A special ceremony is being arranged to honour Denbighshire County Council with a prestigious civic award.
Ruthin and District Civic Association are to honour the Council’s Countryside Service team with the Quayle Award for car park improvements carried out at Bwlch Pen Barras, as part of the Heather and Hillforts Project – funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Judges felt that the development, out of the four shortlisted, had done the most to enhance the built environment.
Features include a new design of the viewpoint at Bwlch Pen Barras to mimic Iron Age roundhouse remains as well as increasing accessibility to the feature; Clawdd dry stone walling replacing railway sleepers, inspired by how hillforts were built using a similar technique 2,500 years ago and helping to make features that need to be present in a car park such as. parking machines, fit into surroundings better.
The Award will be presented at a ceremony to held at Nantclwyd y Dre, Ruthin on Monday, 23 April. The ceremony will be part of an evening which will also feature a talk by Dr Matthew Griffiths of the Civic Trust for Wales.
The project was one of four considered by judges. The others were restoration and lighting project at St Peter’s Gates, work at Cae Ddol to bring it back to its former glory and development of play facilities at Clocaenog village playground.
Miles Anderson, Secretary of the Ruthin and District Civic Association, said: “We are delighted to be offering the award this year for the tremendous work that has gone on at Bwlch Pen Barras. We very much admire the fact that local materials have been used, the design details that reflect the historic setting, the public information displays and the sustainability of the work carried out.
“It is interesting to note that on this occasion none of the shortlisted projects are actual buildings, but each was a project with considerable input from the community.
“We felt that the Bwlch Pen Barras project, a scheme that forms part of the Heather and Hillforts Project gave us a real sense of the iron-age settlements for which the area is famous”.
Erin Robinson, Heather and Hillforts Officer, said: “We are honoured to be receiving this award from the Association.
“We admire the work they carry out to enhance and protect buildings and features in and around Ruthin and we’re delighted they have recognised our work as being worthy of being honoured with their award”.
