Giles Landscapes has been awarded the prestigious Street Design Award as part of the team that created Gunpowder Park in Enfield.

The Fenland based landscape company have been in business for 25 years and have won numerous awards including the Bali National Award, Broadlands Award 2003 for Design, 2 RHS Silver medals at The Chelsea Flower Show, The People's Choice Award 2004, The People's Choice Award 1st runner up 2005 and many others including environmental awards.

They were commissioned to undertake the landscaping for this exciting project back in 1999 and were overjoyed to be involved. The project upholds all the values that Giles Landscapes operates by - working with nature to provide safe habitats enabling our native flora and fauna to thrive, creating uplifting areas that promote a sense of well being and freedom for both humans and wildlife and combining this with artistic vision and a sense of place respecting our history and combining the future and present with the past.

Pictured from left to right: Roger Giles, Founder of Giles Landscapes, Liz Webster, Chairman LeeValley Park Authority, David Thompson, Designer, LDA Design and Laura Sharman, Editor, Local Government News.

And Gunpowder Park has quite a past!

The 90ha site is unique in both its history and geology having been used as a gun cotton factory and by the Ministry of Defence as a Royal ordinance munitions testing facility in the late 1800's testing cordite and Nitro -glycerine. It was then purchased by British Aerospace in the early 1980's but closed down in 1987. The problem then arose of what to do with the site - poisoned by chemicals for so many years had rendered it unfit for use. A massive decontamination programme began resulting in all structures and landscape features including an alder wood being removed to leave an expanse of nothing but dead soil. Clay was then imported to form a protection layer of 1 - 2 m deep to prevent the toxins leeching up to the surface and contaminating the soil once more. After all this was done, the land was sold to a property developer - narrowly escaping being used as golf course and was eventually added to the Lee Valley regional park.

This is where Gunpowder Park's new life began - the vision for this seemingly dead site was to revitalise it not only as a livable space but as one that would benefit both people and wildlife - to create a park blending science, nature and art. To combine a natural safe habitat for wildlife with an innovative artistic centre enabling the past, present and future to work alongside each other and co-inhabit a space that had been out of bounds for over 100 years.

Giles Landscapes had quite a task in front of them - firstly 100,000m3 of sub-soil was brought in to go over the clay only after that could the soft landscaping begin. The park is divided into bioregions each given a new name reflecting the history of the site. Roger Giles said 'Initially it was one of the toughest projects we had ever worked on - the difficulty of preparing a Brownfield site that had been topped with 1 metre of clay plus 400mm of soil and no top soil was immense'

The Blast Mound is a massive earthwork stage inspired by the reverberations from the explosions that took place on this site. It is planted as meadow which boasts a 360 degree panoramic view ideal to show off new works of art in an outdoor gallery. Hornbeam, Birch and Walnut trees were planted up here to prevent their roots penetrating into the toxins far below and were chosen for their part in the story - their use in gun and ammunition making.

The Shock Wave Galleries are 16ha of grassland, meadow, paths and vistas enabling the visitor to meander through the park soaking up the history and stories hidden amongst the subtle clues in both the soft and hard landscaping.

The clay soil provides the perfect conditions for wildflowers as it is not full of nitrates and therefore grasses don't grow so well enabling wildflowers and more delicate species to thrive. Giles Landscapes were delighted by the growth and survival rates.

Visitors can then go further back in time to experience the mysteries of The Salix - a 30ha mature nature reserve and wetland which has remained virtually untouched since the last ice age and remains as an area for contemplation and observation - looking out over this expanse it is easy to imagine how this site looked before man's intervention.

The Energy Fields are 32ha of arable land with the Meridian Line which runs through the farm highlighted by wildflower planting demonstrating a hope for the future - that on this once dead site, farming is returning, plants are returning, wildlife is returning and now human's are returning creating positivity out of negativity and combining the austere world of science with nature and art.

The design of the buildings and hard landscaping also reflect the past of Gunpowder Park from the massive sculptured gabions filled with recycled crushed concrete and casts of finds unearthed on the site - to the words and sculpture fused together to hint at the work that was carried out on this mysterious site.

'Giles Landscapes are delighted with this latest award and are proud to be associated with a project that is proving so successful both in terms of conservation and artistic endeavour. To achieve this and see the wildlife establish as we were finishing the project was great it is also good to see that the public are behind these projects that we at Giles Landscapes care so much about - as demonstrated at the Chelsea flower Show with our Wildlife gardens' Roger Giles

For more information please visit www.gileslandscapes.co.uk and www.gunpowderpark.org