Forest Hill Park sees lots of activity on Sunday July 20th. From noon-4PM is the return of Sunday in the Park, followed immediately by the summer monthly Music in the Park Series, which runs until 6PM. All the details are below the fold.

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June’s Music in the Park event is this Sunday, 6-8PM, in Forest Hill Park, featuring Cashmere Jungle Lords.

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Or in Forest Hill Park, anyway.

Channel 8 has a feature story* on building tensions between Woodland Heights residents and Park cyclists. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve not ridden on the park trails since moving to the neighborhood, but I’d love to see some closure to this before I start!

*Windows Media link…Sorry Mac-types.

From Kathy Graziano:

Richmond City Council Member Kathy Graziano today announced that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has approved a permit to restore the lake at Forest Hill Park to its historic boundaries.

The project has been in the planning stages for more than three years by the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. The Department will move forward to commission engineering drawings and specifications, and start the bidding process within the next two months, with work to begin this summer.

Read the whole release at the above link.

The holidays and general in-over-our-head-edness has caused a couple of events to sneak up on us without the proper mention, so:

Justin from Westover Baptist Church alerted us to a newly-formed group of area ministers, tentatively calling themselves the Hills & Heights Minister’s Association (the notion that other groups would incorporate H&H into their names is quite flattering!). They will be meeting today, 1:00 PM at Forest Hill Presbyterian, and have invited ministers from all over the general area to attend.

Switching gears, the Woodland Heights Artists in Residence Holiday Show takes place Friday Dec. 7th, 6-9 PM and Saturday Dec. 8th, 10 AM - 3 PM at the Stone House in Forest Hill Park. Friday night sees a neighborhood celebration with local artists & musicians, refreshments and lots of holiday cheer. Saturday is open for shopping to the general public. From 1-3pm there will be children’s crafts and face painting by Fluffy the clown and a visit from Santa and his Elf. The event is intended to showcase our local talent, bring neighboring residents together and raise funds for the Woodland Heights Community Association.

A couple weeks ago, a brief discussion about the Forest Hill Park sign came up in the comments to another post. Today’s Style Weekly takes a look at the ongoing saga involving Friends of Forest Hill Park, the Forest Hill Neighborhood Association and Custom Ornamental Iron.

Forest Hill Park takes center stage in a T-D article on the state of Richmond’s major parks.

Over the past few years, however, the park made a comeback. The city repaired granite picnic fireplaces built in the 1930s and a historic building, the Stone House. Hundreds of trees were planted.

This winter, the city plans to return the muddy cattail haven to its past grandeur as a scenic lake where Richmonders once swam and skated. The cost: $1.2 million.

Could the park finally see the long-promised lake work?