project

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Project Funding Approved

We have just heard that our application, for nearly £20k funding for our ‘Love Bromley Palace Park‘ project has been successful. We had applied to Bromley council for this from the borough-wide Platinum Jubilee Fund. It is the intention to make this park, with its historic features and wonderful setting, better used and appreciated by the public. With the council selling the rest of the site this is even more important, as is preserving good public access at all times, including during any construction phase. All Bromley council staff will have moved from here to the new Civic Centre later by end of 2024.

Below is the view across the Lake towards historic Bromley Palace, taken in 2015. This view is now obscured by tree saplings. We aim to restore views such as these as part of our project .

Items to be installed include-

  • Park sign on Rochester Avenue
  • Waymarker posts around parks
  • Lectern style information boards
  • A new Persimon tree – replacing one that will be lost
  • Leafy and flowering plants
  • Picnic table and benches – transferred from other parts of site.

In parallel with this we will be organising monthly volunteer work parties, in which we will improve the biodiversity of the park, and enhance the setting of various Grade 2 listed features*. You can find details of these work parties on our Events page.

*The repair of these listed features are not part of this project.

To find out more about our project please go to Campaigns/Bromley Palace Park

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Glassmill Pond: Construction Work Completed

The construction of the new pond has now been completed. While the new layout looks great, it will still look a bit ‘raw’ until the next phase of the project is completed. This will include; planting, adding diversity to the river features, managing vegetation, and seeding gravel. We will need to wait for a couple of months however, to allow the ground to stabilise in the new structures, before starting this.

As can be seen in the above image the enhanced river channel goes off to the left had side, separated from the improved pond area by an earthen bank, reinforced by hazel posts, permeable membrane and hessian. A large pipe through this bank will deliver more water into the pond during high river flows. There is a similar earthen bank at the other end of the pond. The previous weir boards have been permanently removed to allow fish, eels etc to freely move to and from the rest of the Ravensbourne catchment.

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Queensmead Playground Gets A New Coat – of Paint

On a rather overcast day several volunteers from Foresters Financial, a company based in central Bromley, gave up their time to repaint some existing play furniture. While much of the existing play equipment will be replaced as part of the refurbishment project these items will be refurbished and retained.

After carefully cleaning the metalwork, and then painting it with primer, they finished off with a lovely coat of green paint. Some small parts were also painted black. A much improved look indeed, which will be appreciated by local children.

Their efforts follow on from a previous session, in which they volunteered to clean and paint the inside of the sports pavilion nearby. This has made that space much better for local children’s football club AFC Shortlands.

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Big changes on Glassmill

In the last week a lot has changed here with a large channel being dug out, adjacent to the footpath. The river flow has now been diverted down this channel, which will allow work to start on creating an enhanced ‘official’ river channel on the opposite side. A long bank, or bund, will then separate the river channel from the open pond area.

Over twenty years worth of silt has so far been dug out to create this channel. While it looks messy at present it should soon start to look a lot better. The work is scheduled to take about a month.

You can find more about the background of this on our Glassmill Pond Restoration Project page

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Fishing in Glassmill!

Netting the fish

As part of the refurbishment project, on 21st March the water level in the pond was drastically reduced. Beforehand however a specialist contractor was on site to collect all the fish in the pond, they were recorded then released safely downstream. Altogether some 140 three-spined sticklebacks, 2 small roach and 3 eels, the largest being 79cm long, were collected.

Large eel caught

The water flow was carefully measured. Then with the weir boards removed the water level reduced rapidly at first, exposing more of the silt deposited over many years.

Exposed silt, with river channel bottom

The newly exposed silt now will be allowed time to dry out, before contractors are able to move in to excavate and reuse the silt to recreate a working river channel and a separate pond, that fish, eels etc can thrive in.