Fred Roche Gardens is a public space where you see art, architecture and nature come together seamlessly and epitomise our design heritage. The Gardens plays host to festivals, films and music throughout the year, or at quiet times, it offers the perfect place to stop and relax in the heart of the city. It is flanked on each side by typical modern Milton Keynes architecture with Christ the Cornerstone Church at its head, and Acorn House, Margaret Powell House and Regency Court to the south west leading to a series of courtyard style developments.

Originally called ‘City Gardens’, it was renamed in 2012 in honour of Milton Keynes Development Corporation’s first General Manager Fred Lloyd Roche who worked for MKDC, 1970 – 1981.

Central Milton Keynes is dotted with parks gardens and informal green spaces which punctuate the grid system. The city was designed carefully with nature in mind. The land on which Milton Keynes was built was originally agricultural fields, marshlands, hedgerows, ancient woodland and meadows. The design took inspiration from townships in The Netherlands that adopted a naturalistic approach to landscaping, deploying native species in housing areas. Houses and industrial estates are often secluded and flanked by grassy banks and thickets of willow, pine, dogwood and roses. Today, Milton Keynes has more than 22 million trees and shrubs, around 100 for every resident.

Just across the road from centre:mk lies one of Milton Keynes most monumental pieces of modern architecture. The grand brick building hides many stories, not only in the books it holds, but also in its art, sculpture, and the ancient monument in its grounds.

The Civic Offices are the home of Milton Keynes City Council. After local government reorganisation in 1974, the three urban district councils and two rural district councils were combined to cover the designated area of the town. A building for the new Borough of Milton Keynes was required to bring the scattered offices together.

Norfolk House and Ashton House were opened in 1980, at the corner of Saxon Gate and Silbury Boulevard, are some of the earliest commercial buildings designed by Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC). With sleek concrete frames, a glass-clad façade and a public garden, they mirror the famous grid system the city is built upon. The buildings are penetrated by portes cochère, with the movement of pedestrians carefully considered whilst the space was designed. Together with the nearby and stylistically similar Shopping Building, they create a set piece of Mies van der Rohe inspired modernism.

Lloyds Court was the first site to be developed in Central Milton Keynes (CMK) and once completed in 1975, it stood out in sketched out dirt grid running through the surrounding fields. In many ways, Lloyds Court represents the birth of Milton Keynes in how it both broke the ground for building the city centre but also in its style, design language, public art and construction. Today, it is a focus for the public realm heritage of the city where you can see original materials and street furniture being preserved. The conservation work here protects and tells the stories of the city’s origins for future generations.

Lloyds Court, originally coined D.1.4, after the grid location that CMK was divided into, was envisioned to accommodate a mix of commercial users, much as you see it today. Lloyds Bank funded its construction and still occupy part of the site today. Joining the bank were retail units, offices for Milton Keynes Development Corporation, a Chinese restaurant and a pub – later named The Starting Gate.