Markeaton Park Revival: Heritage Strategy & Operations

Introduction and Background

Markeaton Park is Derby's most heavily used park and is one of the most frequently visited of all East Midlands sites — two facts that underscore the importance of its upkeep (Turbutt 1999: 18–20). However, a combination of high visitor numbers and a lack of consistent funding for maintenance and infrastructure improvement has left the park in a far-from-ideal state. While the park remains attractive to a range of visitors, including families with children, it has entered what Derby City Council believes may be a cycle of decline in which poor upkeep and the failure to modernize lead to a fall in visitor numbers and popularity, which in turn produces less revenue and less political will to invest (Derby City Council 2011).

Keenly aware that the park's future depends on decisions made now, the Council has begun to update the park's facilities so that they meet the needs of the communities it serves. These needs have changed significantly over the years, and the Council has made clear that reflecting these new needs is imperative (Derby City Council 2011). One key concern — shared by the Council and by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is being asked to fund the revival — is how to avoid changes that are too closely tied to current trends, since those trends will soon be superseded (Zahariadis 2003: 119). In an attempt to balance current and future needs, the Council is seeking public input about desired improvements while also drawing on consultants who can bring a longer perspective to the project (Derby City Council 2011).

This concern speaks to a larger operational challenge as the park attempts to engineer its own renaissance. Money from the Heritage Lottery Fund must be used in specific ways: the funding is intended to preserve the historical character of a site and to educate the public about its historical and cultural value (Heritage Lottery Fund 2012). To receive this funding, park officials must balance preservation concerns against the desire of many visitors simply to enjoy the park without any interest in history. Related to this is a further balancing act between public spending and private investment. The task for the park can be likened to walking two tightropes simultaneously (Agranoff & McGuire 2003: 34–6).

The renaissance of the park is to be undertaken in two phases, the first of which has already been accomplished (Derby City Council 2011; Heritage Lottery Fund 2012). Design work for the new planning phase was paid for with a £142,500 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund, awarded through the Parks for People Programme, which provides "grants for projects that regenerate public parks of national, regional or local heritage value" (Parks for People 2012).

The Council will next submit a second application for up to £2.4 million to cover the majority of restoration costs. As part of this process, it has sought input from current visitors — asking what attracts them to the park — as well as from former visitors and non-visitors to determine what would bring them to the park. The following section examines some of the suggestions the Derby City Council has proposed in connection with the Heritage Lottery Fund application, and the section after that assesses the current plan in terms of its underlying operational strategy.

Results and Findings

Markeaton Park is fortunate in that it already attracts a wide range of visitor types, although this range could certainly be expanded (Derby City Council 2011). Most current visitors are families with young children, younger adults, and seniors. The demographic notably absent — and significant to add — is adults roughly between the ages of 25 and 55 (Derby City Council 2011). Even people who grew up visiting the Mundy Play Centre tend to stop going to the park when they become adults, though many return at retirement age.

The fact that the park has gathered these statistics is significant because it reflects an underlying operational philosophy: when public money is spent, it must benefit the widest number of people possible. While this is a common attitude, it is not the only viable one (Agranoff 2008: 86), and a shift in this attitude is in fact one of the changes needed to preserve the park's future.

Both public commentary and Council suggestions so far lack a key element in terms of a cohesive operational strategy. Indeed, the current problems have arisen in no small part because there is simply no overall strategy for the park. Different areas are aimed at attracting different types of visitors — certainly an important feature of any master plan for a park this size — but there must also be a unifying goal if the park is to attract the largest number of users.

The park must be organized and marketed as a single, integrated destination while simultaneously emphasizing the aspects of each area that appeal to particular age groups (Worsley 2004). One clear deficit in the current plan is that it fails to use the park's historical setting as an integrating strategy. Coordinating current activities under the umbrella of the site's history would make the experience of all visitors more enjoyable and would draw in demographic groups that are currently underrepresented, following the path of similar successful projects (Gow 2006).

As noted, the Heritage Lottery Fund requirement that grants enhance a site's heritage value must coincide with the core concepts of any future master plan. Indeed, in the absence of any coherent operational strategy, the granting requirements of the Heritage Lottery Fund can themselves serve as a stand-in for one.

In part because the park's land was conveyed to the Council in several separate stages, the park has never had a coherent relationship with the original estate (Gow 2006). Creating a sense of connection between park and estate is likely to attract new visitors from one of the underrepresented demographics: young adults who may currently dismiss the park as a destination primarily for families with children. Weaving the history of the estate throughout the park will hold greater appeal for young adults and is also likely to attract foreign visitors, adding to what is currently an almost exclusively domestic visitor base (NHS Evidence 2003).

Once this shift in basic operational strategy — one might even call it operational philosophy — has been put into place, a number of opportunities to implement this vision become clear. It is also likely that as the first set of changes is implemented and the original "bones" of the estate become more visible, further improvements will suggest themselves.

Evaluation and Discussion

Among the changes most likely to reconnect the park to the estate in a way that is welcoming to twenty-first-century visitors is reestablishing a sense of center. The original hall was the focal point of the entire estate design, and its destruction has left both a visual and a psychological gap in the park (Derby City Council 2011; Girouard 1994). While it is impossible to restore the hall itself, it is possible to recreate the sense of the road leading up to the Orangery as also leading toward the heart of the estate. This can be accomplished through several methods, all of which are relatively inexpensive (Adams 1991).

The first of these is to plant herbaceous borders along what was the main entrance road, with appropriate trees planted behind the borders — a combination that will, over time, create an increasingly impressive entranceway. Along this avenue, a series of informational plaques using photographs and historical drawings could explain how the estate and park changed over time. Interactive exhibits inviting children and adults to draw pictures of what they believe life looked like during different eras should be placed along the path. While the park already offers a number of activities for children, these are not currently connected to its historic features — a gap that should be remedied (Adams 1991).

This suggestion exemplifies the overall shift in operational vision for the park. Whenever possible, the historic footprint of the hall — as well as older buildings on the site — should be highlighted, following strategies that other historic parks have employed successfully (Adams 1991). Such highlights could include the relatively simple and inexpensive restoration of flowering borders using species appropriate to the era in which they were first planted, and the relocation of the tennis courts from their current position where they obstruct views of some of the estate's remaining historic features. In locations where significant but small-scale historical artifacts exist, archaeological excavations could be set up alongside informational placards explaining archaeological techniques (De Bray 1984).

Such a shift toward the park's historical underpinnings would offer three distinct advantages. First, it would help visitors gain a deeper understanding of the area's history — a history that is currently easy to overlook because it is buried beneath layers of later alterations. Second, it is likely to attract young adult visitors as well as more families, and as horticultural areas are restored, pathways (some of which have been in use since the Middle Ages) can be made more accessible to individuals with limited mobility. Third, a shift in focus toward the site's historic roots is likely to bring in additional volunteers as well as additional funding (Boyne 2003).

Conclusion

Markeaton Park has suffered through decades of neglect, although these decades were punctuated by well-meaning attempts to upgrade and modernize the park. However, none of these attempts was guided by a master plan, and the result was one set of haphazard interventions laid upon another. The current plan avoids this problem for the first time, and for the first time creates a coherent blend of past, present, and future — offering the park a genuine opportunity for lasting renewal.