June 21, 2010

  • Parklife

    Midsummer's evening and we have been having a veritable heatwave the last few days.

    The weekend was especially nice and a lot of it was spent in our local park - The Ormeau Park. It is a typically Victorian park, beautifully laid out with a wide variety of plants and many different areas for people to either walk the dog, play sports, read a book etc.

     

    From Wikipedia: The land for Ormeau Park was formerly part of the Donegall family estate. It became their home in 1807, when the family moved to Ormeau Cottage from their town house in Donegall Place. The building was extended by George Chichester, 2nd Marquess of Donegall, who lived there until his death in 1844. Eventually the family was forced to sell the estate to pay its spiralling debt. In 1869, the area was purchased by Belfast Corporation and it was opened as a park to the public in 1871. The opening of Belfast's first public park was marked with a parade from Carlisle Circus through Belfast which attracted a large crowd and finished with speeches in the park.

    The park was designed by Timothy Hevey, a successful young architect of the day. He won a competition for the best design for 100 acres (0.40 km2) of parkland. The present-day park still roughly follows his design with several alterations. Some of the land is home to the 9-hole course of Ormeau Golf Club, and other nearby land near Ravenhill was laid out in playing fields. The embankment road cut off the river frontage of the park in the 1920s.

    What I love most are the trees, there are so many of them! In addition to the quantity is the variety, there are so many different species of trees in the one place and having walked Fintan through this park from Autumn last year to Summer now I know that at any one time there is always something to see and enjoy.

    Aren't trees amazing things? How often do you stop and look at them?