Millbrook Riverside Park

The brief

For forty years the sidings were fenced off: a strip of scrub between the town centre and the river that most residents had never walked through. Halden Council bought the land in 2021 with a simple ambition: open it up, and make it somewhere people want to be.

We spent the first six months listening. Walks with schools, an open studio in an empty shop, and conversations on the towpath told us people wanted three things: to reach the water, to feel safe after dark, and to keep the wildness that had grown up on the site.

The design

The park steps down to the river in five broad terraces, built from the railway ballast and spoil already on site. Each terrace is a different habitat, from mown lawn at the top to wet meadow at the water's edge.

We kept every tree that could be kept. The oldest birch on the site is now the centre of the play area.

Lighting follows the main path only, leaving the lower meadow dark for bats. A new bridge connects the park to the estates on the far bank for the first time.