Park is back in the TV spotlight

TV presenter Dan Cruickshank (third left) on location in Alexandra Park with apprentices Andrew Marsland (left) and Nathan Christie (second left), and Paul Byrne, technical assistant and former apprentice of the year (third right).

TV presenter Dan Cruickshank spent the day filming in Oldham’s Alexandra Park for a show due to be screened in the spring.

The presenter, who is also an architectural historian, was investigating declining skills in the world of horticulture for a BBC documentary on the history of Britain’s parks.

Cruickshank joined park apprentices as they worked on the age-old craft of carpet-bedding, where words or letters are written in flowers in a bed formed by plants of a different colour or species.

It is the second time Alexandra Park has been featured by the BBC, the first was in 2006 when Joe Swift used it for filming a “Gardeners’ World” parks special.

Glenn Dale, horticultural services manager for Oldham’s parks and countryside department, said: “It was a bolt out of the blue when we were asked to take part in this new documentary, and it’s superb news for Oldham.

“It promotes our apprenticeship scheme and the way we are reintroducing some of the industry’s declining skills.

“Here in Oldham we are trying to bring back some of those skills, and we were delighted to accommodate the BBC in featuring them.”

The show will be screened on BBC4 in spring as part of its “Outdoors” season.

It explores the creation of Britain’s greatest public parks, and the television crew will travel the country to reveal the rich history of the nation’s parks.

It will trace them from their civic heyday in the 19th century, through the neglect of the 1980s, up to their resurgence today.

Cruickshank is renowned for presenting documentaries that look into the beauty of architecture, hidden treasures and most recently “Cruickshank on Kew, The Gardens that Changed the World”.