Victoria Park is a

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

in Millbridge, Plymouth, England. It extends at the eastern end from the

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 ...

beneath what was once a railway viaduct to what is now the merging of Molesworth Road and Eldad Hill, and which once was a

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

, and an important thoroughfare between Devonport and Plymouth.

History

The area which it occupies was once a part of an area of tidal marshland, known as the Deadlake; Batholomew Terrace, a road now adjacent to the park, was marked on 19th century maps of the area as Deadlake Lane. At the end of the 19th century,

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

s were constructed to channel a few small streams which fed into the Deadlake, and the creek was filled in with rubble from the quarries at

Oreston Oreston ( ), formerly a village on the southern bank of the Cattewater, is now a suburb of Plymouth. It is recorded as ''Horestone'' on the 1591 Spry ''Map of Plimmouth''. Oreston offers many small, local services. It is home to a small cornershop ...

and

Cattedown Cattedown is an inner city suburb of Plymouth, Devon. Its position beside the River Plym The River Plym is a river in Devon, England. It runs from Dartmoor in the centre of the county southwest to meet the River Meavy, then south towards P ...

, a mile or so away. After heavy rain the

s can become overloaded and water forces its way to the surface. This has only been particularly dramatic once in the last 10 years, with no effect other than temporarily inconveniencing pedestrians using the park as a short cut between Millbridge and the city centre. The park, which has a park-keeper's lodge, was formally opened to the public in 1903. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

3 underground shelters were built in Victoria Park to protect the population during

the Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...

. At the eastern end there is an 80 foot painted mild steel loop sculpture called Moor, by

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

winner Richard Deacon, set in 1990, on top of three tall redundant red brick railway pillars.

References

{{reflist Geography of Plymouth, Devon Urban public parks Parks and open spaces in Devon