Bijgaarde Park is designed as an adventure park with bushes, flower meadows, open lawns and play areas for children of different ages.
The smaller children will find a train at the park entrance of the Forelstraat and a play zone in the central part.
For the slightly older children there are play forests, one of which has a tree house. In addition to being a nice hangout and play area, the large hill is also a lookout point.
Remains of the beehive
From the 13th to the 16th century, the 'bee orchard' of St Bavo's Abbey was located on this spot. It was an orchard where bees provided precious honey.
Now, many centuries later, the Bijgaarde Park is still very valuable. In the densely populated Sint-Amandsberg, this green space of approximately 2.5 hectares is very welcome.
Lots of bees and other nature
Bees are still welcome here. They thoroughly enjoy the flower-filled strip along the railway. In addition, bee-friendly seed mixtures have been sown around the central lawn. And a few 'bee hotels' have been hung on the old factory wall.
The Bijgaarde Park is being renovated!
In 2021, the park will be renovated and expanded towards the Malmar site. Good for about 2,000 m². The industrial character of the site is preserved: the walls and the original truss structure are (partly) preserved and serve as a basis for climbing plants.
A fern garden will be built between the walls, where you can enjoy the greenery in the shade of the city.
The vegetable garden project of the non-profit organization De Bijgaard will also be given a permanent place on the site and will eventually acquire a more public character.
After years of vacancy, other residents also settled in the Malmar factory: a colony of protected bats is currently housed in the basement. In the park design we include small interventions to make the bats feel at home: sheltered spots, a wet cellar and adapted plants.
The metal triangles in the grass refer to the roofs of the textile factory that used to be here.
The gabions with bricks indicate its location.
The silhouettes of female workers in the entrance lane also evoke the textile past.
From smelly shutters to trendy cohousing: the strip between Gent-Dampoort, the shopping complex on Dendermondsesteenweg and Nijverheidstraat has a long
traveled away.
In 1870, the huge Baertsoen–Buysse cotton spinning and weaving mill was built here. Many of the workers lived in dire circumstances in the adjacent hatcheries, which older Ghent residents still know as the Tsjiepkesdreve.
The factory went bankrupt in 1969 and was partly taken over by the Malmar copper foundry, which had also taken over part of the SNCB depot.
Malmar evolved from a traditional copper foundry to a Volvo supplier, but the people of Ghent did not see a further expansion in 1989 in this densely populated neighbourhood. Times had changed and the company moved to
a location in the harbor.
From 1997 the site started to decay and neighbors took the initiative to move inside the walls
to create an ecological neighborhood vegetable garden and meeting place from the (now homeless) factory. It was the basis for the future Bijgaardehof, a large housing project with 57 homes and a community health center.
As many walls as possible by the Ghent graffiti artist Roa will be preserved in the houses and gardens. Today its large walls are decorated with animals (in a recognizable black and white style)
known from Los Angeles to Australia, but it is here in the old Malmar factory that Roa came to practice the craft.
Translated by Google •
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