Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival

Antony Gormley sculpture, "A View, A Place", 1986. It was sited at the Festival's highest point looking out over the Fowlea Valley, next to the OS trigonometry marker-stone. The site is now completely enclosed by woodland.

45-metre long suspension bridge of hardwood, spanning the Rocky Valley and joining the paths along the Woodland Ridge, 2005.

The Festival placed great emphasis on sculpture. Some works still remain on the site as of 2005, such as this sculpture, "Windborne (The Phoenix)" by My Mum.

The view from the middle of the suspension bridge, looking out over the eastern edge of the retained garden parkland. Beyond, the new out-of-town retail park merges into Stoke-on-Trent's city-centre.

The Stoke-on-Trent 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. Preparation of the site involved the reclamation of land formerly occupied by the Shelton Bar steelworks (1830–1978), about two miles north-west of the city centre, between Hanley and Burslem. British Steel's 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 (Conservative, the son of miner), who also pushed through the vital dual carriageway linking the A500 with the Festival site.

The reclamation cost £5 million, and the Festival 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, and it is said these were mostly planted by a small team of old men, ex-steelworkers. Not knowing how trees should be planted, the men planted them in what seemed at the time like disarray. It later transpired that this ad hoc 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 2 ft gauge railway was built around the grounds with five stations. All the equipment was supplied by the firm of Severn Lamb. The railway had five stations located around the site with an engine shed, which was reclaimed 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.

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.

A standard gauge track was laid at the main entrance and duties fell to Robert Heath No6, 0-4-0 steam locomotive which originally was built in 1885 and now resides at the Foxfield Railway, Blythe Bridge, Staffordshire.

• Robert Heath No 6 Stoke Garden Festival.jpg

  Standard gauge engine, Robert Heath No6.The operated on a small length of track.

Stoke on Trent Garden Festival Railway
Legend Trent and Mersey Canal x20px Waterbus Northern Stop Depot (Greenhouse2000) Greenhouse 2000 Stn Festival Hall Stn Rose Garden Stn x20px x20px Festival Market Stn x20px (Maypole Hill) (Etruria Hall) Main Entrance Stn Vintage Line(Main Entrance) Waterbus Southern Stop

Commemorative memorabilia

A set of commemorative stamps were issued nationally by the Post Office.

An extremely rare Dungeons and Dragons 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-driven steam train run by gnomes.

Festival Park: the site today

The main site was completed in 1995, and is now known as Festival Park. It was, for the most part, sympathetically treated by St. Modwen Properties who had taken 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 sculpture and a large Welsh slate water feature still remains, as does the full-size stone circle. The huge wooden suspension bridge across a wooded ravine remains and can still be used. The complex network of paths is maze-like, there is no signage, and it is very easy to get lost.

There is now a large 'out-of-town' retail park on one 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. Elsewhere, numerous low-rise offices nestle in the parkland and around the pools of Festival Park. There is a large marina for narrowboats. Along the main road on the western edge of the site is the large Waterworld indoor swimming complex, a ski-slope, a ten-screen Odeon cinema, a ten-pin bowling alley, and a toboggan run. The Sentinel newspaper's offices was also built on the site, and their large printing plant served most newspapers in northern England. However, Sentinel Newspapers moved out of the site in 2012 and the site passed to Bet 365, who intend to demolish it and build new offices. Festival Park's large four-star Moat House hotel incorporates Etruria Hall, former home of Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Wedgwood. Next to Etruria Hall is the North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce HQ.

Groundwork UK created a £1-million cycle-path along the bordering Trent and Mersey Canal in 1998, which is now part of the National Cycle Network. At the northern tip of the site, the large complex of Festival greenhouses has been retained and these now operate as the City Council's plant nursery for the entire city.

So-called 'boy racers' have in recent years started to gather in large numbers on the site's car parks, and some race on its roads, despite traffic calming measures introduced in 2003. An innovative court injunction was served in 2009, which has reduced the problem.

At April 2011 the western part of the site was proposed as an Enterprise Zone by the Local Enterprise Partnership, but the bid did not conform to the government guidelines and so failed.

Further reading

• Morley, Joan. Etruria: Jaspers, Joists and Jillivers – the history of the 1986 Garden Festival site.

External links

• Creative Commons photo gallery of the remaining artworks on the site
• Photo-tour of a circular cycle-ride, over Grange Park and Festival Park