Greenwich Park £10M upgrade

Greenwich Park £10M upgrade

 

Greenwich Park has a new cafe located at the top of Maze Hill by the Flower Garden entrance, called the Ignatius Sancha Cafe it a named after a slave who elevated himself through self-education to the upper echelons of British society through his writing and music compositions.

This is all part of the £10 Million upgrade that I wrote about a few years ago. If you look over the viewing area by the General Wolfe statue by the Royal Greenwich Observatory you will see that the hill flowing downwards has now been reconstructed in a step formation as it once was in the 17th century, when the park was a hunting ground for the royals and aristocracy alone, and us commoners were not allowed to be roaming or even have access to the grounds.

By the new cafe, you also have new unisex toilets and the smaller than originally planned ecology learning resource centre which was planned as a newly built high-tech facility, but due to cost restraints after the Covid pandemic, it was decided to use refurbished buildings that are currently still being used by the park rangers near the flower nurseries.

 

There are also plans to upgrade the bandstand in the park.

The Pavilion café has also just reopened after a major refit of the interior and the cooking facilities. In my opinion, it could not have come at a better time as although the new Ignatius Sancha café is a welcome addition to the park it is rather on the small side and does struggle to accommodate the large number of customers wanting refreshments from it.

The area on top of the viewing platform by the General James Wolfe statue seems to be being made into a better viewing area although at the moment I do not know how it will be done, but work is well underway on achieving it.

 

£10 Million Greenwich Park restoration

£10 Million Greenwich Park restoration

£10 Million Greenwich Park restoration. 

Greenwich Park is to be transformed with a £10 million overhaul partially help with £4.5 million national lottery funding.

The plans include the restoration of the landscape to its 17t century glory and the building of a new state of the art learning centre.

The four year planned project which was announced last year by the royal parks charity has had to be changed slightly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the use of existing buildings repurposed for learning and building a smaller classroom than planned, using sustainable materials.

According to the charity, Greenwich council has 69 tall building projects in the pipeline around Greenwich so the park will be “an even crucial asset in the heart of the city” and the park will be future-proofed for generations to come.

One part of the plan is to give greater disability access to the park, although one part of the plan that I can see going against this plan is the reintroduction of its 17th century landscape with giant steps leading up to the observatory. Now tell me if I am wrong but giant steps and disability access usually are opposing ideas. I dare say on the 17th-century planning committee, disability access was not high on anyone’s agenda. I am sure there will be an alternative route for the less abled among us.

At the top end of the park on the Blackheath side, the underused contractor’s yard will be transformed into the new ‘Vanbrugh Yard’ with a cafe, community kitchen garden, wild orchard and volunteer mess room and also public toilets and changing facilities for disabled visitors.

Greenwich Park under lockdown 3

Greenwich Park under lockdown 3

 

The wife and I decided to participate in our allotted allowance of exercise as we are supposedly allowed to do under the Covid lockdown.

Our normal exercise would be a walk around the Greenwich peninsular, Blackheath or Greenwich park and back home. Today we went to Greenwich Park and I will warn you if you are trying to avoid a lot of people in this Covid-19 scary time then Greenwich Park is not the place to be.

The weather was cold but that did not stop hordes of people partaking in leisurely strolls with their family or friends covering every path in the park.

One good thing about Lockdown 3 that they should have done during lockdown 1 is that they left open access to the flower gardens, which in summer would have been great. Unfortunately, it is now winter, and the gardens were muddy, and the flowers looked a bit sad and dreary.

When we tried to see the view at the top of the hill by the observatory, we could not get access as the whole area has been cordoned off and a police officer stands guard to make sure you do not cross the cordon. This would normally be busy with throngs of people trying to get a good view down the hillside in summer, but this is a foggy day in winter and hardly a magnet for sightseeing .

I hope this access restriction is only associated with the Covid-19 lockdown and we can get back to enjoying the Greenwich Park as it is meant to be enjoyed soon.