Corporation Park is a traditional Victorian park in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. It was landscaped by William Henderson and opened in 1857.Corporation Park , Blackburn with Darwen Council, accessed 12 May 2008 Corporation Park is regarded as the main formal park in Blackburn and is used mainly by local people for general recreation, walking and dog walking, as well as for its tennis, bowling and football facilities.Management Plan - 2008/09 , Blackburn with Darwen Council
The park is registered by English Heritage as a Park and Garden of Special Historic InterestPublic Parks Review: Summary, Harriet Jordan, English Heritage and is one of around 440 facilities of "exceptional historic interest" meriting a Grade II listing.Park and Garden Grading, English Heritage, accessed 16 May 2008 The park has also been credited with the Civic Trust's prestigious Green Flag Award.Corporation Park Winner GSP001452 , Green Flag Awards, accessed 16 May 2008 Corporation Park also gives its name to a local government ward for Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.
The 18 hectare (44.5 acre) park occupies a relatively central location to the west of the main town centre precincts. The land is delineated to the north and south by two of Blackburn's main arterial roads. Revidge Road stretches for 490 metres (535 yards) along its northernmost edge; the grand southern entrance at Preston New Road (90 metres, 98 yards) arches away immediately along East and West Park Roads to reach its greatest width of 625 metres (685 yards) from Park Crescent to Brantfell Road.Measurements made using Google Earth The grounds can be entered from the main southern entrance, two entrances aside the east and west porter's lodges or ten other gates on the perimeter of the park.
Features
A Grade II listed triumphal archway with flanking lodges (see picture above) marks the main entrance at the southern edge of the park, from which the landscape widens and rises to its peak adjoining Revidge Road in the north. Over one of the smaller side arches reads an inscription: "This park was publicly opened on the 22nd day of October 1857 during the mayorality of WILLIAM PILKINGTON ESQUIRE, by whose munificence the four ornamental fountains were presented to the borough".Newspaper clippings for Revidge and Beardwood, Blackburn Library reference section, E02 23854 Travelling through the large archway for carriages or two smaller side arches on foot, visitors are presented with the largest of these recently restored ornamental fountains to the right and a war memorial and formal garden of remembrance (laid out in 1922) on the left. The fountain was formerly powered by gravity, with a water jet rising into the air, although the modern jet is more modest. A former reservoir providing drinking water to Blackburn lives on as one of two lakes in the park. The areas of water are home to a number of species of waterfowl, including mute swan, moorhen and ducks. A stream, Snig Brook, flows down the park from the ponds to the memorial garden, broken by waterfalls and pools.
The park is well identified with its conservatory, erected in 1900 and now also a Grade II listed building. A fine example of cast iron Victorian conservatories, the gabled central section is designed to house exotic plants with the cooler wings being used for more northern flora. The building is ornamented with arches, pierced spandrels, columns and features a large clock and a central louvred chimney.
The Council has recognised that the conservatory "is in need of refurbishment" and that "options for this will be realistically addressed during 2008". Although £40,000 of Heritage Lottery Funding was allocated to the upkeep of the conservatory it is estimated that the cost to refurbish the building would be in the region of £1.5m. The conservatory sits alongside an inhabited aviary, which is also proximate to one of two porter's lodges at the West Park Road and East Park Road entrances. A magnificent wide avenue, the broad walk, is flanked by lime trees going east to west.
The park is also home to a number of sporting facilities. The 'Red Rake' tennis courts are terraced into the hillside in the northerly sections of the park. A set of bowling greens are situated on the southern side of the broadwalk. A Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) suitable for football and basketball was installed opposite Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in 2007. A children's play area resides next to the two lakes.
A battlement viewing platform stands 213.5 m above sea level and above the southern entrance, allowing long views over Blackburn and the West Pennine Moors. This stone barrage formerly hosted two trophy Russian cannons (see history section below) and was developed in 2006 into a panopticon viewing platform as part of a regional arts project.Colourfields Panopticon for Corporation Park, Blackburn with Darwen Public Relations and Communications Unit, 14 June 2006 and the park is for the community
History Prehistory as a quarry and water supply The park area contains large reserves of Millstone Grit and was previously a quarry called Park Delph. An ideal building material, the millstone grit was used for building the majority of the cotton mills and churches in Blackburn. One of the park's two lakes was created in 1772 as the town's water supply, Pemberton Clough. A system of wooden piping carried the water to the town until the installation of the mains water in 1847. The smaller lake was known as 'the can' as citizens drew water from it using cans. The reservoir was consequently named 'big can'. Both are on the County Sites and Monuments Record for Lancashire.
