Dorset Tourism Awards 2020
These awards are a wonderful morale boost after a challenging few months.
The park team are delighted to have been awarded Silver in two categories at the prestigious Dorset Tourism Awards: Business Events & Wedding Venue of the Year and Dog Friendly Business of the Year. We were also commended in the Café & Tearoom of the Year category.
The results were announced at the virtual awards ceremony on 4th February, and highlights the work that has been put into developing Upton Country Park for the benefit of the local community; we are thrilled this has been recognised by the judges.
Gaining Sight of our Lost Landscapes
This winter we have started reinstating our long-lost landscapes, with work starting on recreating the long vistas from Upton House down to the Holes Bay Shoreline.
Our amazing Operations Team and Volunteers have started the gradual clearance of the invasive Poplar that has been crowding our Veteran Oak trees along the Shoreline woods. This will ensure the health of these 400-year-old trees for centuries to come and restore our historical landscape. Work is being done gradually over the winter months to limit the impact on birds and other wildlife, for which a new woodland of over 7000 trees has been planted in our new ‘SANG’ green spaces.
Elsewhere in the Country Park
The Lewellin dog kennels to be refurbished
Other Discovery Project works will soon begin on restoring the listed Llewellin dog kennels by Spurriers play park, and at our brick stable yard next to the Walled Garden.
The stable yard bricks will be lifted allowing repairs to be made to the drainage beneath, then carefully re-laid, returning it to its former glory; the boundary wall will be rebuilt and a new wildflower bed planted behind it.
Refurbishment of the old working dog kennels will restore and preserve an historically important feature of the estate’s grounds. Recycling materials from the Fowl Shed, the project will raise and repair the roof to provide a more usable space in the future.
For more information about the works taking place in the Country Park and some Frequently Asked Questions please visit our Discovery Project What’s Happening pages.
Upton Memories
We are working with Bournemouth University to collect as many memories of Upton Country Park as we can from our local community; a project that will culminate in a Summer Exhibition.
If you would like to help us gather memories – or if you, or anyone you know, has memories of Upton Country Park, how you have used it, how it has changed, and how it has been loved – then we want to hear from you. Ask your grandparents for their stories too!
Get involved by contacting us at uptoncountrypark@bcpcouncil.gov.uk
