Vivary Park — Attraction in Taunton

Vivary Park is close to Taunton town centre and covers 7.5 hectares of parkland. In medieval times the site was the fish farm or vivarium for the priory and castle. There are no visible remains of the lakes now, but this ancient use lives on in the park’s name ‘Vivary’.

The public park came about because it is so close to the centre of the town. The land had been used as for public events since at least 1851 when the first Taunton Flower Show was held there.

It was sold to the council in 1894 and a year later it was laid out. The front gates, bandstand and one shelter date from this time. In 1902 an oak tree was planted close to the bandstand to mark the coronation of Edward VII. With money left over from the celebrations, the fountain was commissioned as a memorial to the late Queen Victoria. It was unveiled in 1907.

The park originally formed a part of the open setting to Wilton house. The park was extended to include part of the garden of Wilton House in 1924.

Vivary Park is a good surviving example of a late Victorian...

Love this place it's very nice and the grounds are very well kept and clean, there is a lovely big children's park at the end, there are loads of ducks,pigeons and flying vermin AKA seagulls, lovely squirrels there that are very friendly and will come up to you and take their food, they love peanuts in shells and sometimes conkers. Even nice to go there when it's cold.(UPDATE.....)The big duck is called elvis. We also saw a couple of nice there the other day which were loving the berry flavoured suet pellets . I filled up a leaf and they kept coming back the squirrels also love the acorns and conkers as well as the old favourites the monkey nuts. It's such a wonderful place we and the...

What a lovely place to visit.Which was easy to find and free. There is ample parking. From there we took various cycle friendly paths around the park. It is vast and you can cycle all the way up to Hertford. There is an abundance of wildlife - it's just lovely. The tow path was nice to cycle along to look at the old canal boats - one has been turned into an ice cream boat. There are plenty of benches and picnic spots dotted around for warmer days. It was quite a chilly day when we visited. You could definitely spend a day here exploring and I particularly like the fact it's all off road. There are lots of signposts to guide you around. A real family friendly destination.computer repair...