Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 3 on coming across Stamford Park and the Sycamore

Now it is all a bit different when you don’t grow up in a place, so when we discovered Stamford Park one Sunday it was special.

And given the size of our house on Raynham Street the open spaces just fitted the bill.

Now “the original park, south of Darnton Road, was opened in 1873 on land purchased for £15,000. 

The money was raised by public subscription together with a gift of 30 acres from the Earl of Stamford. The park was enlarged in 1891 by acquisition of Chadwick's Dam reservoir, the southern part of which was made into a boating lake and the northern part into a feeder lake and fishing lake. 

The last major addition was in 1929 with the donation of 4 acres which was devoted to a children's playground. The park was run by a joint committee from Ashton and Stalybridge until 1974, when it passed to Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council.”*

Now I knew none of this at the time and in fact only came across its story recently.
Back then, the walk in the park was a prelude for an evening in the Sycamore which became a favourite haunt of ours.

All of which just leaves me with the postcard which was produced by Tuck & Sons around 1909.

It was part of a set of six published by Whittaker & Sons of Stalybridge.

Sadly the card does not have a message on the back but other’s in the collection do and I rather think I shall return to these if only to report more fully on young Pattie who sent a card of Stalybridge to Miss Mary Jameson in the USA on April 25th 1909.

Pictures; Stamford Park, from the series Stalybridge, by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*Ashton-Under-Lyne, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ashton-Under-Lyne

**Parks and gardens UK, http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/3045