Derby Arboretum - Notable Landmarks

Notable Landmarks

Over the years the Arboretum has incorporated a variety of buildings, statues and ornaments. Perhaps the best known locally is the Florentine Boar statue, which was originally placed on the site in 1806, when the land was Joseph Strutt's private garden. Strutt had commissioned William John Coffee, a Crown Derby sculptor, to make an earthenware copy of the bronze statue which he had seen when he once visited the Mercato Nuovo (New Market) in central Florence. The earthenware boar remained in place after the creation of the Arboretum until it was damaged (actually decapitated) during a German air raid on Derby on 15 January 1941. However, a claim was reported in January 2002 that a Derby resident had, as a child, accidentally broken off the boar's head while climbing on the statue. The current statue is a bronze replacement dedicated in 2005.

Other past and present features of the Arboretum include:

• The original "Grand Entrance" from Grove Street and adjacent lodge.
• An elaborate entrance from Arboretum Square, incorporating a statue of Joseph Strutt, completed in 1852.
• An entrance lodge on the Rose Hill Street side.
• A Victorian bandstand, destroyed along with the Boar in 1941.
• An iron and glass building, later nicknamed the Crystal Palace after the building in London, designed by Henry Duesbury was erected at the Rose Hill Street end of the 1845 extension. This was demolished in the 1890s.
• The fountain, originally built in 1846 and recently restored.
• Two bowling greens, home of the Arboretum and Joseph Strutt Bowls Clubs.
• Arboretum Field, an extension to the original area of the park added in 1845. At one time major football matches were played here, notably Derby Junction's victory over Blackburn Rovers in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1888. There are still football pitches here today.