Milnshaw Park

Acrylic-bob

Acrylic-bob

Pillar o' t' Community
Tackler
Laid out in 1879, Milnshaw Park occupies the site of an even earlier park, Victoria Gardens. A place set aside from the hard bitter grind of working in the mills and collieries. A place filled with light and beauty, with ornamental gardens filled with flowers and play areas for children. There was a paddling pool for the toddlers, greenhouses bowling greens and later there were tennis courts.

Today, well the bowling greens are still there, and so are the trees, there is also a collection of vandalised modern play equipment too. But sadly that is all there is. The rest is neglect, damage and decay. Gone are the flowers, the fine walks and ornamental flowerbeds. Too dangerous now are the play areas and the paddling pool was long ago filled in. The walls are crumbling and so are the paths. The tennis courts are ruined and overgrown.

Why do I bother to take up your time with this sad and sorry tale? Because I spent a large part of that endless summer called childhood in this park. I have fond memories of it. I know all it's nooks and crannies almost as well as I know the back of my own hand.
And it makes my blood boil to hear half-wits of the stripe of Peter Britcliffe claim that money is being spent on the upkeep of our parks when, in the case of Milnshaw, this is demonstrably not the case. Take a look at the attached photographs and you will get some idea of what I mean. The actuality is much much worse than appears in the pictures.

Not exactly the sort of place you would want tourists to find, is it Peter?
 

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I know the park well, i walk around there 3 times a day with my dogs. I have to agree that it is in bad need of a makeover. The council workers who i know are only in there to clean up and empty poo bins twice a week. They have to tend to a few parks.No doubt due to not much money being in the pot.
 
Wasn't it great to be a child in the days when you could paddle in the park? How come it was safe to do so in those days but damgerous now?

Looking back on the photos of older Accrington I don't think we've made progress at all.

The tennis courts at Bullough Park look even worse.

Oak Hill Park, which is supposedly our finest doesn't have half what it once had.
 
What a disgrace.....HBC should be forced to walk there every day. As you did A-Bob...so did I, all my mates from Hyndburn Park School, played footy, cricket, paddles in the long pond.......

Death of a society..........................
 
You should see it Darby. It is in a dreadful state. The paths have not been cleared of leaves for so long that the leaves have decayed where they lay and turned into thick muddy compost. A delight to have to walk through!
 
I used to play tennis on those courts as a kid, it's hard to believe from looking at the pictures that they are the same courts. HBC should be ashamed.:(
 
Here are some pics of Milnshaw in happier days.
 

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When you consider the comparative low level of prosperity at the time of those photographs being taken, it is nothing less than a scandal that what we now see at Milnshaw Park resembles a morning after scene from Bagdad or Falujah. Hyndburn will never attract inward investment while the level of public squalor is exceeded only by civic incompetence.

Is there any possibility, A-B, of seeing Piccys from the same angle(above) as of today?
 
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All three areas in the antique pictures are covered in the initial set of photographs, though not from the same position.

It may be a couple of days before I have the opportunity to get out and about. but it is something that I will put high on my list of things to do.
 
I totally agree with Tealeaf that it's scandalous to have let our parks fall into such a state when the earlier pictures from a less prosperous age show what they could be like and should be like.
 
i was brought up around milnshaw park,havent been up there for years now, the last time i was there was about 5 years ago, the park was over run with weeds and long grass, not as i remember it as a child, i remember when my grandad used to take me and my sister and brother down the park and we would sit in the huts overlooking the bowling green,he would always take some sandwiches and a flask of coffee,we would sit there for hours......ah the memories.....now can you see why i disagree with that whistling singing thing in burnley willow?? that money could of been put to good use elsewhere,milnshaw park for instance :)
 
I always get Milnshaw park and Gatty park mixed up. Which park had the little golf course that my aunties and uncles spent hours on while I played on the park?
 
Tinkerbelle said:
I always get Milnshaw park and Gatty park mixed up. Which park had the little golf course that my aunties and uncles spent hours on while I played on the park?
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that was gatty park yee.....it was 'puttin' they used to play, i liked that park too :)
 
dont know i havent been there in years either :(....we'll have to have a drive down one day :D;)
 
I also used to play tennis on those courts, i remember about 6 of them. It went to the dogs down there when you stopped paying to play. I remember there used to be an old fella who gave you a ticket, and you paid by the hour. they were never vandalised because it was someones job to maintain them. It was the same for the tennis courts at the coppice. Its so so sad to see the park in such a state. I have very fond memories of that park, playing football down there, playing hide and seek, using the swings, and walking back up that hill (which felt like i was scaling K2). Summer holidays when i was a kid, happy days. Damn shame, shame. :(
 
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