£9,500 grant to celebrate parks and gardens in East Devon

Lyra's drawing of the Land of Canaan, in Ottery, was chosen as a winnner. (Image: Archant)

The history of much-loved parks and gardens across East Devon will be captured for posterity thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund award of £9,500. ‘Interpretation panels’ for each of East Devon District Council’s eight parks and gardens are currently being developed using information provided by local museums and communities.

It is hoped they can be installed this spring.

The panels and a trail leaflet for the project have been made possible thanks to a £9,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which East Devon District Council had applied for.

The eight parks and gardens in the project are: Blackmore Gardens and Connaught Gardens, Sidmouth; The Glen, Honiton; Canaan Way, Ottery St Mary; Seafield Gardens, Seaton; The Green, Budleigh Salterton; Beach Gardens and Manor Gardens, Exmouth.

This drawing of Seafield Gardens in Seaton, by Morgan Locke, was chosen as a winner. (Image: Archant)

East Devon’s parks and open spaces improvement officer Jane Nicholls has been working with primary schools – including those in Seaton, Sidmouth, Ottery, and Exmouth’s Beacon and Exeter Road schools - to bring together the stories about how the parks and gardens were created and the major events that have taken place within them.

Around 245 children from these schools have visited these parks and gardens to photograph them. Using the images that they have taken, as well as historic photographs, the children have also created their own drawings of the parks or gardens as they currently appear today, as well as pictures of how they think the sites would have looked in the past.

A judging panel selected two winners from the children’s final drawings.

Prizes including a bus pass donated by Stagecoach, allowing a family to visit all eight parks and gardens across the district, a picnic blanket so they sit down and enjoy the park and a free pass for pitch and putt donated by LED, are being presented to the winners at their schools by Jane Nicholls and Cllr Chubb.

Work is continuing on the trail leaflet, which will feature images taken/chosen by the children. The council aims to distribute the leaflets in June to local schools, tourist information centres, libraries and through council offices.

Councillor Iain Chubb, portfolio holder for the environment, said: “This unique project is a marvellous way of sharing the history of East Devon’s eight much loved parks and gardens.”

Nerys Watts, from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is funding the project through Sharing Heritage, said: “East Devon’s open spaces play such an important role as havens from the bustle of daily life, and we are thrilled to help raise awareness of them and their historic value for as many people as possible.”