HISTORIC park gardens near Worcester which moved composer Edward Elgar to make some of his finest music have won initial lottery backing.

Spetchley Park Gardens secured development funding of £134,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund this week to help towards a full grant later on.

Its aim is to carry out essential conservation work to the garden lake, creating a habitat and improving the experience for visitors, including schools, volunteers and to provide horticultural and silvicultural training.

The gardens provided Edward Elgar, who regularly stayed at Spetchley, with the inspiration to pen his masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius.

It is also hoped the funding will provide opportunities for researching the 400-year-old Berkeley Family archive.

The parkland is unchanged from the 17th century and the gardens, one of the first to be opened to visitors, is an example of Victorian horticulture on a grand scale Head gardener Mike Beak said.

“This will give us a chance to preserve Spetchley’s unique qualities for generations to come and give visitors and local communities the chance to understand its history and be involved in its future.”

Reyahn King, head of Heritage Lottery Fund West Midlands, said: “We are looking forward to seeing the detailed plans to enhance the visitor experience of this beautiful and historic landscape.”

Success in this first round means the project meets funding criteria. The application was in competition with other projects so this represents an endorsement of outline proposals. The project now has up to two years to submit fully developed proposals to compete for a firm award.

The 30-acre garden, which was set up as a charitable trust in 1997 by owner John Berkeley, was created in the 19th century by Rose Berkeley and her sister, the great Victorian gardener Ellen Willmott.

In 2004 it was voted one of England’s finest gardens and is filled with a number of rare plants not found outside the major botanical gardens.