Parks, Gardens and Open Spaces
See also List of parks, gardens and open spaces in Norwich
Chapelfield Gardens in central Norwich became the city's first public park in November 1880. From the start of the 20th-century Norwich Corporation now Norwich City Council began buying and leasing land to develop parks when funds became available. Sewell Park and James Stuart Gardens are examples of land donated by benefactors.
After World War I the corporation took advantage of government grants and made the decision to construct a series of formal parks as a means to alleviate unemployment. Under the guidance of Parks Superintendent Captain Sandys-Winsch four parks were completed; Heigham Park (1924), Wensum Park (1925), Eaton Park (1928), Waterloo Park (1933). These parks retain many features fron Sandys-Winsch's original plans and have been placed on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.
Currently (2011), the city has 23 parks, 95 open spaces and 59 natural areas managed by the local authority. In addition there are several privately owned gardens which are occasionally opened to the public in aid of charity with the exception of the Plantation Garden located close to the St John the Baptist Cathedral which opens daily.
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Famous quotes containing the words gardens, open and/or spaces:
“Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Luxury, then is a way of
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An approach to the open market
of least information.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there. For there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)