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Priory Country Park

1986 establishments in EnglandBedfordBedfordshire geography stubsCountry parks in BedfordshireNature reserves in Bedfordshire
Priorycountrypark
Priorycountrypark

Priory Country Park is a country park located in the Newnham area of Bedford, England alongside the River Great Ouse. The park is managed by Bedford Borough Council.The park was established after gravel extraction ended in 1977. It was officially opened in 1986 by Valerie Singleton. It covers an area of 300 acres (121 hectares), with habitats including lakes, grassland and woodland. It includes the Priory Marina and Cardington Artificial Slalom Course. There is also a Beefeater Grill and Premier Inn by the park entrance. Priory Country Park won a Green Flag Award in 2007.The wall alongside the marina is constructed from stones which were once part of the former Augustinian monastery that occupied part of the site. It also contains Roman bricks from an earlier Roman farmhouse that preceded it.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Priory Country Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Priory Country Park
Barkers Lane,

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.131972 ° E -0.434981 °
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Barkers Lane
MK41 9RZ , Newnham
England, United Kingdom
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Cardington Artificial Slalom Course
Cardington Artificial Slalom Course

Cardington Artificial Slalom Course (CASC) was the first artificial whitewater canoe slalom course in the UK when it was completed in July 1982, having been first discussed in 1972. Based on the River Great Ouse adjacent to Cardington sluice, within the grounds of Priory Country Park and approximately 2.5 km downstream from Bedford, the course has a dual role as both a flood control structure and a whitewater course for canoe slalom training and events. The course cost £273,000 and was funded by a consortium of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now the Environment Agency), Anglian Water, the Sports Council (now UK Sport) and local councils and was seen as an excellent example of the relatively low cost adaptation of a necessary structure to provide a facility of national significance. The structure consists of an automatically controlled dropleaf control sluice, 9 metres wide, at the head of a concrete-lined channel which connects the upper reach of the river to the lower. The channel is 120 m long with a bed slope of 1:100. To create the required water flow pattern, fibreglass boulders known as "hippos" and "dollies" are secured to the base of the channel. The maximum head is 1.7 m with a maximum water capacity of 15 cubic metres per second. Originally seen primarily as a training venue, the course also holds two national ranking canoe slalom competitions per year at up to Division 2 level, and is the host every year to the Inter Clubs Final, which pits teams from all the top canoe slalom clubs against each other for an overall trophy. Running all weekend with camping overnight, the Inter Clubs is the largest canoe slalom event in the UK (by number of participants), a great social event for the sport and one of the highlights of the UK slalom calendar. The course celebrated its 25th anniversary in September 2007 with a visit by Frank Branston the Mayor of Bedford. The original project's vision of becoming 'a regional centre for canoeing' has come to fruition. Competition events at CASC are organised by Bedford's Viking Kayak Club which also organises national ranking events and finals in kayak marathon. Viking celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2011.