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Pamela Greenhalgh standing
on Earl Street outside the Sand Park in 1950. On the right, further
down the street you can see Yate's Shirt Factory. The photograph
was generously donated by Pamela Pugh. |
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Pamela Greenhalgh standing
on Earl Street outside the Sand Park in 1950. On the right, further
down the street you can see Yate's Shirt Factory. The photograph
was generously donated by Pamela Pugh. |
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Located
between Ducie Street and Grey Street, Earl Street and South Street,
the Sand Park appears on old maps of the Longsight area. As my
sketch from an 1889 map shows, the Sand Park started its life
as a stable for the horses used by the Carriage and Tramway Company.
In fact, the shed, that we used as a weather-proof area for football
and which also covered a small office for "The Parkie",
dated back to that earlier role. |
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After the stables closed, the area was made available as a recreation ground with a shale surface but with no facilities beyond the open shed at the Grey Street end.  |
 The photograph, above, donated by Vivianne Wainwright, was taken in the park during Whit Week in 1951. |
 Later in the 1950's the Lord Mayor opened a new playground area at the Sand Park. It had swings (2), a "witch's hat" roundabout (3), a rocking horse(6), see-saw(5), slide (1) and a small flat roundabout (4). They were located at the Grey Street end of the recreation ground, close to the shed. The playground occupied the Grey Street end and was separated by a fence from the bowling greens that occupied the Ducie Street end. Ducie Street was later renamed Dillon Street. There were originally two bowling greens but later the one closest to Ducie Street became a putting green. |
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The picture above
wasn't taken in the Sand Park but it might have been showing
as it does a "Witch's Hat" roundabout like the one
located on the South Street side of the park. |
 These very poor quality pictures were taken by me in the early 1980's. Above: Looking towards South Street and showing the slide and swings, see-saw and the shed. Below: Is taken from the Dillon Street end across what was by that time allotments but which in the 1960's was bowling greens. The "Fort Ardwick Flats" can be seen in the distance.
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Below: You
can see the Dillon Street end of the park with the Daisy Mill
in the distance, beyond the allotments. |
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As a young child I spent many happy hours at the park. We took bread wrappers with us to grease up the slide and usually ended up falling on our bums after sliding right off the end. We raised the ire of the Parkie by trying to take a short cut back up the slide rather than using the stairs, trying to wrap the chains of the swing around the top crossbar or getting the "witch's hat" rocking back and forth rather than going around. Then, when I was older, my Dad brought me to the park to learn how to play bowls. I can still smell the bowls shed -- that wonderful aroma of oiled woods. Then, whilst I was at Ardwick Tech, playing a game of bowls at lunch time became a favourite activity, although on occasion kids fell foul of the attendant for sending off rockets across the green to crash into the gutter and the side boards.  The photograph opposite shows Pamela Greenhalgh and her friend Elaine Edwards, who lived on Morton Street. The girls are sitting at the Dillon Street end of the park . The photograph was taken aound 1960 and was generously donated by Pamela Pugh. |
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Behind the railings
is the area where there used to be two bowling greens. Note the
Daisy Mill in the distance |
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What was Earl
Street looking south beside the Sand Park railings. |
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The remnants
of the playground. All that remains of the shed is part of the
wall. All the rides are gone. |
