Qualla: Byrd Park https://qualla.com/byrd-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Byrd Park https://qualla.com/byrd-park Byrd Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/byrd-park/ Photo credit MonkeyBBGB, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the night of June 9, 2020, a bronze Christopher Columbus went into Fountain Lake. The statue had stood in Byrd Park since 1927; the lake had been dug a century earlier as a borrow pit to build the city's new reservoir, then left to fill with water. The pit's accidental beauty had outlasted its industrial purpose, the same way the park itself had outlasted the 19th-century waterworks that gave birth to it. The 287 acres around the reservoir were originally called, with civic frankness, New Reservoir Park. By 1907, after the trees had grown in, Richmond decided the place deserved a better name and gave it to William Byrd II, whose family had owned this stretch of the James long before there was a city to need parks.

Read more: Byrd Park on Qualla

Image: MonkeyBBGB | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/dq8v-byrd-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Byrd Park: The Reservoir That Grew a Park https://qualla.com/byrd-park/ Photo credit DanTD, CC BY-SA 4.0. The story starts in 1873 with a city outgrowing its plumbing. Richmond's old waterworks couldn't keep up, and engineers chose a site upriver to the west for a new reservoir. From 1875 to 1888 they bought the land and dug the basin, throwing the excavated earth into berms. The pit...

Read more: Byrd Park on Qualla

Image: DanTD | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/dq8v-byrd-park-the-reservoir-that-grew-a-park.mp3 0:06 2 full Byrd Park: The Carillon https://qualla.com/byrd-park/ Photo credit Morgan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Stand anywhere in Byrd Park and you can see it: a 240-foot brick tower in Georgian classicism, Virginia's interpretation of an Italian campanile. The World War I Memorial Carillon was designed by Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram and dedicated on October 15, 1932, in memory of th...

Read more: Byrd Park on Qualla

Image: Morgan Riley | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/dq8v-byrd-park-the-carillon.mp3 0:06 3 full Byrd Park: Dogwood Dell and the Cannons https://qualla.com/byrd-park/ Photo credit S. Dudley, Public domain. Tucked into the trees below the carillon is Dogwood Dell, an amphitheater that has hosted Richmond's Summer Festival of the Arts since the 1950s. The festival celebrated its fiftieth season in 2006. Plays, concerts, children's events, and one tradition that is pure Richmond: ever...

Read more: Byrd Park on Qualla

Image: S. Dudley | Public domain

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/dq8v-byrd-park-dogwood-dell-and-the-cannons.mp3 0:06 4 full Byrd Park: What the Park Holds https://qualla.com/byrd-park/ Photo credit Smash the Iron Cage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Byrd Park is bigger than most visitors realize - 287 acres of paths, fields, woods, and water. There is a mile-long fitness trail. There are tennis courts, Little League fields, and a children's playground. There are three lakes: Shields (occasionally spelled Sheilds, just to kee...

Read more: Byrd Park on Qualla

Image: Smash the Iron Cage | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/v/byrd-park-wp/dq8v-byrd-park-what-the-park-holds.mp3 0:06 5 full