Parks and Bandstands - ProjectBook

Parks and Bandstands

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By Chris Topp

Every Victorian park had to have a bandstand, many of which succumbed to the indifference of the post war years. With the advent of the Heritage Lottery Fund many of our parks have received much needed attention and along with the park gates and fencing, many bandstands have been the subject of restoration projects. Chris Topp & Co has been fortunate to be instrumental in the repair of many of these.

With possible funding available and a growing interest in public spaces, a demand has arisen for new bandstands. Chris Topp’s latest project was at Roberts Park in Saltaire, they won a tender process in 2009 to create and build an open bandstand for this historic park.

Opened in 1871 Roberts Park is within the World Heritage Site of Saltaire and Grade II listed. The unusual opportunity to create a distinctive bandstand as a focal point & enhancement of the landscape architecture came through the parks refurbishment programme. The original bandstand, recorded only in archive photographs, was very modest and given the exceptional character of the Saltaire village an attempt to reconstruct it was considered not necessarily appropriate. The architect developed the outline size & theme of the new bandstand informed by a series of consultation programmes with the local community & close cooperation with conservation & heritage representatives. The emerging ‘Park Vision’ was refined into three themes of which the ‘Saltaire Flower & Musical Delights’ received consensus.

As specialist ironwork designers Chris Topp & Co’s role was to apply this concept to the outline proposal of the bandstand, fully detailing all aspects of its decoration & construction.

The theme was really interesting to work with, possibly because it was established from sketches by children at Saltaire Primary School. The class, when asked to draw their thoughts on ‘What does music outdoors mean to you?’ & ‘What is a bandstand?’ conceived the idea of combining musical instruments with the parks foliage. The result a horn that blew flowers & leaves in place of notes! This concept had the added benefit of a direct reference to Saltaire’s heritage, with flowers being a distinctive decorative element within the local buildings. Expanding on this, assembling four capital designs each based on a casual reference associating the instrument to the plant.

• Horns & Saxifrage
• Violins & Maple
• Cymbals & (blue) Bells
• Harps & Shamrocks

Following 9 months of construction the bandstand had its official opening ceremony on the 23^rd May 2010

Chris Topp & Co Ltd is a 30 year old company, based in North Yorkshire which is the only producer in the world today of genuine wrought iron and a leader in the restoration of heritage ironwork. They are one of the best known names for the design and creative production of modern and traditional iron work.

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