THIS is good news from Castlefield Forum. Things are in motion for the Roman Gardens; crowd funding and all for a bit of beautification in the city centre. Let's all put out hands in our pockets to deliver this. 

All that follows comes from Calum McGowan of Castlefield Forum: 

Ambitious plans are taking shape in Castlefield to help transform the tired and unloved Roman Gardens on Liverpool Road, opposite MOSI.

As the relatively new trend to live right in the heart of Manchester continues apace, more and more people are talking about green space in the city - or the lack of it.

Taking this into account, the community and business-led Castlefield Forum, keen to make Castlefield a superb place to live, work, relax in and to visit, are pressing ahead with major updates to the Roman Gardens, to make them fit for an original and modern city.

Working with Manchester Garden City and BDP architects, and following on from public consultation, the Forum plans to kick-start the gardens project by taking part in a new crowdfunding initiative supported by Manchester City Council.

Historic site

It’s not just a case of out with the old, though. Situated on the site of the first Roman settlement in Manchester, just a stone’s throw from the Roman Scheduled Ancient Monument (currently hidden), the Gardens are aptly named. Indeed, the rugged pathway that leads down from the White Lion public house to the reconstructed North Gate follows the line of a Roman road that would have run right up into today’s city centre. The gatehouse itself, entirely modern in construction, marks the location of the northern entrance to the Roman Fort. The Gardens really are a part of our history.

Zoom forward to the Industrial Revolution and suddenly the Romans are forgotten… a grand network of viaducts, warehouses, workers’ cottages, public houses, churches and market halls begin to fill Castlefield with a whole new energy.

Travel forward again to the twentieth century and we are lucky to have the Gardens at all; there were closely packed terraced houses on the site but wartime bombing and general dilapidation brought them to the end of their useful life.  Families were moved out and the site cleared.  It’s more by good fortune than good planning that the Gardens are here at all. It’s now time to get them spruced up and give them a brand new lease of life, which is where the crowdfunding comes in.

Why update the Gardens though? They look OK, don’t they?

That’s just the point. They do look OK. But only just OK. Really, they’re very tired. Look closely and you’ll quickly find broken lighting, cracked flags, muddy puddles, worn-out benches and other clutter. Unnecessary fencing limits access and means you cannot walk east-west across the park. A lack of lighting makes it uninviting at night. And despite the occasional, wonderful tree, there’s a preponderance of sub-standard specimens and a mish-mash of disappointing foliage. Altogether it’s a bit sad, sorry and not very Roman.

This space ought to be a real green lung, for the residents, workers and the multitude of visitors who come to Castlefield. It’s time for change. 

The plans

After invaluable help from planners and landscape architects at BDP (giving their time for free as part of the Manchester Garden City initiative), the Forum has come up with a plan that makes more of the Roman history of the area, with an etched Roman timeline and Roman-themed planting. These will provide a great foil for some interesting design features, better lighting, vastly improved access and some exciting landscaping. There will be plenty of nice places to sit, too. The idea is to make the Gardens much more inviting both by day and by night - and from season to season. From a warm summer’s evening to a crisp winter morning, the Gardens will welcome you into their small but, we hope, lovely space.

We’ve had great feedback from residents, businesses and the Council (who own the site) on the various incarnations of the masterplan and BDP are busy making the final, careful tweaks to take account of as much of the feedback as we can.

So what’s next?

Realistically, it’s now time to start the long, hard process of fundraising. The next stage of the project is to get it through the tricky planning process - and for this we need dedicated professional help - so that we can then apply for the large sum of money required for the build. If we want to do everything on the plan, we are talking up to £2m. This is a project we want to do properly. We’ve seen too many failed public-space makeovers in our lifetime. This time we need to get it right.

As we begin the fundraising process, we will be keeping things interesting and one of the next pieces of the puzzle is to carry out a community archaeological dig in areas of the gardens not previously dug. Given the proximity to the North Gate and the fact that remains of the Roman civilian area (or ‘vicus’) have already been found in the Gardens, we are hopeful to find more.

If you’d like to get involved and/or support us

We are looking to raise a total of £38,390.00 through crowdfunding to get us through the planning process and subsequently make a major funding bid, most likely to the Heritage Lottery Fund. We’ve raised over £17k of this already through goodwill, leaving a gap of £21k; we hope people will see the value this project will bring – we’ve a page at https://www.spacehive.com/romangardens if you’d like to make a pledge, however small.

We hope people will support our bid to improve this green lung of the city centre, so that people can understand more of our Roman heritage and enjoy the magic and grandeur of the viaducts sweeping overhead, the gentle hum of the new electric trains, the buzzing of beers, the hum of the White Lion & Oxnoble public houses and the gentle flow of visitors in and out of MOSI. The new Roman Gardens: please, come and join us.