A version of Cornwall’s Eden Project is set to open in Northern Ireland in 2023. Eden Project Foyle would be a world-class tourism and heritage led regeneration project that will unlock the landscape along the river Foyle in Derry/Londonderry for 400,000 visitors each year. The project will link two riverside estates that had previously been inaccessible to the public. A playspace at the centre of the scheme will be known as The Acorn, a mix of nature-based play and treetop walkways.
At the heart of Eden Project Foyle is Foyle River Gardens Charitable Trust, a local Educational Charity, and Eden Project International, a globally recognised regeneration project. The scheme will connect visitors to more than 400 years of the city’s history and generate £62 million each year for the local economy. The site overlooks one of the world’s most beautiful rivers and is home to magnificent heritage landscapes and buildings and includes some of the largest walled gardens in Europe. There is an opportunity to transform the walled gardens and spaces into a collection of experiences and journeys across the site.
Transformational vision
Eden Project Foyle delivers a transformational vision for the Boom Hall and Brook Hall sites turning them into a stunning visitor destination and a home for research and learning.
From productive gardens that showcase the best of Northern Ireland food and drink to stepped ponds, sunken labyrinths, futuristic roof gardens, and a nature-based play experience, the spaces would provide a range of sanctuaries and enclosures to discover, explore and get lost in. Each space would be joined together by weaving pathways, floating boardwalks, rope bridges, slides and zip-wires to form the world’s most playful landscape.
Project aims
Eden Project Foyle aims, by 2023, to:
- create a world-class, year-round, iconic tourist attraction attracting 400,000 visitors per annum
- make a significant contribution to the regeneration of Derry/Londonderry generating £62.3m GVA per annum economic impact locally and supporting 2,233 jobs within the local economy
- open up 225 acres of previously inaccessible land to the general public
- create 8km of riverside trails and connect the site to the City and Wild Atlantic Way
- bring three historic walled gardens and an 18th-century icehouse back into use
- enhance 15,000 sq.ft. of historic buildings
- establish educational partnerships with Higher and Further Educational establishments to help support research and training opportunities on the site with a focus on ecology, the environment and wellbeing
- inaugurate Eden Project Foyle as part of Eden’s family of globally transformative projects linking China, USA, England and Ireland.