of historic parks and gardens. He has been influential in the development of heritage policy and is also a leading authority on researching the history of parks and gardens.

After a first-class degree in English from Exeter College, Oxford, David went on to teach briefly at Clifton College in Bristol before becoming a Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies at the University of York. He then became Conservation Officer for the Garden History Society and oversaw the development of the GHS as a statutory consultee in the planning process.

In 1993, he and Hazel Conway wrote Public Prospects, one of the first reports to draw attention to the crisis in public parks, and he has been closely involved in the renaissance of urban parks over the following twenty years. He served as special adviser to three House of Commons Select Committee inquiries and for many years was a member of the National Trust’s Gardens Panel; in addition he has served on Historic England’s Advisory Committee, and on advisory panels for Historic Royal Palaces and the World Monuments Fund.  In 2002, he joined Stewart as co-director of the Parks Agency.

From 1995 to 2017 he worked closely with the Heritage Lottery Fund (now the National Lottery Heritage Fund) on the the development and implementation of its grants for public parks,  as a panel member, external advisor, monitor and mentor on over a hundred park restoration projects. He is a member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and a Fellow of the RSA.

He has lectured and published widely on the subject of historic parks and gardens. His publications include Parks and Gardens: a researcher’s guide;  The Park Keeper and War Memorial Parks and Gardens for English Heritage.  He has written the Perambulator column in the The London Gardener for many years.    Until 2021 he was a trustee of the Gardens Trust and a member of its conservation committee.

In 2018 he was belatedly but overwhelmingly awakened to the facts about climate change and the crisis in biodiversity loss.  He reduced his work for the Parks Agency to focus on activism with Extinction Rebellion, which culminated in 2021 with being one of six people tried for criminal damage to Shell’s HQ in London, a trial which ended after two weeks with the jury finding the group not guilty.   These days his focus is increasingly on local community development and resilience.  His recent writing and public speaking have explored how gardens can help us process loss and grief around climate and ecological collapse.