A new multi-million pound holiday and leisure attraction is due to open to the public next month.

Education and Children Minister Graham Cregeen MHK was due today (Tuesday) to unveil a plaque at a pre-launch party for St Mark’s Country Park.

The park features paddocks displaying rare breed sheep, cattle, pigs, goats; a children’s play area including swings and slides; and a ’Fur and feather’ barn with rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, albino hedgehog and an extensive aviary.

There’s also a kiddies train type ride, ice cream parlour, catering van serving hot and cold food, a picnic area, two wildlife lakes and a collection of antique crofting implements.

The country park, based at the 250 acre Cordeman Farms, also has a choice of holiday lets designed to allow visitors to get back to nature.

There are three attractive thatched roof tholtan-style cottages, which sleep four people, with thie veg and shower cubicle; a shepherd’s hut which sleeps two and a lakeside Arctic cabin which again can sleep two and has a barbecue in the middle.

A spokesman for the Country Park said: ’This is about connecting people back with the countryside and getting kids to engage with wildlife.’

The venture is the continuation of a vision of the late 13th Earl of Northesk who purchased several small farms and crofts in the early 1960s to create one impressive holding to rear and breed pedigree beef cattle.

A keen conservationist, the Earl created woodlands, lakes and ponds to provide a rich habitat for wildlife, cattle and sheep.

That work has continued under Cordeman’s new owners who acquired a large part of the holding in 2001 and began a new period of development.

The spokesman said there would be further development in phases but growth would be organic. He said: ’It’s got to be financially sustainable but this is not a money-making venture. Any surplus will be going back into making it bigger and better.’