Camperdown Country Park

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Camperdown House
Camperdown House.jpg
Camperdown House, June 2006
Coordinates 56°29′02″N3°02′46″W / 56.484°N 3.046°W / 56.484; -3.046
Area400 acres (1.6 km2)
Listed Building – Category A
Designated12 July 1963
Reference no. LB25078
Designated1 July 1987
Reference no. GDL00082
Dundee UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location in Dundee

Camperdown Country Park, often known as just Camperdown Park, is a public park in the Camperdown area of Dundee, Scotland. The park comprises the former grounds of Camperdown House, a 19th-century mansion, which was bought by the city in 1946. Camperdown Park is home to a wildlife centre and recreational facilities. It is the largest park in Dundee, [1] stretching to 400 acres (1.6 km2). [2] Over 190 species of tree are found in the park. [1] [2]

Contents

Camperdown House is the largest Greek Revival house remaining in Scotland. [3] It is protected as a Category A listed building, and the park is included on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, the national listing of significant parks. [4]

History

The Camperdown estate was originally known as Lundie, and was bought by Alexander Duncan in 1682. A 16th-century house stood on the estate at this time. Several members of the family served as provost of Dundee during the 18th century. In 1797, during the French Revolutionary Wars, Admiral Adam Duncan (1731–1804) commanded the Royal Navy fleet that defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Camperdown. He was rewarded by being raised to the peerage as Viscount Duncan. [4]

In 1820, his son Robert, 2nd Viscount Duncan, commissioned William Burn to design a new house in the Greek Revival style. The earlier house was demolished, and the new house was completed in 1828. [3] Lord Duncan renamed the house and estate Camperdown in memory of his father's victory, [4] and in 1831 he was created Earl of Camperdown by William IV. The parklands surrounding the house were laid out by Lord Camperdown, with the assistance of his forester David Taylor, who along with his son planted most of the estate's trees between 1805 and 1859. [4]

After the death of the 4th Earl in 1933, the earldom became extinct, and Camperdown was inherited by a cousin, Georgiana, widow of the 7th Earl of Buckinghamshire. On her death in 1937, the contents were sold, and the house followed, being bought by the Corporation of Dundee in 1946. [4] Camperdown Country Park officially opened to the public in 1949. [1]

Camperdown Park has been the host venue for BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend twice, the first time in 2006, [5] and again in 2023. It was due to host in 2020 however it was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. [6] It is the only venue in Scotland to host the event twice. [7]

Aside from hosting BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, Camperdown Park also hosted Carnival Fifty Six in August 2017, which was intended to be an annual music festival for Dundee, similar to TRNSMT in Glasgow, however, it was cancelled after one year. [8] [9] [10]

Facilities and features

"Jeremy" the brown bear at Camperdown Jeremy the bear.jpg
"Jeremy" the brown bear at Camperdown

Wildlife Centre

The Camperdown Wildlife Centre is home to over three hundred animals, [11] of fifty different species. [12] The centre contains mainly mammals and birds but also houses several reptile species. The centre is a member of BIAZA (The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums), which promotes high standards of care for animals in zoo collections.

The park made news headlines in 1986, when "Jeremy", its female European brown bear, bit the arm off ten-year-old Ross Prendergast, who had sneaked into the park after hours. A campaign was launched to stop the bear being put down. [13] [14] The bear enclosure has been enlarged since the incident, and there are now three different bears at the park.

Comet and Star, the two brown bears, were two of the most popular animals at the centre. Comet died in 2016 and Star was joined by three younger bears from another collection. Star died in 2018. One of Britain's rarest mammals, the pine marten, can also be found in the centre. [12] Camperdown Wildlife Centre received its "zoo licence" in September 2003. [13]

In 2007, the park was subjected to an attack by vandals who broke into the zoo and launched an assault on numerous different species. They used weapons including a pick axe, a knife and stakes. As a result of the attack, a fallow deer was left with a large wound on its side, a terrapin's eyes had been gouged out and a snowy owl had become so distressed that it cannibalised its own offspring. Following the incident, two boys, ages 11 and 13, were charged. A total of twenty-five animals had been injured.[ citation needed ]

Golf course

Camperdown Country Park had an eighteen-hole golf course which was 6,548 yards in length. It was opened in 1959 and became a very popular golf course in the area. During the 1970s the course held the British Police Championship, and (with the Downfield Golf Course) the Scottish Stroke-Play Championship. [15] Following a cost-saving exercise by Dundee City Council, the decision was made to close the course permanently. It closed in April 2020. [16]

Camperdown Elm

The original Camperdown elm, 1989 Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii' in Dundee.jpg
The original Camperdown elm, 1989

Camperdown is notable in horticulture as the origin of the Camperdown Elm (Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii'), a short, broad, "weeping" variety of elm. The tree was discovered around 1835–1840 by Lord Camperdown's head forester, David Taylor, who noticed a mutant contorted wych elm branch sprawling along the ground. The earl's gardener produced the first Camperdown Elm by grafting it to the trunk of a normal wych elm ( Ulmus glabra ). Every Camperdown Elm is from a cutting taken from that original tree and is grafted on a U. glabra trunk.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camperdown, Dundee</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Camperdown is an area of Dundee, Scotland, best known for Camperdown Park, which is the largest park in the city.

