Fountains in the News

Posted 17th August 2010

Another bumper issue of Fountains in the news this month so read on for more information. If you have any comments or have any news of your own why not contact us

Worcester – A new youth centre complex in Warndon is to receive Worcester City Council’s and Worcester County Council’s funding and part of this will include the design of a new water feature and will be incorporating an environmentally friendly drainage system. The SUD system will gather excess rain water, which cannot be absorbed because of the clay based soil, and this will be directed through channels to a reed pond at the bottom of the park area. The channels are to be designed so that children can play in and along them and increase the sociability of the immediate area’s use.

Worcester – A children’s interactive water play feature has just opened at Gheluvet Park in Worcester. It is known locally as the “splash pad” project and comprises of interactive jump jets and water arches and sprays that young, and not so young children, enjoy getting wet during hot summer days, although the Worcester City Council are limiting its operational time period until the end of September.

London – Hampton Court Palace has unveiled a working creation of a Tudor wine fountain. The fountain was inspired by the remains of a 16th century conduit or fountain, unearthed during an archaeological dig carried out at the Palace in 2008. The design is based on wine fountains used during festivals and celebrations by Henry VIII who reigned from 1509 until 1547.

The fountain is located in the Palace’s Base Court on the site of the excavated Tudor conduit and will operate with red and chilled white wine on weekends and bank holidays.

The fountain is more than four metres tall and constructed from authentic materials including timber, lead, bronze and gold leaf and sits on an octagonal base as did the original Tudor conduit.
It features 40 gilded lion heads copied from the terracotta roundels on the outer walls of the Tudor Palace. Eight brass taps, based on a surviving tap design from the Tudor period, are fitted together with four mottos in gilded leaf inspired by the Palace’s Chapel Royal.

London – Victoria Park in Tower Hamlets is to receive redevelopment money to help restore a number of public features including the Burdett-Coutts fountain. The funding is from the Heritage lottery fund and the Big lottery fund which assists through the ‘Parks for People’ scheme across the U.K.

Yorkshire – Members of the Fountain Society will be pleased to hear that the Atlas fountain at Castle Howard has just been switched on following a substantial restoration package of work. The fountain, which appears on the front of the Fountain Society brochure, had work done following the severe frost of last winter, which caused stone work to crack. This has now been attended to, together with a complete clean of the Portland stone.

The fountain is named after Atlas, one of the mythological titans of Greece, who is the fountain’s main focal point. It was commissioned in 1850 from landscape gardener William Andrews Nesfield. The figures of the surrounding titans were carved by John Thomas.

The fountain is fed from the reservoir in Ray Wood which is to the east of the main house. Gravity pushes the water into the chamber beneath the basin and then pipe work feeds the various jets and displays including the cascades. A magnificent display of art with water. Well worth a visit.

Newport – With the Ryder Cup Tournament in October at the Celtic Manor Resort, Wales has seen some ‘spruce’ up work in Newport with the building of two sphere fountains in John Frost Square.

The fountains are approximately one meter diameter spheres over a dry bed base on a raised bottom section which houses the tanks and pipe work etc.
The water is slow accessed from the top of the sphere and is very tactile and employs small volumes of water. the fountains appear to fit very well with the surrounding area and should have a long life if kept calcium free with a neutral ph balance of the water. Well done Newport.

Blackpool – A historic fountain from the Flagstaff Garden and built in 1914 for the then illuminations, has been recast and set up as a historic reminder, for Blackpool, in St. Johns Square and is part of the Cedar Square work in the wider regeneration around St. Johns Square.
The fountain was removed from its original site in 2006 to make way for a new adventure golf course. The fountain will have internal lighting and will be the second in the Square with the other being a contemporary feature opposite the Winter Gardens.

Vatican Gardens – It is thanks to an Australian hedge fund manager that the Vatican gardens have their hundredth fountain.
Michael Hintze, who is based in London, was present at the ceremony recently when Pope Benedict XVI blessed the fountain dedicated to St. Joseph. The fountain has six bronze panels each depicting an aspect of the Pope’s namesake. Mr. Hintze donated funds enabling the restoration of the Michelangelo frescoes in the Vatican’s Pauline chapel and has given money to projects for the Church in England and Wales.

Alongside Mr. Hintze, the other major donor to the fountain was Robert Castrignano, who is a managing director at investment bank Sandler O’Neill in New York, having previously worked for 20 years at Goldman Sachs. The decision to build a fountain to St. Joseph was made after Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the governor of the Vatican City State, realised there was nothing in honour of the great saint in the gardens.

The Pope, who often uses the gardens as a place of prayer and reflection, reportedly said St. Joseph’s life calls us to values of ‘simplicity and humility’.

Portsmouth – The city centre fountain in Commercial Road is to be given a £250,000 repair and make over which will include replacement of all pressure pipes and resealing of the main water bowl structure. A new water treatment plant and pumping system and controls will be provided.

The Council have decided to proceed with the refurbishment after considering other options. The fountain should become “alive” again in 6/12 months, although no official date has yet been set to proceed with the works. Well done Portsmouth.

Aberdeen – Site excavation works have begun at Aberdeen’s Duthie Park as part of the archaeological works to find and restore Victorian features including the 1883 circular pond and stone steps, the Duthie fountain and the reintroduction of the lost Victorian promenade. The project will benefit from the very generous bequest of £834,000 from an Aberdeen woman, Lorna Russell, who died recently.

Yorkshire –– A water jet has recently been restored at Hackfall Woods near Masham in North Yorkshire. It is the first time this serene plume of water has played for the public for almost 200 years and is one of the final pieces in the jigsaw that reveals this remarkable site restored to its original glory. These 117 acres of ancient woodland grow in a steep-sided rocky gorge that plunges 120 feet to the Ure river that flows through in a series of sweeping bends. From 1750 and 1767 it was the big ideas of William Aislabie, the owner of Studley Royal, to create a wilderness as a setting for a series of follies, fake ruins, water features and surprise views. His aim was to offer his guests a destination at the end of a jolly seven-mile jaunt.

It was a singular place that embodied the romantic imagination and enthralled poets and painters who came to see it, such as Wordsworth and Turner. Unfortunately the 20th century was not kind to Hackfall. It’s trees were chopped down and it fell into obscurity until a champion appeared in the shape of James Ramsden. He came to live half a mile away when he was elected Tory MP for Harrogate in 1956 and he discovered 18th century cascades, rustic temples, ruined castles, grottoes and ponds either badly damaged or apparently lost forever under a mass of vegetation.

Following the efforts of an American academic, who mapped the ruins and published a mass of data, James Ramsden set up the Hackfall Trust and eventually the Woodland Trust became the owners. The Heritage Lottery Fund stumped up £1m – about 90 per cent of the cashed needed – for restoration.
The York-based Landscape Agency, master planners for the Royal Horticultural Society Gardens, were tasked to make it all happen, engaging conservation architects, landscape historians, hydrologists and ecologists who spent six years working on designs. The woods are now listed as Grade I on the English Heritage register of parks and gardens of historic interest.