A £6.6 million proposal produced by LDA Design to rejuvenate Cassiobury Park in Watford has secured support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Big Lottery Fund (BIG).
Formerly the estate of the Earls of Essex, the 75-hectare Cassiobury Park is now one the nation’s best-known and well-loved parks. It was recently voted the nation’s third favourite park in the Green Flag Awards’ People’s Choice Award public poll, and the site sees around two million visits a year. However, the park has lost many of its historic features, including its bandstand, drinking fountain and water mill, with others obscured due to changes in land management. It also has to look to the future and the park is being affected by climate change.
The plan to transform the park will see these features restored and allow the local community to reconnect physically, intellectually and emotionally with their past and their environment. LDA Design’s scheme will restore and reveal lost character and features of the 380-year-old designed landscape of the Earls of Essex’s former Home Park, High Park and woodland, while also revitalising its twentieth century overlay as a public park serving “Metroland” suburbia.
Key features of the proposals include:
• Conserving and enhancing parkland and river valley landscapes by restoring areas of grassland and reversing the loss of views across the River Gade and Grand Union Canal through the thinning of trees and scrub.
• Restoring historic parkland and woodland rides, such as the Mile Walk, and conserving veteran trees along the Lime Avenue to improve connections with nearby Whippendell Wood.
• Restoring and enhancing the layout of key features of the twentieth century public park including the locally listed tea pavilion and its setting, including the lost drinking fountain.
• Re-installing the park’s original bandstand by moving it from its current location outside the town hall.
• Enhancing the much-loved 1980s paddling pool to twenty-first century standards.
• Improving some sports facilities, such as the popular croquet pitches.
• Creating a new “hub” building with improved facilities and as a base for park rangers.
• Re-interpreting lost features such as the Swiss Cottage and the Old Mill on the River Gade.
LDA Design
Tel: +44(0)20 7467 1470
www.lda-design.co.uk