Details of the planned £3.3m facelift for Cliffe Castle Park have been revealed.

Measures are designed to return the park to its Victorian heyday when it was a mill owner's private paradise, with fountains, pathways, terraces, vegetation and entrances being restored and the cafe and greenhouses being replaced.

The hope is that the work will be funded through an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund's Parks For People Programme.

Bradford Council passed “stage one” of the bid on November 28 and has submitted its final, stage two application.

Among the major elements of the facelift are:

  • Providing a new entrance and gates and restoring the historic Keighley Road entrance
  • Creating a new ornamental pond and restoring two historic fountains
  • Recreating planting, opening up the original views across the park
  • Restoring the formal terraces, pathways and stairs and replacing the urns
  • lmproving the bandstand to create a bigger performance space with two stage levels
  • Building a new cafe, meeting room, and houses for guinea pigs, rabbits and birds
  • Building a new glasshouse structure including a Palm House

The council said its proposals aimed to restore and enhance the key historic features, views, structures and planting of Cliffe Castle Park.

They would also provide an “accessible, vibrant, well-designed and maintained” park to allow local people to learn about its rich heritage value.

The council’s design team has been working for several months on draft proposals and has consulted Cliffe Castle Park Conservation Group and other local people.

Bradford Council is also looking for funding from other sources to replace the park's playground.

Plans for the project were revealed in the Keighley News in 2009, when readers were asked to draw up a “wish list” of improvements.

The aim was to follow the successful £4m lottery-funded restoration of Lister Park in Bradford.

Cliffe Castle Park was created by mill owner Henry Isaac Butterfield in the 1870s.