Preparation and opening
The first steps toward the establishment of the park were taken in 1845 when a sum of £4701 19s 7d was raised towards the purchase and implementation of the park by the sale of land on the town's moor.Corporation Park 1800s Timeline , Cotton Town Project, accessed 16 May 2008 The for the park were secured in January 1855 with the purchase by the then Mayor, Thomas Dugdale, for the Corporation, from Joseph Feilden for £3,237 6s 3d. at £65 per acre.Corporation Park, page 378, A History of Blackburn Town and Parish, Abrams, 1877 Blackburn Corporation was also required to build public roads on the east and west sides of the estate (now East and West Park Roads) at an eventual cost of £4,480 17s 1d. In 1855 work commenced on the Preston New Road entrance by Roberts and Walmsley, awarded the contract to build the arch and lodge at a cost of £789. The East and West lodges were constructed at this time. In 1857 three of the four fountains in the park built and paid for by Mayor William Pilkington, including the largest at the main entrance built by Varley's of Blackburn. The fourth fountain, which stands in the stream running down from the main lake, was built later than the others and was paid for by John Dean. It is made of slate and is of a simpler design than the others. In 1857 two Russian cannons captured from Sevastopol during the Crimean War presented to the town as a Trophy by Lord Panmure, the Secretary of War. These were mounted on a stone-faced battery at the top of the park. By its opening the total cost of the park was £14,701 19s 1d.
The grand opening of the park was performed on 22 October 1857 by Mayor William Pilkington, who led a procession from the town hall. Shops were closed and factory bosses gave their employees leave to attend the event. An estimated 60,000 people were in attendance, 14,000 of whom had arrived by train, leading to overcrowded paths and thousands of people outside the park. The Sevastopol cannon trophies were fired as part of the celebrations.Springtime in Corporation Park , Cotton Town project, accessed 12 May 2008 The Blackburn Weekly Times praised the opening of the estate in an editorial following the celebrations:
The park would soon be host to another massive gathering. When eleven brass bands gathered on the upper terrace of the park in 1861 more than 50,000 people gathered to listen.Nigel Temple's Postcard Collection - Music, English Heritage, accessed 12 May 2008
Cost
The full cost to the borough as reported in the Blackburn Weekly Times on 24 October 1857 are as follows. All figures are in pounds, shillings and pence.
Aspect £ s. d. Area of the park, full at £65 per acre 3257 6 3 Interest to 5 July 1856, £172 1s. 1d; compensation to adjoining landowners £77 4s. 11d. 249 6 0 Boundary walls 1583 7 6 Making roads 4480 17 1 Park entrance 831 15 6 Gardeners, masons, flaggers, paviers, manual and team labour 2402 4 2 Inspectors 147 14 0 Surveying 80 8 9 Palisading 727 16 6 Railing and fencing for roads 28 6 3 Materials 143 13 7 Rent and taxes 48 7 3 Legal expenses and stamps 32 8 11 Tools and implements 28 8 1 Conveying water 53 12 9 Joiners' work and plumbing 15 15 10 Manure 72 12 7 Seeds, plants, shrubs, seeds, &e 327 18 2 Landscape gardener and superintendent 116 9 0 Manual and team labour this week, say 39 14 10 Total cost to the day of opening, 22nd Oct. 1857 14701 19 7 Deduct from the above outlay the total proceeds of sale of the recreation grounds on the Town's Moor, viz. :- To the East Lancashire Railway Company 951 6 8 Accumulated interest to April, 1856 491 16 9 To the Blackburn Railway Co. 2070 6 8 Accumulated interest to 1 July 1857 1188 9 6 Total to deduct 4701 19 7 Nett [sic] paid for out of borrowed money 10000 0 0
The Times went on to report that "This sum will have to be repaid in 40 years, i.e. one fortieth part in each year, with interest. The average cost, therefore, to the town for that period will be upwards of £500 per annum, or one penny in the pound on the present assessment. This may well be regarded as a triumph of social economy".
19th century
The blockade of trade goods, supplies, and arms (including cotton shipments) from the Confederacy by the Union during the American Civil War brought about a severe depression in the region's textile industry known as the Lancashire Cotton Famine. From 1863 to 1864 construction of the Broad Walk, adjoining paths leading to the upper slopes, a carriage drive to the summit and general improvements to the surrounding scarped terrain were undertaken as a public works to provide employment for hundreds of cotton operatives during this depression. The paths were paved with stones from the quarries on the upper slopes.
Over sixty years later in 1936 the Blackburn Times reported that "crowds of young men and maidens would walk four or five abreast, promenading from end to end between 3 o'clock and 4.30". In 1867 the land of the Red Rake Farm on Revidge Road was purchased by the Council with the aim of adding it to the enclosure of the park at some future date. The land cost £1,200, and was intended for sporting use including tennis courts and bowling greens. The park's tennis courts are situated on this land to this day.
The statue of Flora, the Roman Goddess of flowers and spring was presented in 1871 by T. H. Fairhurst. The statue was the work of Thomas Allen of Liverpool who moved to the town in 1870 and created a number of other works in the area, including honeycombed facing stones on the Old Bank in Higher Church Street and the carving on the side of the old YMCA building near Sudell Cross (now the Sir Charles Napier public house). In 1880 the first park bandstand was constructed west of the large lake. This was supplemented two years later with Italian gardens laid out adjacent to the Broad Walk. The statue of Flora inspired horror writer William Hope Hodgson to write his first fiction story "The Goddess of Death".
20th century