Alexandra Park, Hastings, Hastings, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The valley occupied by Alexandra Park was farmland and woodland in the 18th century. In 1849, the Eversfield Waterworks Company leased land from the Eversfield estate in the upper reaches of the valley to build a series of reservoirs to supply the growing population of Hastings and St Leonards. Much of the southern end of the park was owned at that time by Countess Waldegrave (Banks 1849) and it was from her that a Mr Shirley leased land in the 1850s to establish a nursery garden with a series of ponds.

In 1859 the Hastings Corporation took over the remaining seventeen years of Mr Shirley's lease, the Countess Waldegrave cancelling this in 1860 and granting a new one for ninety-nine years to the Corporation which also, in the following years, bought the leases of the Shornden, Harmers and Buckshole reservoirs. In 1863, the Corporation passed a resolution that 'the public be permitted access ... for recreation' to the grounds westwards of the lower reservoir (Shirley's Pond) at the extreme southern end of the present park, which were duly laid out at a cost of £50 and opened as St Andrew's Gardens in 1864.

From 1872 the Corporation continued to purchase woodland and agricultural land north and west along the two arms of the valley and up the sides, so that by 1876 the park extended north and south of St Andrew's Gardens to St Helen's Road and Lower Park Road, westwards up the valley to include Shornden Wood and the surrounds to Harmer's and Shornden reservoirs, and northwards to Buckshole Reservoir. A year later, the Corporation commissioned Robert Marnock (1800-1889) to advise on the improvement of the park, authorising him to purchase plants the following year. No plans or drawings indicating the extent of his work have survived.

The park was opened to the public by the Prince and Princess of Wales (Princess Alexandra) on 26 June 1882. Since then, the Corporation and then the Borough Council have extended the park to its present boundaries, acquiring the land between Buckshole Reservoir and Old Roar Ghyll to the north in stages in 1930, 1939, 1956 and 1996.