Sunday in Heaton Park before the Great War

The historian in me wants to know when this picture was taken and where.

It is another of those that sit in the collection with little clue as to time or location.

And yet I have to say of all the pictures that have been donated to me it is one of my favourites.

I would guess we are in Heaton Park some time before the Great War on what looks to be a bright but cool spring day.

If pushed we might have a stab at a Sunday, for here are a veritable collection of people out for a day of genteel fun and all in their best clothes.

The destination boards from the long line of trams suggest that our crowd are from all over the city and will be travelling back on routes that terminate in Albert Square, Exchange and High Town, and if I am not mistaken not all of them are Manchester Corporation Trams.

But above all what I like about the picture is the way that it has captured perfectly a day out. The tram crews stand around taking a break in the sunshine, perhaps pondering on what they would do with a day off in Heaton Park

The young girls out for adventure in their best Sunday clothes, the middle aged woman caught with a faint and perhaps embarrassed smile playing on her lips as she is caught on camera while  her husband stares back unperturbed.

Beside them could be their mother in law with cane in hand looking on, perhaps pondering on the fuss and reflecting on past days in the park .

It is easy and perhaps not very historical to allow so much speculation to creep in but then it is a picture that lends itself to a bit of gentle guess work and sometimes where is the harm in that?

And then, quick as a flash, my friend Kay replied to the post, with an offer to go looking for the location and came back with, "Here you go, Martin of Heaton Park Tramway replied: Hi Kay. It is the Heaton Park Tramway sidings now in use as the bottom end of Heaton Park Tramway by Middleton Road Gates. The 3rd track siding in the picture was removed and relocated to become access to the tram shed when the museum was being built. Hope that helps".

Which it does.

Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown