£869,000 Heritage Lottery funding for local park
(Date of issue: Tuesday, 13 January 2009)
Chance’s Park is on track for a major transformation, after
receiving a £869,000 National Lottery grant to back exciting
regeneration plans.
It will allow Carlisle’s Chance’s Park scheme to start this
summer. The funding has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)
and Big Lottery Fund (BIG). The money from the joint Parks for
People programme will help to make the park fit for the 21st
century.
Carlisle City Council, Morton Community Centre and the Friends
of Chance’s Park will use the funding to progress the £1.18 million
scheme and will make the park more accessible for visitors, opening
up new views and improving pathways.
It will be used to reinstate original features such as the
ha-ha, Medieval ridge and furrow meadowland and the Georgian
garden; entrances, pathways and lighting will also be improved. New
features and community facilities will also be put in place
including a new seated viewpoint and a new avenue of trees.
The City Council agreed a £40,000 contribution to the scheme.
Cumbria Wildlife Fund, Cumbria Foundation, Morton Neighbourhood
Forum and the County Council’s Carlisle Local Area Committee have
also provided funding.
Following the grant allocation, the work will now be tendered
out and is planned to start on site this summer. It is likely to be
completed by spring next year.
Carlisle’s prominent Chance family gave Chance’s Park to the
city in 1944, but the landscaped gardens and parkland around the
Morton Manor date back to the early 1800s. The parkland forms the
grounds to the Grade II listed Morton Manor House and a number of
features from the original layout remain including the ha-ha* and
many veteran trees.
*A ha-ha or sunken fence is a type of boundary to a garden,
pleasure-ground, or park, designed not to interrupt the view and to
be invisible seen from close by.
Images of Chance's Park
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