UPDATE: Heritage Appeal campaign target now reached! Wonderful news – we have reached our campaign target of £12,300. A huge thanks to all those who offered their support.
The Dartington Hall Trust has secured new funding of almost £750,000 to repair and conserve a historically significant area of the 800-acre estate – a medieval Deer Park and its 18th century Grade II listed stone wall.
An important feature of the Dartington Hall estate for around 700 years, the Deer Park will become a heritage site and a new visitor attraction free to the public, welcoming a potential 25,000 visitors each year to the area.
Grants of £622,600 from The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and £120,000 from Viridor Credits Environmental Company (via the Landfill Tax and the Landfill Communities Fund) are enabling Dartington to proceed with an imaginative ‘Heritage Revealed’ programme on a 66-acre Deer Park that was at risk of being lost forever to future generations.
The project funding also includes £100,000 previously secured from Natural England under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme and a contribution of £99,000 from The Dartington Hall Trust itself. All that remains is for The Trust to find £12,300 of ‘match funding’ as a condition of securing one of the grants, with the money needing to come from independent means, not from The Trust’s own resources. An Appeal has been launched to achieve this.
The Deer Park’s 700-year-old history and its contribution to the life of the estate will be captured through an artistic, creative and thought-provoking retelling. This will also feed into the Park’s remit as an educational resource for local schoolchildren.
Once a status symbol of the powerful and wealthy, the Deer Park, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, occupies the largely hidden north east corner of the Dartington estate. A partially encircling wall still remains, which dates from 1738-40. It also boasts an extremely rare feature in the form of a Viewing Platform whose circular earthwork is still just visible. This would have supported a lodge, allowing guests to shelter and take refreshment while the hunt took place. The Park itself typically includes a mixture of woodland and grassland, which provided both cover and grazing for the deer, and a reliable source of fresh drinking water in the form of a sheltered spring.
With the Deer Park’s bloody past and aristocratic association now long gone, today it is a natural habitat of incredible biodiversity. It supports species including lizards, toads, beetles, birds and bats in and around the wall itself while otters, kingfishers, dippers and cirl buntings are also common sights in the wider area. In learning about, spotting and recording wildlife to help build up a fuller picture of this special haven, visitors themselves will become a part of the new Dartington story, with the opportunity to record their memories and impressions on a ‘Message Tree’ at the Visitor Centre.
Says Nerys Watts, Head of HLF South West:
‘Dartington’s deer park has a fascinating history, offering a glimpse into the medieval way of life. It is also home to a wide array of wildlife and is a great place to spend time outdoors. Thanks to this National Lottery support, the deer park and its features will be conserved for the future, opening up this hidden area of the site so that visitors can enjoy its many charms.’
Says John Lockwood, CEO of Viridor Credits Environmental Company:
‘The Dartington Hall project gave our trustees a rare opportunity to contribute to the rescue of a nationally important heritage site that has strong community involvement and a diverse ecology. The vision of the Trust and the use of volunteers were key to securing funding and I look forward to completing a successful project with them all.”
The project will also create new opportunities for people to get involved. There will be 50 volunteering posts in archaeology, archival research, conservation and biodiversity as well as in visitor tour guiding.
Trainees from the estate-based LandWorks charity (which provides a supported route back into the community for current and ex-prisoners), will lend hands-on support improving footpaths and installing interpretation materials in the landscape. All work will be conducted with due care for the area’s natural ecology and to minimise any environmental and archaeological impacts.
The project is already up and running. Repair work and conservation of the wall is due to start in August 2016, with all elements of the project scheduled to complete by April 2018.
