BEXLEY'S premier park is undergoing a £1.7m facelift which will take it back to its 18th-century past and make it fit for the 21st Century.

The work on Danson Park, Welling, is being funded by a £1.2m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund plus nearly £500,000 from Bexley Council.

The park is what is left of the Danson estate, designed around Danson House in the late 1700s by Nathaniel Richmond, an assistant of famous landscape gardener Capability Brown.

Part of the cash will be used to recreate the gardens and parkland landscape of Danson House, the 18th-century mansion recently restored at a cost of £4.3m by English Heritage.

This will include the garden to the south and the forecourt to the north and involve the recreation of a brick Haha a hidden boundary ditch re-seeding lawns, thinning trees, replanting boundary shrubs and installing boundary railings around the house.

In the park itself the play area by the Heather Walk and the chain-link fence will be removed and the parkland restored.

Gaps will be created in the hedges along the walk to open up views of the lake and there will some replanting of low shrubs and some trees.

A new overflow car park area will be created either side of Western Approach, to the west of the current play area, bounded on the north by logs and on the south by the new play area.

There will be a new hard-surface access for the events area and a new natural woodland path along the boundary of the restored parkland where the existing hard surface will be removed.

A new play area will be built to the north of the new overflow car park and west of the current changing room block, together with a kiosk and public toilets.

Heritage Lottery Fund London manager Sue Bowers said: "This is such an historic park and a wonderful green space, so we are thrilled to help restore it for the benefit of everyone in Bexley and beyond."

She added: "The work will open up the original views across the park but will also take into account 21st-century needs, to ensure the park continues to be a good day out for all the family."

The work is under way and should be finished by the summer.