Landscape record 0648601000 - Rookery Park

Mentioned by Sheahan as pleasant grounds, may have been the site of an ancient chapel. APs show vestiges of ground layout but nothing of any detail (B1).
Gardens laid out by Benjamin Atkinson after 1849. In the early 20th century, the park or gardens had an entrance for carriages from Heron Place along a carriageway that led to the front of the house and back round an oval lawn. Another wide path, flanked by lawns, led straight from the back of the house into the park and a leisure area that included a croquet lawn and tennis courts. Other pathways circled inside the brick walls, seperated from them by fruit trees and floral beds about 10 feet wide. There was also a vegetable garden and a substantial greenhouse, hidden away behind trees. This included an area heated by a coal boiler to grow grapes and exotic plants. There were ponds and hundreds of trees in the grounds, under which many thousand naturalized daffodils and tulips made a wonderful show in the Spring. In 1962 part of the site was sold for housing and the rest passed to the local authority. There are still several specimen trees in the park. [2008 information leaflet by Tony Reeve, reproduced as Appendix 1](B2).