Dunville Park


View larger map Address: Falls Park, Belfast, BT12 6AN

Entrance to the park is via Falls Road or Grosvenor Road (opposite the Royal Victoria Hospital). Take Metro no.10A-F from Belfast city centre and get off directly outside the park.


Dunville Park, located in west Belfast, is popular with young people, sports teams and families with children. It has a children's playground and a classical fountain.

The park is supported by the Friends of Dunville Park group which meets every month to discuss issues of importance to the park.

Work will start in April 2012 on refurbishing parts of the park. Planned upgrades include: For health and safety reasons, the park will close during construction work. The project will take between nine and 12 months to complete. We will be consulting with local communities to make sure they benefit from the new facilities - details will be available here once confirmed.

Opening hours

All our parks open at 7.30am daily. Closing times vary according to the time of year - check full opening hours for parks

Events

The park hosts regular events, including community fairs and family fun days. Details of these are listed in our park events section.

Contact details

For more information, call the park manager on 07917 543626 (Monday to Friday only, 9am to 4.30pm) or email culbertm@belfastcity.gov.uk

History

Dunville Park was the first park in Belfast to be donated as a gift to the city. It was presented by Robert G Dunville to residents in 1891.

The Dunvilles were a wealthy family who were well known in Belfast in the 19th century. They were famous for their distillery, which was located on the Grosvenor Road. The distillery had a fermenting capacity of more than 500,000 gallons and it produced Dunville Irish Whiskey.

Robert G Dunville was keen to contribute to Belfast's development and, in addition to his donation of land, he also gave £5,000 towards the laying out of the park, more than £1,000 for railings and £665 for a fountain.

A further £1,150 was spent on a gate lodge, which originally stood at the Grosvenor Road entrance to the park.

The lodge contained a number of shelters and swings for children and was built for the park superintendent. Dunville Park contains a beautiful Victorian fountain designed by AE Pearce, who built a similar structure in Glasgow, Scotland.

The fountain was constructed with buff terracotta and has panels showing aquatic life near its base. It bears an inscription - "the park formed and completed, was presented as a free gift to the city by Robert G Dunville of Redburn, 1891".

Sadly, the fountain is no longer in working order. Dunville Park was officially opened in 1892 by the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava.

During his speech, the Marquis referred to the benefits a new public park would bring to workers from the nearby distillery. He said "that the provision of such a park in an industrial area was symbolic of a new era when employers would think not only of the housing and sanitation of their workers but of their recreation as well".