St Anne's Park

St. Anne's Park (irish place name|Páirc Naomh Anna) is a public recreational facility, shared between Raheny and Clontarf, both suburbs on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.

The Park, the second largest municipal park in Dublin, is part of a former 500 acre (2 km²) estate assembled by members of the Guinness family, beginning with Benjamin Lee Guinness in 1835 (the largest municipal park is nearby (North) Bull Island, also shared between Clontarf and Raheny).

History

The estate was named after the Holy Well of the same name on the lands. Lands were purchased over time to build up an extensive property, and a large Italianate-style mansion house was commissioned.

Sir Arthur Edward Guinness (Lord Ardilaun), who inherited the estate in 1868, was the person most responsible for expanding and developing the estate and gardens and planted wind-breaking evergreen (holm) oaks and pines along the main avenue and estate boundaries, where they remain.

Lord and Lady Ardilaun had no children and the estate passed to their nephew Bishop Plunkett in the 1920s. In 1937, he decided he could no longer maintain such a large estate and negotiations with Dublin Corporation resulted in the house and convert|444.75|acre|km2|2 of estate being sold to the Corporation for approximately £55,000 in 1939. Bishop Plunkett retained Sybil Hill (now St. Paul's College) as a private residence with 30 acres (120,000 m²) of parkland, and it later became the site of St. Paul's College, Raheny, with extensive private playing fields.

In December 1943, the main residence of St. Anne's, "The Mansion", was gutted by a fire while being used as a store by the Local Defence Force and the ruins were demolished in 1968. In the meantime, just over convert|200|acre|km2|1 of the estate were developed for public housing with the central and most attractive portion comprising about convert|240|acre|km2|1 retained as parkland and playing fields.

Features

The park has a number of features, from the small Naniken River to two lakes (the New Lake, an ornamental pond with a fountain, and the Duck Pond), a number of follies including a viewing tower, a rockery, grand avenue, walled garden, a famous Rose Garden and newer miniature rose garden, and Dublin's arboretum, with 1,000 varied trees.

redbrick Ardilaun stables survive, and have been modernised as the Red Stables Art Centre.

Most of the follies also survive, though many have been damaged, and the seaside viewing tower has been closed for many years.

The walled garden, including a fruit garden added to the estate by Bishop Plunkett, is now chiefly a 12 acre (49,000 m²) plant nursery for the Parks Department. Thousands of bedding plants, shrubs, trees, and floral tubs are produced annually in the nursery. There is a garden area open during limited hours, and a fine clock tower, restored to working order in 2007.

In 1975, St. Anne's Rose Garden was opened to the public. In 1980 it was given a Civic Award by Bord Failte and the Irish Town Planning Institute and since 1981 it has been a centre for International Rose Trials.

porting facilities

The park is intensively used by the public through its 35 playing pitches, 18 hard-surfaced tennis courts, and a par-3 golf course. Woodland paths provide for walkers and joggers.

Fauna

Mammals present in the park include badgers, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, red squirrels, grey squirrels, house mice, field mice, pipistrelle bats and brown rats. Red squirrels were formerly numerous in the park, which was one of the last strongholds of the species in Dublin. Grey squirrels were first noticied at the Sybil Hill end of the park in 1998. Dublin City Council were notified but no action was taken. The grey squirrels have since spread throughout the park and numbers of reds have been drastically reduced. The population of red squirrels in St Anne's is probably no longer viable.