Oscarshall Palace Park to be restored

Oscarshall is one of Norway`s most important national memorials. However, the facility is more than the building with its interiors and artwork. The surrounding park is an essential part of the place. This autumn, Norwegian archaeologists have been on a tour of the facility around Oscarshall Palace. When the castle building was restored from 2005 to 2009, both the building itself and the interiors were largely brought back to the way it was originally. The desire was to do the same with the park, but there were not enough resources.

The park between the castle building and the sea remained a kind of hybrid between the original facility and remnants of the formal expression that the park received in 1930. While the 1930s design had symmetry as its ideal, the original facility was characterised by asymmetry and rounded shapes on footpaths and beds. The ornamental shrubs were allowed to grow freely and the vegetation had a softer appearance.

The history of the facility is very well documented by Bjørn Anders Fredriksen and Annegreth Dietze-Shirdewahn at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. This was the starting point for the archaeological investigation, carried out on behalf of the Royal Court.

The goal was to find the footpath that previously went in a curved line from the Smoking Pavilion and up the stairs to the upper fountain. The archaeologists also wanted to find traces of the original space around the fountain by the Smoking Pavilion. When it was built in the 1850s, it had a completely different shape than today. The results of the surveys were very good. The original footpath was found in its entirety with rows of solid curbs in the outer edges. At the Smoking Pavilion, the original shape of the square appeared, with clear remnants of the dark grey gravel that had originally been taken from the shoreline down by the sea.

In the spring, work will begin on bringing the original design back. The oldest footpath from the stairs will regain its width, the space around the fountain by the Smoking Pavilion and the footpath up to the facility’s central staircase will be recreated.

The royal gardeners at the Royal Palace also plan to recreate the vegetation in the entire facility. Plant lists from the archive at Stockholm Palace tell about a number of interesting plants that have been used at Oscarshall, and assisted by expertise from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the gardeners are now starting the detailed planning of the park’s green and flowering expression. Oscarshall is managed as a protected area, and the plans for the restoration of the park have been approved by the National Heritage Association.