The Wat Tyler Green Centre welcomes Germaine Greer

The Wat Tyler Country Park was host to Germaine Greer this week who was given a tour of their first exhibition at the new environment centre, the Green Centre. Essex Field Club designed the first exhibition which is a display of natural history and geology.

The Essex Field Club have made the Wat Tyler Centre their new home after 20 years. Each year they set up an exhibition of the work they have done in the last year and this was the first exhibition for the new Green Centre. Germaine Greer is a member of the Essex Field Club and also a resident of Essex, so was the natural choice for a celebrity to grace the centre. The club was founded in 1880 specifically to research and exhibit the natural history of Essex.

The Green Centre’s permanent exhibitions are open daily and admission is free.

The Wat Tyler Project

Over 350,000 people visit the site each year and the new environmental exhibitions should hopefully attract more people. Education and learning for all ages is the key focus of the Wat Tyler Project now.

The Wat Tyler Centre first opened in July 2009 in the Wat Tyler Country Park, in Basildon. The visitor centre is housed in a modern and sustainable building which offers rooms for private hire and dining for visitors. It is funded by the Heritage Lottery fund and features a permanent exhibition which explores the history of the park, which has seen the site use as an explosives factory during the 19th century, then home to the Sea Transport Stores from 1929 and up until the Suez Crisis in 1956.

After a period being used as a dump the site was sold to Basildon District Council who have since used it as a recreational site, and it is now part of the Country Park.

The new Green Centre has continued to raise Wat Tyler Country Park’s reputation as a truly first class visitor attraction for the public and for the wider business and education sectors. We are very proud to have been able to home the Essex Field Club who do such important work in the science of nature conservation and its fantastic to hear that this years event was the most well attended to date.” Councillor Kevin Blake, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Arts at Basildon Council.

Businesses can hire a space for exhibitions too at the Green Centre. They have “an accessible, attractive and flexible series of sustainably built and run spaces for conferencing, meetings, product launches and celebrations” – sounds perfect for business exhibitions.

Location and Contact information:

  • Green Centre
  • Wat Tyler Country Park
  • Pitsea Hall Lane, Basildon
  • Essex
  • SS16 4UH
  • UK
  • +44(0)1268 550 088
  • [email protected]

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