Water Fountain / Obelisk

St. Paul’s Recreation Ground has an original Victorian water fountain at its centre and an obelisk next to the St Paul’s Road entrance. These features were in place at the opening of St. Paul’s Recreation Ground in 1889 and were installed to mark and commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Sadly the water fountain is no longer working and both require attention. We have started fundraising to restore both and currently we have £15,000 towards these costs. We’re endeavouring to raise more funds and are exploring all avenues. Ideally we’ll achieve this very soon so that both are restored to their former glory in the 130th anniversary year of St. Paul’s Recreation Ground.

Children’s Play Area

This is immensely popular, but sadly in need of refurbishment. However, we were successful in our bid from the local authorities CIL/Section 106 fund and are the happy recipients of £100,000 towards refurbishment costs. The bid was led by a group of concerned mothers who carried out in-depth research as to what exactly our community wanted plus they were ably assisted by Year 6 pupils from our neighbouring school St Paul’s C of E Primary. The works should hopefully commence in the spring of 2019.

Trees and planting

St. Paul’s Recreation Ground is well populated by many of the original trees planted at its creation, though we have lost some over the years which is to be expected with trees over 125 years old. We have replaced some and we are working closely with the LA logistics arm to not only replace but add new trees. In 2017 we instigated a spring bulb planting project of over 4,000 bulbs for the outer boundary of St. Paul’s Recreation Ground, this was funded by the local community. In 2018 we added a further 2,000 bulbs again funded by the local community. We shall also be planting a permanent established Christmas tree as the focal point for our annual Carols in the Park event.