Rushcliffe Country Park

Story

Rushcliffe Country Park is an open park space covering approximately 210acre, located on Mere Way just south of Ruddington on the A60 in the borough of Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, England.The park is free to enter and attracts approximately 250,000 visitors a year.Rushcliffe Country Park has maintained the Green Flag award for two years; the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales.Original siteOriginally the area was a boggy waterland. In the 18th century it was drained into a stream named Gibsons Dyke and transformed into productive farmland by Arthur Gibson after the Enclosure Act of 1767.In 1940 Ruddington Depot was built with a bomb factory and ammunition bunker. The site consisted of over 200 buildings and took 18 months to build. A total of 4000 workers were involved in the building work of a site that would remain for 41 years.After being decommissioned in 1945 the site was used for auctioning redundant ex-military vehicles and equipment, with the depot finally closing in 1983. The auctions were known nationally and were held every eight weeks; each auction lasted for about a week and their popularity caused them to be advertised in the national press, which attracted dealers from all over the country.TransformationThe park is now situated on the site of the disused Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) depot. The buildings were reduced to rubble when the park was reclaimed and designed by Nottinghamshire County Council. The rubble was used to landscape the site, almost 140,000 trees were planted and a 70,000 m3 lake created. Some areas, including Fowemer Hill were raised by 7 metres.