Waterloo Park, Norwich

Waterloo Park owes its existence to the work of the Norwich Playing Fields and Open Spaces Society, which saw how the urban population in the Angel Road area of Norwich was increasing rapidly, and so worked with the city authorities to preserve land for use as a recreational space.[2] A plot of land surrounded by housing owned by the Great Hospital Trust was leased to the city in 1899. A new park, known as the Catton Recreation Ground, designed to include gardens created by local schoolchildren, was opened in May 1904.[3] In 1911, a proposal was made by the manufacturer Edwards & Holmes to build a shoe factory on part of the land occupied by the park, an idea which never went past the application stage.[4]

Catton Recreation Ground was completely redesigned in 1929 by Captain Arnold Sandys-Winsch,[1][note 1] who had been appointed as the Norwich City Parks and Gardens Superintendent in 1919. With government funding provided to give temporary relief for unemployed local men, work on the new park was able to start. At 18 acres (7.3 ha), it was the second largest of a series of parks laid out by Sandys-Winsch in Norwich.[1] Completed and opened to the public in 1933, it was the last of Sandys-Winsch's parks to be built, at a cost of £37,000,[6][7][note 2] and was "considered to be one of the finest in East Anglia".[1][9] By the time he retired in 1956,[7] Sandys-Winsch had helped to create 600 acres (240 ha) of urban parks and open spaces in Norwich, and was instrumental in the planting of 20,000 trees in the city.[10]

One of the pergolas at Waterloo Park

The central pavilion in Waterloo Park was used as a temporary mortuary during the Second World War. After one air raid, the bodies of factory workers from across the other side of Norwich arrived at the park under police escort, to the horror of people using the nearby tennis courts, who had been unaware of the raid that had happened.[11]

Waterloo Park is historically important; its pavilion, pergolas, bandstand and front gates have been designated as Grade II* listed structures, and the park itself is Grade II* listed, as it is considered to be a good example of an early 20th century municipal park. The overall layout has remained largely unchanged since the 1930s,[1] and it has been recognised by Norwich City Council as an 'historic landscape'.[12] Some of the facilities have been modified, so that original features such as the school garden at the northern tip of the park, and the moat around the edge of the central garden, no longer exist.[13] In 1962, £1000 was spent by the council in renovating the pavilion, an expense which was criticized by the local press at the time.[11]

The work carried out by the Countryside Commission in the early 1970s failed to provide for the needs of urban parks in the UK, and after losing its permanent team of dedicated staff during this period, the buildings and landscape within Waterloo Park started to deteriorate.[14] Neglect has since led to the bowling greens and their pavilions being abandoned.[9] The park was amongst the earliest to be placed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, when it was included on the list in 1993.[15] In 2000, Norwich City Council was amongst the first recipients to succeed in obtaining funds from the Urban Parks Programme of the National Lottery Heritage Fund to restore its historic parks. It used part of the £5.6 million it received to restore Waterloo Park's pavilion and many of its facilities.[9][16]

The Three Wise Monkeys sculpture on the roof of the pavilion was commissioned during this period of restoration.[17] The sculpture is a version of the Japanese pictorial maxim of the three wise monkeys, embodying the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".[18] Research revealed that it had been intended to include the Three Wise Monkeys as a central motif when the pavilion was designed in the 1930s. When the building was being restored, a 'modern take' on the traditional motif was suggested, with the incorporation of a photographer monkey, as well as one listening to music and another speaking on the telephone. The equipment incorporated into the sculpture has dated since the early 2000s.[17]

The pavilion in 2019

In 2015, Norwich City Council resolved to deal with problems with the water-damaged roof of Waterloo Park's pavilion by spending £210,000 on repairs that year, and £40,000 during 2016/17.[19] In 2017, after the main repairs had been completed, the restored pavilion was reopened as a café, as part of an enterprise to assist low-risk prisoners and ex-offenders to gain work experience.[20] Working in partnership with the council, Britannia Enterprises planned to run the café as well as help maintain and restore the park. After Britannia Enterprises went into liquidation in August 2019, the café was threatened with closure; it was closed in January 2020 after a new manager was unable to continue running the establishment.[21][22]

Maintenance work began on the café in April 2021 after £36,000 was approved by Norwich City Council to be used in its refurbishment, prior to the premises being reopened. A spokesperson for the council revealed that it intended "to return the café up to its top standard, so a new tenant can breathe life back into it and the doors can once again be opened for the community to enjoy".[23] The café officially re-opened for business on 6 November 2021, run by not-for-profit social enterprise The Feed.[24]

In 2018 the Friends of Waterloo Park was set up, with the initial aim of bringing more sporting opportunities, children's activities and live music to the park.[25] The park was included in the city council's tree planting list for 2018–2019, to include examples that included silver birch, Himalayan birch, Davidia involucrata and southern magnolia.[26] In 2023, the park was awarded Green Flag status for the third year in a row,[27] and for the first time received a Green Heritage award.[28][29]

The southern end of Waterloo Park's herbaceous border

George Ismael of Norwich City Council described Waterloo Park as representing "the last phase of municipal park building in Britain". It has been described as having "stylistic unity" with Norwich's other historic public spaces, and a design that "displays a sensitive response to the [surrounding] landscape".[7][14] Everywhere in the park can be accessed by disabled visitors. There are 6 acres (2.4 ha) of gardens, dominated by the bandstand and the Art Deco central pavilion. The park has a children's playground, hardcourt tennis courts, open areas once used to play cricket and hockey matches, and toilet facilities.[30][31] The pavilion, bandstand, pergolas, steps and walls are all built from a form of reconstituted stone which looks natural.[32]

Waterloo Park has one of the UK's largest herbaceous borders located within a public space.[33] The largest flowerbeds once contained roses and annuals. These became expensive to maintain, and the beds are now planted with perennials and bushes, plants that can be sustained ecologically. According to Ismail, this type of planting is a return to the ideas of the gardener William Robinson and the horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll, and is "completely at one with the period during which the [Norwich] parks were created".[34]

• Anderson, A.P.; Cocke, Sarah (2000). The Captain and the Norwich Parks. Norwich: The Norwich Society. ISBN 978-0-9524756-1-3.
• Fieldhouse, Ken; Woodstra, Jan, eds. (2000). The Regeneration of Public Parks. London and New York: E & FN Spon. ISBN 978-0-419-25900-8.
• Ismail, George (Spring 1998). Clarke, Ethna (ed.). "The Norwich Parks". Norfolk Gardens Trust Journal. OCLC 851433783.
• Meeres, Frank (1998). A History of Norwich. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 978-1-86077-083-8.
• Mieder, Wolfgang (1981). "The Proverbial Three Wise Monkeys". Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore (7): 5–38. ISSN 0363-9967.
• Rawcliffe, Carole; Wilson, Richard, eds. (2004). Norwich Since 1550. London and New York: Hambleton and London. ISBN 978-1-85285-450-8.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Waterloo Park, Norwich.

• Friends of Waterloo Park website
• Information about Waterloo Park (Norwich City Council)
• Photographs (with captions) of the park dating back to the 1950s, from the Eastern Daily Press
• Further information about Captain Arnold Edward Sandys-Winsch and Norwich's city parks from the Colonel Unthank's Norwich website
• Photographs of Norwich's parks and gardens taken by the photographer George Plunkett, including five photographs of Waterloo Park taken on 30 April 1933, the day after the new park opened.
• Tithe map of St Clement, Norwich from Norfolk County Council's Map Image Viewer, showing the land around what eventually became Waterloo Park as it looked in the 1840s
• Waterloo Park Archives Collection produced by the Friends of Waterloo Park

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