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Historic repairs to Highbury Park get underway
| Published: 22nd January 2012 19:30 |
Work was starting today on £170,000 of repairs to Highbury Park.
The repairs, funded from Birmingham City Council's capital programme include filling in potholes around the car park and main access, tackling soil erosion near the duck pond stream footbridge and restoration of the historic viewing platform.
The so-called Joseph Chamberlain platform was part of the ornate gardens of Highbury Hall, which occupied the land between the main pond and Yew Tree Road.
The gardens were created between 1890 and 1914 by Joseph Chamberlain and contained many features such as an Italian Garden, a Dutch Garden, an Elizabethan Garden, a sundial on a raised platform overlooking the Tea Gardens. Many of these features still exist, but have been allowed to fall into disrepair since the early 1980s.
The Viewing Platform itself was created in 1890 and it was from this vantage point that Joseph Chamberlain was able to view his ornate gardens of Highbury Hall, looking down to the main pond that still exists today.
Moseley and Kings Heath councillor Martin Mullaney, who bid for the funding last summer after he and a friend rescued most of the damaged stonework and, using two wheelbarrows he says hid it elsewhere in the park to stop the ornate stonework being damaged any further.
"This Viewing Platform will be restored to its former glory, with new stones carved to replace any that are beyond saving. There will also be some repair work to the rocky outcrop that the platform rests on, including careful removal of any self seeding trees that are growing in-between the layers of rocks," he says.
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