Wild Park

Corporation purchase in 1925

Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

) WILD PARK: Moulsecoomb Wild Park was purchased by the corporation as part of the Moulsecoomb estate in February 1925. Over 200 acres are now leased as farm land, but the 90-acre park, apart from the playing fields in the valley, has been left as open downland and therefore in its wild state. It was formally opened by the mayor, Charles Teasdale, on 30 June 1925, an inauguration recorded on a commemorative plinth which was removed from the Victoria Gardens. An interesting nature trail starts at the steps adjacent to the pavilion, while the access road extends nearly half a mile up the valley known as Moulsecoomb Pit towards the summer dry ski-slope. Two young trees and a commemorative seat in the northern woodland by the pavilion mark the spot where the so-called 'Wild Park Murders' were committed on 9 October 1986, when two nine-year-old girls from North Moulsecoomb were brutally killed.

The ornamental area of about five acres alongside Lewes Road to the north is known simply as the Park or the Parkway, and was laid out in 1955 on the site of Woollard's nursery. It received a Civic Trust Award in 1960, but some land was lost when the Lewes Road was 'dualled' in the late 1960s. The northern edge formed part of the county borough boundary from 1928 until 1952. {123,126}

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.