CONTEXT

Wyndham Park in Grantham has been put forward for registration. There is no threat to the park, but as a First World War memorial park, the applicant believes it is timely to recognise it with registration during the centenary of the First World War.

HISTORY

The First World War changed the nature of commemoration. The memorials of previous conflicts generally took the form of monuments, but after the First World War ended, the scale of the human loss demanded a different scale of commemoration. It also demanded a different type of commemoration. While many cities, towns and villages favoured a traditional sculptural or architectural monument, many others would serve the needs of the living. Such ‘living memorials’ included homes for bereaved service families or for ex-servicemen, cottage hospitals or hospital wings, public baths, libraries, memorial halls etc and parks, gardens, playing fields and avenues fell into this category of living or useful memorials. They provided not only for veterans and widows, but also for the next generation of young people, offering in the words of one dedicatory speech, a place where ‘all people, young and old, could enjoy the beauties of nature in lovely surroundings, near to the centre of the town.’

Wyndham Park in Grantham was originally established as Slate Mill Park in 1912 but in 1920, Dowager Lady Leconfield donated £1000 towards a memorial to perpetuate the memory of her son, Wyndham, Lt. Hon. William Reginald, who was killed in action in November 1914. The Town Council agreed to change the park’s name to Wyndham Park.

The park was added to incrementally. In 1922 more land was acquired and the White Bridge was built. In 1924 the park became a memorial to all men of the Borough of Grantham who gave their lives in the First World War and it was opened by Lady Leconfield. In 1929 a bowling green was made and a Memorial Shelter was added with ornate cast iron column-tops and spandrels. More land was acquired for the park in 1930 and the Swimming Pool Ticket Office was completed (the swimming pool was made into a skatepark in the 1970s, and then a model boating lake in the 1990s). The Memorial Arch, to the entrance to the park, was finished in 1935. The park can be seen laid out on the 1931 Ordnance Survey map, and retains the same plan today, with the loss of a building in the north-east corner of the park.

ASSESSMENT

It is now known that many hundred memorial parks and gardens were laid out in England after the First World War. Whilst all are poignant reminders of communities' sacrifice, some are also notable for their scale, the quality of their design, for ambitious buildings and especially for their incorporation of conventional war memorials.

Wyndham Park is clearly both a valued local facility and a memorial to its fallen, but judging against the criteria set out in the relevant selection guides, notably that for Landscapes of Remembrance (Historic England 2013), it does not merit registering for the following principal reasons: * Historic interest: the memorial function was added after the park was first established; * Design: the park appears to be an incremental creation without a clear, well-structured overall design. There is an absence of notable landscape elements; * Architectural interest: the various buildings within the park landscape survive largely in their original form, but nevertheless are of modest design quality, and its principal feature - the swimming pool - has been altered.

CONCLUSION

Wyndham Park is clearly a valued local facility and focus of remembrance, but does not fulfil the requirements for registration.