Parc Borely

Parc Borély is a public municipal park in the city of Marseille. It is classified by the French Ministry of Culture as one of the Notable Gardens of France. The park is 17 hectares in size. It adjoins the Jardin botanique E.M. Heckel.Parc Borély has three different gardens; a Garden à la française, facing the bastide, composed of a two lawns, a circular basin and a rectangual basin, and double rows of trees, between the avenue du Prado and the gates of the park.An English landscape garden, on the west side of the park, surrounding a lake, and decorated with statues, fountain, a cascade, and a playground. It also features a miniature of the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde.The park was created in the 17th century by a French ship owner and merchant, Joseph Borely, who bought land for a country house, the Château Borély, in the area of Marseille called Bonneveine. The estate was enlarged in the 18th century by Joseph Borély, who constructed a bastide, or Provençal country house, on the domaine. When Louis-Joseph Borély inherited the domaine in 1770, he commissioned the landscape architect Embry to create a Garden à la française.