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Dereliction and Redevelopment
Reconstruction
There was a great deal to watch, and much of interest to observe during the landscaping phase of Ruddington Country Park, as it was called throughout the project. The designers had very definite aims in view as Frank Kerry explains:
“There were 284 acres to landscape, and we wanted to make it as natural as possible. We split the area into low and high maintenance sections. The conservation sections were low maintenance (with the grass cut only once a year). They were sown with wild flower seed mixture. The high maintenance section, for recreation and hard wear, were put down to grass (which needed cutting weekly in summer). When you’re putting down conservation areas you don’t want good quality soil, you want soil with not much nutrient in it and we had plenty of that (in the substantial blast banks around the magazines and filling factory buildings). The sub-soil was bad of course, and when we dug out the lake we made a long embankment in front of the Barleylands houses with it, (and the mounds supporting the bridge).
The
consrtruction of the lakeThe lake was lined with a butyl type material
from Hamburg, Germany. It cost £100,000. Severn Trent filled it for
us in January 1992, later stocked it with fish which were brought in a tanker,
but we left the water to stand and allowed the plants to grow and oxygenate
it for several weeks first. Nothing else was introduced to my knowledge. Everything
else recolonised naturally.”
More than 140,000 trees and shrubs were planted, mostly in plantations surrounded by rabbit proof fences, but a lot of quite large standards were put in. A few of them were exotics to give variety and arouse interest:
“A conscious decision was taken to plant trees indigenous to Britain in the woodland areas. There is a big mixture of tree: oak, ash, larch, pine, birch and native shrubs like privet, hawthorn, dogwood, guelder rose and so on. Along the main road into the site there was an avenue of 60 Norwegian Maple trees which were 30 years old, and we had the bright idea of moving them at a cost of £500 per tree. We dug up each tree very carefully and put them onto a low loader. They were planted around the Business Park, and we didn’t lose a single one.”
A community-planting day was arranged for Sunday 22nd January 1992. Posters were put up inviting the local population to “Be Part of Your Park” by planting trees alongside Asher Lane, in a plantation which became known as the Community Wood.
Jean Gray, a teacher at James Peacock Infant School took her class to plant young trees in the same plantation.
“It was a cold winter day but we were able to keep warm with fetching and carrying of trees, digging and planting. There were about thirty children plus adult helpers, and it was a very exciting experience for us all.”
Other parties of school children, youth organisations and a variety of community groups came in the weeks that followed to plant more trees. In this way a large number of adults and children were able to become actively involved in the reconstruction. Some attended the opening of the hibernaculum, which is usually called the “Bat Cave”. Margaret Heatherley was one of them:
“I went with a group of children from James Peacock School. It was an exciting occasion as Blue Peter presenters and Central Television were present and interviewed some of the children. We were allowed to enter the cave in small groups and walk down the long tunnel with our torches. We could see the ledges, nooks and crannies where the bats might hibernate. We needed Wellingtons as it was very wet underfoot.”
The Story > Chapter 9 > Section 9.07