<i>Ulmus glabra</i> Camperdownii Elm cultivar

The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii', commonly known as the Camperdown Elm, was discovered about 1835–1840 as a young contorted elm growing in the forest at Camperdown House, in Dundee, Scotland, by the Earl of Camperdown's head forester, David Taylor. The young tree was lifted and replanted within the gardens of Camperdown House where it remains to this day. The original tree, which grows on its own roots, is less than 3 m tall, with a weeping habit and contorted branch structure. The earl's gardener is said to have produced the first of what are commonly recognised as Camperdown elms by grafting a cutting to the trunk of a wych elm.

<i>Ulmus glabra</i> Species of flowering plant in the elm family Ulmaceae

Ulmus glabraHudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Ural Mountains, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reaches its southern limit in Europe; it is also found in Iran. A large deciduous tree, it is essentially a montane species, growing at elevations up to 1,500 m (4,900 ft), preferring sites with moist soils and high humidity. The tree can form pure forests in Scandinavia and occurs as far north as latitude 67°N at Beiarn in Norway. It has been successfully introduced as far north as Tromsø and Alta in northern Norway (70°N). It has also been successfully introduced to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland (61°N).

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<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Vegeta Elm cultivar

Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta', sometimes known as the Huntingdon Elm, is an old English hybrid cultivar raised at Brampton, near Huntingdon, by nurserymen Wood & Ingram in 1746, allegedly from seed collected at nearby Hinchingbrooke Park. In Augustine Henry's day, in the later 19th century, the elms in Hinchingbrooke Park were U. nitens. Richens, noting that wych elm is rare in Huntingdonshire, normally flowering four to six weeks later than field elm, pointed out that unusually favourable circumstances would have had to coincide to produce such seed: "It is possible that, some time in the eighteenth century, the threefold requirements of synchronous flowering of the two species, a south-west wind", "and a mild spring permitting the ripening of the samaras, were met."

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Stricta Elm cultivar

The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Stricta', known as Cornish elm, was commonly found in South West England, Brittany, and south-west Ireland, until the arrival of Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. The origin of Cornish elm in England remains a matter of contention. It is commonly assumed to have been introduced from Brittany. It is also considered possible that the tree may have survived the ice ages on lands to the south of Cornwall long since lost to the sea. Henry thought it "probably native in the south of Ireland". Dr Max Coleman of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, arguing in his 2002 paper on British elms that there was no clear distinction between species and subspecies, suggested that known or suspected clones of Ulmus minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, preferred the designation U. minor 'Stricta' to Ulmus minor var. stricta. The DNA of 'Stricta' has been investigated and the cultivar is now known to be a clone.

<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Groeneveld Elm cultivar

The Dutch hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Groeneveld' was cloned in 1949 at the De Dorschkamp Institute, Wageningen, and released in 1963 in response to the earlier, less virulent form of Dutch elm disease that afflicted Europe shortly after the First World War. The cultivar was derived from a crossing of Dutch clones '49', and '1', a Field Elm Ulmus minor found in central France and marketed by the Barbier nursery in Orléans.

<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Smithii Elm cultivar

The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Smithii', commonly known as the Downton Elm, was one of a number of cultivars arising from the crossing of the Wych Elm U. glabra with the Field Elm U. minor. The tree was originally planted at Downton Castle near Ludlow, as one of a batch, not all of them pendulous in habit, raised at Smith's Nursery, Worcester, England, from seeds obtained from a tree in Nottingham in 1810.

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<i>Ulmus glabra</i> Lutescens Elm cultivar

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulmus glabra 'Horizontalis'</span> Elm cultivar

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<i>Ulmus</i> Purpurea Elm cultivar

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<i>Ulmus glabra</i> Superba Elm cultivar

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Robert Dundas Haldane-Duncan, 1st Earl of Camperdown KT, styled Lord Duncan from 1797 to 1804 and known as Viscount Duncan from 1804 to 1831, was a British soldier and aristocrat.

References

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  2. 1 2 "Camperdown Country Park". information-britain.co.uk. Information Britain. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
  3. 1 2 Historic Environment Scotland. "CAMPERDOWN HOUSE, CAMPERDOWN COUNTRY PARK (Category A Listed Building) (LB25078)" . Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Historic Environment Scotland. "CAMPERDOWN HOUSE (GDL00082)" . Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  5. "BBC - Radio 1's Big Weekend 2006 - About the weekend". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  6. Saunders, Emmeline; Sulway, Verity (13 March 2020). "Radio 1 Big Weekend cancelled over coronavirus chaos as gigs and sports pulled". mirror. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  7. "The 1975 and Lewis Capaldi to play Radio 1's Big Weekend". BBC News. 30 January 2023. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  8. Dingwall, Blair (8 August 2017). "Carnival 56: Everything you need to know about Dundee's biggest music event in a decade". The Courier. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  9. Love, Nicola (4 March 2017). "New festival Carnival 56 hopes to put Dundee back on musical map". Daily Record. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  10. Crae, Ross. "Dundee's Carnival Fifty Six music festival won't be returning for a second year". The Sunday Post. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  11. "Camperdown Park". scottish-places.info. The Editors of The Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
  12. 1 2 "Camperdown Country Park". aboutbritain.com. Excelsior Information Systems Limited. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
  13. 1 2 "Size of bear enclosure set to be increased". The Courier . Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
  14. MacCormick, Alex (28 July 2003). The Mammoth Book of Maneaters - Google Book Search. ISBN   9780786711703 . Retrieved 17 April 2009.
  15. "The History of Both Golf Courses". dundeecity.gov.uk. Dundee City. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
  16. Keith, Jake. "'Very sad for the people of Dundee' ⁠— Camperdown Golf Course officially closes". The Courier. Retrieved 12 December 2020.

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