Coastal park development to follow Beatles garden theme

An imaginative sea-themed garden, inspired by the Octopus's Garden made famous by the Beatles, is to open with the aid of urban and village renewal grants, in Monkstown, Co Dublin.

The £390,000 plan for the redevelopment of Longford Gardens and Tennis Club at Seapoint is the first of a series of plans drawn up by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to revitalise derelict and semi-derelict areas along the coast between Monkstown and Dalkey.

The new garden is to incorporate a marine-themed park between Seapoint Avenue and the DART station, on land which was once the front gardens of 25 Victorian houses at Longford Terrace.

The entrance to the park close to Salthill railway station will feature "poetic and artistic influences" commemorated in motifs depicting sea nymphs and gods such as Neptune.

The park itself will feature a "maritime playground", the layout of which will be based on sea legends. It will incorporate pathways using wavy, serpentine alignments edged with driftwood and washed boulders. The steel railings along the DART line will be styled in the shape of waves, sea horses or snails.

Hard surfaces are to be decorated in sea shells with a colour scheme based on maritime colours.

The park will feature a redesigned viewing platform on high ground by Seapoint Avenue, a grass amphitheatre and performance space, oriental and marine gardens and depictions commemorating the sinking of the ship Rochdale in 1807.

The site once belonged to the householders of Longford Terrace who established a tennis club adjacent to the old Salthill Hotel. It was acquired by Dun Laoghaire Corporation by compulsory purchase order in the early 1980s.

The design of the new gardens is the work of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council landscape architect Mr Aidan J. ffrench. While he acknowledged that the park was to accommodate an additional 100 car parking spaces for Salthill railway station, Mr ffrench, whose design was accepted by the county council last October, pending finance, was adamant that the overall consideration was not the extra car parking spaces.

He maintained that the garden was an example of the council's policy of sustainable development "arising from the local maritime and architectural history of the Monkstown and Salthill area".

The construction of the park will take three years and a grant of £219,000 under the 1999 Urban and Village Renewal Grants has been sanctioned.

According to Councillor Betty Coffey (FF), the park will spearhead the upgrading of the seafront between Seapoint and Sandycove, areas of which are crying out for investment in environmental works, she said.

"I hope that the applications for the funding of these schemes will continue to be successful. Unfortunately for Dun Laoghaire, it is perceived to be a very wealthy area but like all other areas it has its pockets of poverty and deprivation," she added.