MK: Campbell Park
Parks planned by modern architects don't always work. They're often bland, contrived and characterless, indeed utterly devoid of any charm that might encourage you to spend some time therein. Campbell Park in Milton Keynes is different. It may be artificial but a lot of thought has been given to establishing a sense of beauty and place, especially through judicious use of public art[photo][photo]. If the 2012 Olympic Park ends up half as good as this I shan't complain. The park's now a third of a century old, just long enough to for the trees to have matured, and the golden yellow maple woodland provides a magnificent autumn spectacle at this time of year [photo].
The key to the park's success is a contouredlandscape - not easy to come by when the area is naturally flat, but most of the earth and spoil from construction of the town centre ended up here. The best views come from the tip of a tongue of elevated grassland, the Belvedere, from which the eastern suburbs are clearly visible with Bedfordshire beyond. It's not a busy park, though, not in November. I had the labyrinth [photo] all to myself, and the forlorn looking ornamental fountain, and most of my Redway walk too (bar the occasional bouncy dog walker). The area might throb more if strips of scrubland to north and south are developed, as planned, into high-density residential neighbourhoods [photo]. For now these sloping plots are protected only by ineffective signs stating "Private land, no public access or right of way", plus one solitary locked gate in a non-existent fence.
MK: Willen Lake There's something innately athletic about Milton Keynes. Sure you could spend your entire life driving everywhere, but there are plenty of opportunities scattered around the town to get out there and get physical. One such location is WillenLake, a two-chambered artificial reservoir which helps to regulate drainage across the city. This is a watersports hotspot, no doubt thronging during the summer months with sailors, canoers and windsurfers. Even in late autumn I noted baggy boys and beardy blokes aplenty headed down to the lakeside with boards and wetsuits in hand. Wakeboarding's the new big thing here, with a 5-cornered cable rig set up in the water to tug riders around a wired circuit at 30mph [photo]. Sooner them than me. According to the organisers "We currently have 5 sliders in the water, a 90ft flat bar, a new staked in A-frame, a pipe slider with a kick off the end, a large m rail with fun box attached and also a large aframe to flatbar." I'm assuming those are the ramps I saw which looked like a fleet of half-submerged cars and lorries, and the idea is to aim for those on the way round for a bit of an aerobaticthrill.
For the more lethargic visitor there's still plenty to see. Birds for a start, with a hide for viewing the more elusive species (although seagulls were plentiful enough from the lakeside path [photo]). There's what looks like an ancient stone henge, but which is actually a millennialmonument based on a North American medicine wheel. Set into a sodden grass bowl is an acre of tortuouslabyrinth, which has no dead ends or junctions and must therefore be terribly tedious to walk around. And higher on the hillside is a peacepagoda[photo], the first to be built in the western hemisphere, now associated with a Japanese temple on the hilltop. The story of Buddha is shown in pictorial format around the circumference, and at the centre a serene golden god stares down past guardianlions across the water [photo]. A full circumnavigation of the lake would no doubt reveal further unexpected delights.
MK: Bancroft And finally a pilgrimage to a northwestern neighbourhood, threaded through by the LoughtonValley and tucked close to the London to Birmingham railway line. I was in search of the city's most notorious farmyard residents, the ConcreteCows. They're not signposted, nor waymarked, but thankfully they are marked on an Ordnance Survey map so I knew where to head. From Bradwell Abbey[photo] beneath the mainline, then turn left up the first forked footpath beneath the A422 overpass. There they are beside the river, a herd of six angular friesians [photo]. They've been here (on and off) since 1978, constructed by community artist Liz Leyh with the help of local school children. Each cow has its own character [photo][photo], and the group's boggle-eyed demeanour is immensely endearing. Being concrete they're all perfect for sitting on, which must be why health & safety bods have been along and scattered the grass beneath with impact-absorbing woodchips [photo]. It should be the cows themselves in need of protection. Over the years they've been repainted, graffitied, vandalised, even beheaded, while one particularly ill-advised relocation to the MK Dons football ground saw them seriously assaulted by fork-lift trucks. But the cows have always been repaired and reborn, and now the council keeps a spare set in case of future trauma.
Even on a grey afternoon they're intensely photogenic [photo], and I wandered around the group for a good quarter of an hour checking angles and close-ups. During that time several car drivers pulled up briefly at the roadside nearby, wound down their window and attempted to capture the group on their mobile. When one car hung around for ages it took me a while to deduce that they were waiting to photograph just six beasts, not seven. I took my cue and hurried out of shot, leaving the cows to their solitary grazing [photo].
There's something innately athletic about Milton Keynes. Sure you could spend your entire life driving everywhere, but there are plenty of opportunities scattered around the town to get out there and get physical. One such location is Willen Lake, a two-chambered artificial reservoir which helps to regulate drainage across the city. This is a watersports hotspot, no doubt thronging during the summer months with sailors, canoers and windsurfers. Even in late autumn I noted baggy boys and beardy blokes aplenty headed down to the lakeside with boards and wetsuits in hand. Wakeboarding's the new big thing here, with a 5-cornered cable rig set up in the water to tug riders around a wired circuit at 30mph [photo]. Sooner them than me. According to the organisers "We currently have 5 sliders in the water, a 90ft flat bar, a new staked in A-frame, a pipe slider with a kick off the end, a large m rail with fun box attached and also a large aframe to flatbar." I'm assuming those are the ramps I saw which looked like a fleet of half-submerged cars and lorries, and the idea is to aim for those on the way round for a bit of an aerobatic thrill.
And finally a pilgrimage to a northwestern neighbourhood, threaded through by the Loughton Valley and tucked close to the London to Birmingham railway line. I was in search of the city's most notorious farmyard residents, the Concrete Cows. They're not signposted, nor waymarked, but thankfully they are marked on an Ordnance Survey map so I knew where to head. From Bradwell Abbey [photo] beneath the mainline, then turn left up the first forked footpath beneath the A422 overpass. There they are beside the river, a herd of six angular friesians [photo]. They've been here (on and off) since 1978, constructed by community artist Liz Leyh with the help of local school children. Each cow has its own character [photo][photo], and the group's boggle-eyed demeanour is immensely endearing. Being concrete they're all perfect for sitting on, which must be why health & safety bods have been along and scattered the grass beneath with impact-absorbing woodchips [photo]. It should be the cows themselves in need of protection. Over the years they've been repainted, graffitied, vandalised, even beheaded, while one particularly ill-advised relocation to the MK Dons football ground saw them seriously assaulted by fork-lift trucks. But the cows have always been repaired and reborn, and now the council keeps a spare set in case of future trauma.
