NEW VISITOR'S WELCOME CENTRE AT TWYCROSS ZOO
The new Visitor Welcome Centre will be a landmark for the East Midlands Region and a visitor attraction in itself that will put Twycross in the top tier of British Zoos.
With the support and funding from the East Midlands Development Agency, over £7m is being invested in this development.
Rock & Water Aquatic Landscapes Ltd have been asked to design and build a Himalayan Mountain enclosure with resident Snow Leopards and a Shore Bird enclosure. The Welcome centre will have a new 300 seat restaurant which will look out onto the Snow Leopards plus a function room for conferences and events overlooking a naturalistic wetland aviary for the shore birds.
The visitors centre building was already underway when Rock & Water started their part of the project on June 22nd 2009. Over the last 2 months progress has been a little difficult due to bad weather, however Lee Wake, our project manager, and his team are making good headway and are bringing the project in on time.
This has been an exciting venture for Rock & Water Aquatic Landscapes Ltd ,aiding us in our move forward into the commercial sector which will work along side our domestic projects.
We will keep you updated on further developments with this project.
GARDENERS WORLD STAR IMPRESSED BY ROCK & WATER DESIGN
Millions of TV viewers saw Rock & Water’s show garden when they tuned in to coverage of the BBC Gardener’s World Live Show which was staged at the NEC from June 11th to 15th.
Gardening expert and programme presenter Joe Swift described the garden – titled Rock & Waterfall – as having “the wow factor” and labelled it as “the most ambitious” of all those created for the event.
He went on to describe the huge waterfall at the centre of the design as “a quite incredible water feature” which particularly pleased Rock & Water owner and chief designer Jack Bartholomew.
“To be given such a positive review on the UK’s top gardening show by a well respected garden designer is very encouraging and makes the whole team’s effort to build the garden worth every aching muscle,” he says.
The Rock & Water workers did the equivalent of four months work in just two weeks to create the stunning show garden.
Grafting in all weather – ranging from torrential rain to baking heat – to complete the job they had to:
· Move 100 tonnes of earth.
· Change levels in the ground by up to 3 metres.
· Position 60 tonnes of stone on site.
· Place several thousand plants in the ground.
· Fill a pool and brooks with 10,000 litres of water.
· Construct a 2.5 metre waterfall.
· Move and plant a number of mature trees up to 8 metres high.
Judges from the Royal Horticultural Society were also impressed with the endeavour that went in to creating the 8 by 14 metre display and awarded it a prestigious silver medal – which became the talking point of the five day show with nearly every visitor who stopped to chat to Jack and his team saying they thought it should have won gold!
“We are hugely pleased that the paying public liked our garden so much and were very positive about the work that we do. At the end of the day they are our potential clients and there is no point in us creating something that wins the top prize but nobody is interested in,” says Jack.
Creating a show garden was a huge endeavour for Rock & Water but proved to be a superb way for the company to show case the work they do. The enquiry level during the event was high and the appointment book is now bulging with meetings to discuss commissions all over the UK.
