Victoria Park, Portsmouth

Victoria Park is a Portsmouth’s main heritage park and was the town’s first public park designed by the renowned landscape architect Alexander McKenzie and opened in 1878. Arkwood were appointed by Portsmouth City Council to design and deliver a restoration project funded by a £2.4m award from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF). With trimmed lawns, formal planting and promenades, fountains and aviary, Victoria Park has been a haven from the daily pressures of city life for over 100 years. The 3.5ha newly-restored park was unveiled to the public in March of 2024.

Client and Contract Period

Portsmouth City Council, NLHF

2020-2024

Project Objectives

Arkwood were commissioned by the NLHF and Portsmouth City Council to develop and deliver a plan for the restoration of Victoria Park, leading a design team that focused on the quality of built and landscape infrastructure, recording and celebrating heritage and environmental sustainability. With the removal of some redundant modern elements and the construction of a new community hub building, the masterplan focuses on connecting people to the park and the park to its wider context in the city centre. The design successfully maintained the character of the main features of this historic park (the Aviary and Centenary Fountain) while also implementing features to improve biodiversity, such as a wetland area and wildflower meadow.

Issues, Challenges, and Outcomes

During construction, significant ground contamination and concealed underground structures were uncovered on the site of the proposed hub building. Through a rigorous testing and remediation process, we were able to address the contamination issue and re-design the building foundations to respond to the specific ground conditions that we discovered.

The Centenary Fountain was not in operation at the time of the implementation of the masterplan and needed to be refurbished and repainted as well as having a circulatory pump installed. Through painstaking research into the structure and decoration of the fountain, we were able to restore it in keeping with its original design, while updating the technical aspects of its engineering performance to modern standards.

Services