about Taiping Lake Gardens?
■ The park is a former abandoned tin mine. It was converted into a park in 1884, 21 years after it was abandoned by Hai San clan leader Kapitan Chung Keng Kwee.
■ The park, the first public park in then-Malaya, was officially opened by Perak British Resident Frank Swettenham on Nov 17, 1893.
■ Swettenham's wife, Constance Sydney Holmes, got the help of a mining inspector, William Scott, to turn the disused mining pool into a scenic place and subsequently British town planner Charles Compton Raede to landscape it as a lake garden.
■ The original size of the park was 61.93ha. After additional acquisition by the Perak government, it is now 96.44ha.
■ The Garden has 10 scenic lakes and ponds, jogging track surrounded by tropical flowers and trees. Wildlife such as dusty leaf monkeys and many local and migratory birds can be spotted here. ■ It is administered by the Taiping Municipal Council, which also runs the Taiping Zoo located within the park.
■ The park was gazetted as a national heritage site together with the Taiping Telegraph Museum on Jan 10, 2019. ■ There are 113 huge old rain trees (angsana) around the lake and over 1,300 other types of trees in the garden. These are maintained by the Municipal Council with assistance from arborists and experts from the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).