The

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

National Garden Festival was the second of Britain's national garden festivals. It was held in the city from 1 May to 26 October 1986, and was opened by the

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

. Preparation of the site involved the reclamation of land formerly occupied by the

Shelton Bar Shelton Bar (Shelton Iron, Steel & Coal Company) was a major steelworks in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. In its heyday, Shelton Bar employed 10,000 in the steelworks, had five coal mines, a complete railway system, and a by ...

steelworks (1830–1978), about two miles north-west of the city centre, between

Hanley Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. Hanley is the ''de facto'' city centre, having long been the ...

and

Burslem Burslem ( ) is one of the six towns that along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Longton and Stoke-upon-Trent form part of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It is often referred to as the "mother town" of Stoke on Trent. ...

. British Steel's adjacent Shelton Bar steel rolling mill remained in use, finally closing in 2000.

Reclaiming the site

One of the leading political forces behind the festival idea was Councillor Cyril Finney who also pushed through the vital dual carriageway linking the A500 road with the festival site. The site reclamation cost £5 million, and the festival itself cost £18 million. The reclaimers of the festival site had to contend with highly contaminated and mine shafted land, and there is still debate among environmental professionals about how such a high-quality clean-up was accomplished in such a short time. A community employment scheme ran alongside the work. Around 300,000 trees were planted by small teams, some groups comprising ex-steelworkers. Not knowing how trees should be planted, they were planted in, what seemed at the time, disarray. It later transpired that this method of planting resulted in a planted woodland that very closely matched natural-growth woodland, with trees of different types and ages growing alongside each other.

Railway on site

A lengthy gauge railway was built around the grounds with five stations. All the equipment was supplied by the firm of

Severn Lamb Severn Lamb, sometimes known as Severn-Lamb, are manufacturers of various forms of transport systems and equipment, principally aimed at the leisure market. They are based at Alcester in the English county of Warwickshire, but sell their produc ...

. The railway had five stations located around the site with an engine shed, which was repurposed from a disused British Steel shed left over before the site was reclaimed, located at the north end of the site. The four identical locomotives were all powered by Perkins 4236 diesel engines with Linde hydraulic transmission driving the four wheels. A standard gauge track was laid at the main entrance and duties fell to Robert Heath No 6, 0-4-0 steam locomotive which originally was built in 1885 and now resides at the Foxfield Railway, Blythe Bridge, Staffordshire. Upon closure the entire railway was sold to the Bygones Village museum in Fleggburgh, Norfolk. Two of the locos, some of the track and most of the carriages were resold to a safari park in Spain. The remaining two locos plus four carriages were retained for use at Fleggburgh. The locos received new steam-outline bodywork and the carriages were rebuilt with full doors and windows.

Commemorative memorabilia

A set of commemorative stamps were issued nationally by the Post Office. An extremely rare ''

Dungeons and Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

'' module, "Up the Garden Path", was based on the festival site; only about thirty copies are known to have survived. RPG adventurers travelled to the garden on a

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

-driven

steam train A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

run by gnomes.

Festival Park: the site today

The main retail site was completed in 1995, and is now known as Festival Park. It has been, for the most part, sympathetically treated by

St. Modwen Properties St. Modwen Properties limited is a British-based property investment and development business specialising in the regeneration and remediation of brownfield land and urban environments. It is headquartered in Birmingham and has a network of four ...

which took on its management and development. Much of the parkland, pools and trails have been retained as public open space, and are maturing very well. Some of the gardens, such as the Moorlands Heather Rock Garden and The Rocky Valley, survive with their planting scheme relatively intact. Although most wooden structures have been left to return to nature, Festival Park is actively maintained by groundsmen. Some sculptures and a large

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

water feature remain, as does the full-size

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

. The huge wooden

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical ...

across a wooded ravine remains and can still be used. The complex network of paths is

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that le ...

-like and, since there is no signage, very easy to get lost in. the suspension bridge is closed off for repairs. It is currently being used by local wildlife photographers to capture photos of the Jay – a brightly coloured member of the crow family. The birds can be seen most days in winter. There is now a large retail park on the eastern side of the site – on what was the festival's car-park and public market area – that now merges into the lower reaches of the city centre. There is also a large

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...

for

narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commer ...

s. Along the main road on the western edge of the site is the large Water World indoor swimming complex, a

ski A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Substantially longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partia ...

-slope, a ten-screen Odeon cinema, a ten-pin bowling alley, and a

toboggan A toboggan is a simple sled traditionally used by children. It is also a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people (often children) down a hill ...

run. Festival Park's large four-star hotel incorporates Etruria Hall, former home of

Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the indus ...

and Thomas Wedgwood. Next to Etruria Hall is the headquarters of the North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce. Numerous similar low-rise offices nestle in the parkland and around the pools of Festival Park. Groundwork UK created a £1 million cycle-path along the bordering

Trent and Mersey Canal The Trent and Mersey Canal is a canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of M ...

in 1998, which is now part of the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

. At the northern tip of the site the large complex of festival greenhouses was retained after the festival closed. For decades these operated as the city council's plant nursery. They have since been closed and the site is earmarked for a small geothermal power station – the feasibility of which is being tested via seismic tests and other investigations. After the festival '' The Sentinel'' newspaper offices were also built on the far west of the site, and their large printing plant then served most newspapers in northern England. However, Sentinel Newspapers moved out of the site in 2012 and the site passed to online betting firm Bet365, which has built a major new purpose-built HQ there. In April 2011 the far western part of the site – including the former steel rolling mill that closed in 2000 – was proposed as an enterprise zone by the

local enterprise partnership In England, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) are voluntary partnerships between Local government in England, local authorities and businesses, set up in 2011 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to help determine local econom ...

, but the bid failed as it did not conform to government guidelines. The city council tried again a few years later, and the enterprise zone was confirmed. Plans are now underway for the implementation of the enterprise zone from 2017 onwards, with a focus on firms involved in innovative materials science and high-value design in ceramics. As of May 2017 the West Midlands Ambulance Service has an ambulance hub based at Forge Lane. The hub provides emergency ambulance cover for all of North Staffordshire. The site was selected for its close proximity to the city centre and close road links to the A500.

References

External links