Poole Park is an

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to resi ...

adjacent to

Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley (ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, England. The park was opened during the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

and has remained popular with visitors ever since. It is open all year round and hosts a number of events.

History

The park was constructed on land donated by

Lord Wimborne Viscount Wimborne, of Canford Magna in the County of Dorset, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. History The title was created in 1918 for Ivor Guest, 2nd Baron Wimborne. The Guest family descends from the engineer and businessm ...

and was opened by the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

in 1890. The park was built on former meadows and marshes by the town centre adjacent to

and covers an area of , of which include the park's large man-made lake and ponds. Poole Park Zoo was operated from June 1963 until it fell out of favour in February 1994. Although small, at one time it boasted a

Himalayan black bear The Himalayan black bear (''Ursus thibetanus laniger'') is a subspecies of the Asian black bear found in the Himalayas of India, Bhutan, Nepal, China, and Pakistan. Description It is distinguished from '' U. t. thibetanus'' by its longer, thicke ...

. The park was designated a

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

in 1995, and in 2007 a £2 million project was undertaken to dredge the lake and create five small islands and two raised

reed bed A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

s. The project also involved the construction of a new restaurant and an indoor

ice rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice created using hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The ...

for children. On 7 January 2015 it was announced that Poole Park would receive £260,000 of Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The money will go towards a multimillion-pound redevelopment. The first round of funding for Poole Park follows a fundraising campaign by the Friends of Poole Park. The cash will be spent over the next two years while a detailed research and monitoring project on the boating lake is carried out. The development phase of the project is expected to be completed in late 2016, with the second phase of the bid submitted shortly after.

Attractions

Facilities include two children's play areas, tennis courts, a

bowling green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

miniature golf Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. The aim of the game is to score the lowest number of points. It is played ...

and Poole Park Railway (a

ridable miniature railway A ridable miniature railway (US: riding railroad or grand scale railroad) is a large scale, usually ground-level railway that hauls passengers using locomotives that are often models of full-sized railway locomotives (powered by diesel or petrol ...

). A

cricket field A cricket field is a large grass field on which the game of cricket is played. Although generally oval in shape, there is a wide variety within this: some are almost perfect circles, some elongated ovals and some entirely irregular shapes with l ...

and pavilion inside the park are home to the Poole Town Cricket Club, and water sport activities such as sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, rowing and model yacht racing with Poole Radio Yacht Club take place on the lake. The boating lake is around 21 hectares in size and between 1 and 1.5 meters deep. The lake can only be emptyed or filled during spring tides via sluices to the harbour, it is also filled via the local surface water drainage system meaning that the water is

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

(a mixture of salt and freshwater). Every Saturday morning

Parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of events for walkers, runners and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across six continents. Junior Parkrun (stylised as junior parkrun) ...

—a free timed 5 km running event—is held at 9:00 am, starting near the water fountain. The run uses flat tarmac paths and flat hard compact gravel within the park. Poole Parkrun regularly hosts over 500 runners each week. On Christmas Day 2019 Poole parkrun set a new attendance record of 1345 runners.

References

External links

Friends of Poole ParkPoole Parkrun
{{Dorset CCC Tourist attractions in Poole Parks and open spaces in Dorset Poole Harbour 1890 establishments in England