Weald Country Park - Landscape Design, Restoration and Visitor Strategy

Client: Essex County Council (ECC)
Work stages: PMP for CS Funding

Together with the adjacent Grade II* Registered Thorndon Country Park, grade II Weald forms over five miles of connected historic landscape with extensive surviving oak and hornbeam wood pasture, a rare habitat of national significance.

Our plan started with an analysis of the park's key issues, its loss of a key focal building and legibility. Lost circulation, ad-hoc planting and self set tree growth had truncated the circulation around the site, leading to a lack of both accessibility and historic landscape legibility. We prepared a masterplan with a coordinated programme of restoration proposals; capital and revenue. With prioritised actions, our plan set a programme for long-term management to address visitor pressure, erosion lost legibility and routes.