Landseer Park is a large open green space north of Landseer Road, in the eastern suburbs of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is home to the Ipswich BMX Club.

National Cycle Route 51 National Cycle Route 51 is an English long distance cycle route running broadly east-west connecting Colchester and the port of Harwich to Oxford via Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Bicester, and Kidlington. Links to ...

passes through the park. It is designated a

County Wildlife Site County Wildlife Site (often abbreviated to CWS) is a conservation designation in the United Kingdom, which despite conferring no statutory protection onto a site, does affirm a site's importance and value for wildlife in its county context. The d ...

History

The area used to be wooded valley with a brook running down from east to west and into the

River Orwell The River Orwell flows through the county of Suffolk in England from Ipswich to Felixstowe. Above Ipswich, the river is known as the River Gipping, but its name changes to the Orwell at Stoke Bridge, where the river becomes tidal. It broadens i ...

. The 1902 Ordnance Survey map shows an area known as Clapgate, which means a "gate on to a waste or common—which the animals going to the common can push open but which shuts automatically so that they cannot get out." There is also a wooded area marked as

Alder Carr An alder carr is a particular type of carr, i.e. waterlogged wooded terrain populated with alder trees. Examples * Alder Carr, Hildersham * Alderfen Broad * Fawley Ford on the Beaulieu River * Biebrza National Park * Fen Alder Carr * Harston ...

, a kind of land form also featured on the same map in the nearby Holywells Estate. This name is retained on the ''Ipswich Wildlife Audit 2013'' map. The audit describes how up until the 1960s the site consisted of various mature trees set in woodland, alongside shrubland, and wetland features such as

wet meadows A wet meadow is a type of wetland with soils that are saturated for part or all of the growing season. Debate exists whether a wet meadow is a type of marsh or a completely separate type of wetland. Wet prairies and wet savannas are hydrologically ...

, fen, streams and ponds. However, during the 1950s and 1960s, except for the playground area at the eastern end of the park, the site was used as a

landfill site A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

to dispose of domestic waste. Thousands of tonnes of household waste and possibly some industrial waste and even a dead horse were dumped there. Nevertheless, the area was used by local children from the

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

Estate as a play area, and the existence of the now buried rubbish is still indicated by the presence of tall cast iron methane vents

Geology

Part of the area has a 2-metre layer of

Red Crag ''Red Crag'' or ''Red Rock'' () was a 1961 novel based partly on fact by Chinese authors Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan, who were former inmates in a Kuomintang prison in Sichuan. It was set in Chongqing during the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and fe ...

, i.e. fossilised seashells coloured red by iron, sitting on top of

London Clay The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 56–49 million years ago) age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for its fossil content. The fossils from ...

Ipswich BMX Club

The Ipswich BMX Club built the first

BMX track BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the ea ...

in the UK here in 1980.The club continues to provide coaching and races in the park on a regular basis. In 2013 they applied to Ipswich Borough Council for funds to upgrade the track surface so that they could continue to hold practice sessions and meet the necessary standards for national and international BMX meets.

Gallery

Landseer Park - BMX track.jpg, A long-distance view of the Landseer Park BMX track Landseer Park - view of Maidenhall.jpg, Landseer Park - view of Maidenhall in the distance Landseer Park - view west from east end of park.jpg, Landseer Park - view west from the eastern end of park Landseer Park - geograph.org.uk - 1144135.jpg, Landseer Park with snow, February 2009

References

{{reflist Parks and open spaces in Ipswich BMX tracks County wildlife sites in England Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich