Bournemouth's Pleasure Gardens win green award

Description:

Bournemouth for ever green

Bournemouth's 150-year old Pleasure Gardens have been awarded a Green Flag for being one of the UK's best green spaces for the past 10 years.

The Bournemouth Pleasure Gardens were laid out in the 1840s and 1860s. In the 1840s the fields south of what is now Bournemouth Square were drained and laid out with shrubs and walkways. They were originally a series of garden walks created in the fields of the Brankesome Estate in the 1860s.

For the past 10 years these gardens have been recognised and rewarded by Keep Britain Tiday, BTCV and Greenspace with a green Flag Award - this is the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales.

Bournemouth's Pleasure Gardens were the resort's first park and were created as a route from the town to the sea. Michael Rowland, the Leisure Policy Manager for Bournemouth said: "Before it was gardens, it was a flooded, boggy mire - where the stream that's there now was running from Talbot Heath down to the sea. Over the year's it's been improved and transformed into the pleasure gardens that we sea today."

The Lower part of the gardens run from Bournemouth Square to the seafront, and in August of this year they will play host to a number of evening events taking place at the 2009 Bournemouth Air Festival. The Lower Gardens are a huge thoroughfare from the shops to the beach. The key attractions are the rockery and the waterfall - which contains a number of plants that thrive in dry soil such as sub-tropical and alpines.

The central part of the garden is an arboretum. There is an enormous newly built children's play area next to the café.

The Green Flag awards will take place at Bournemouth Pavilion on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 July 2009.