Concord Park and Woolley Wood

[Ponytail]

Concord Park and Woolley Wood

By Mel Jones 2008

[Ponytail]

[Ponytail]

[Ponytail]

[Ponytail]

Making no excuses for including it under Concord Park, part of Mel Jones tour of the area and any body who played in Concord Park as a child will more than likely have made their way there. 

[Ponytail]

[Ponytail]

[Ponytail]

3 hours ago, Ponytail said:

Does anybody else remember the giant draughts board you had to move the pieces with poles situated near the bowling green and tennis courts. It would be in the mid 1950's. 

Where the Leisure Centre is now I'm sure there was a rugby pitch in the 1960's but I may be mistaken

[Lysanderix]

Yes, ponytail, I spent hours with my pals playing draughts on the giant board…moving the pieces with large poles which had a hook on the end.

Thanks for all the stuff you are putting on the forum…as a once local I find it all fascinating …especially this account of Concord Park….where Mum said the air came straight from Blackpool….and the” bluebell “wood.

[Ponytail]

11 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

Yes, ponytail, I spent hours with my pals playing draughts on the giant board…moving the pieces with large poles which had a hook on the end.

Thanks for all the stuff you are putting on the forum…as a once local I find it all fascinating …especially this account of Concord Park….where Mum said the air came straight from Blackpool….and the” bluebell “wood.

It's quite possible I sat watching you play. Cos there was always some "big lads" playing. Yes, it was bracing in the park didn't do us any harm though. Grandad used to say Concord Park was for playing in, Firth Park was for promenading but he was born in 1878 and that's what you did after Church or Chapel on a Sunday. 

Yes the bluebells filled the woods with their colour and heady perfume. There was a lot of flower gatherers with hands full. Often a trail of them down past our house. Mum tutting, "Don't you go picking them, there''ll be none left." 

[Ponytail]

A Walk through "My Park"

Approach to the Park

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Park Entrance Gates

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"My Park" was Concord Park, Shiregreen Lane. The No. 2 Circular stopped outside the main entrance, bringing people from all over the City, more often to play sport. I didn't need a bus to get there, just a short walk up Bellhouse Road and across Shiregreen Lane. Walking through the impressive park gates to be greeted by the well kept flower beds. Flowers, in spring daffodils and tulips followed later by summer bedding.

Could never understand why some people climbed over the gates when they were locked. If you walked a few yards further down Shiregreen Lane there was a way in permantly opened. 

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Looking left, up a path, (once called Jacobs Lane) towards Oaks Lane, from where in a pram I'd made my first entrance into the park. The area we once played cricket... until somebody shouted "Parkys coming" one of the Park Keepers dressed in smart dark uniform and peaked cap telling us to move on... too near the flower beds. Upping stumps, you moved on, they had authority in those days and anyway, chances are someone would have told your parents before you got home. 

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Benches evenly spaced all the way around the park providing an opportunity to rest for old and young alike. A chance to natter with a friend or pass the time of day with a stranger. Walking along the path, passing the toilet block on the left. Onwards towards the Bowling Greens and the Pavilion, where I'm told my parents and others had done their "Courting." Always someone bowling, often a match, attracting spectators filling the seats around the green. Grandad used to enjoy watching sitting smoking his pipe. When asked to come and play, he told them it was an old mans game. At the time he was 80 years old.

From a Postcard published by F. A. Kenyon

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On the right hand side, a putting green. Passing "My Seat" where Grandad had taken those photos of me as a toddler and along the path between the bowling greens and the tennis courts to the area where once was a giant draughts board. Giant draught pieces were moved with the aid of a hook on the end of a pole. Shame they dispensed with its services while I was a child. 

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Tennis courts a plenty, including a grass court. All well used and matches played on a regular basis. Back now onto the exposed part of the park, on cold days the wind felt as though it would cut you in two. Views down to Woolley Woods and beyond. The large expanse covered by cricket pitches in summer and football pitches in winter. Used by many different teams, morning and afternoon at weekends and evenings on lighter nights.

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Wooden changing "sheds" pitch side, that's what they looked like from the outside, no showers just somewhere to change into their kit and a place to leave bags. 

The sit on mowers in summer left grass cuttings, sometimes the grass was collected and grass fights ensued, leaving you coughing with the dried grass.

Remember having my first race here aged about 3 years old with Hatfield House Lane Methodist Church, can't remember where I finished or what the occasion was but I won a ball, which I cherished.

The pitch, where the keen young student teacher had walked us to from the Junior School on Hatfield House Lane, for the girls to play shinty and the boys football. Myself and another girl were more interested in watching longingly the boys play, preferring football to shinty..That is, until exasperated she said, "Right if you're more interested in football, then you can go and play with the boys." Thinking it was going to be a punishment... Best P.E. lesson we'd had. 

Let's go back to Shiregreen Lane and go through the "always open entrance." It's a public footpath and as long as someone walks on it, can't be closed. A black cinder path to the swings on the right hand side beside the Park Keepers house. Two sets of swings, one with some "baby swings." Swinging as high as you dare. Now this is something I tried not too many times, jumping off the swing as it swung forward. Some lads jumping off from big heights seeing who could jump the furthest, landing on the hard tarmac.. We lived dangerously then. Two roundabouts, where soles of shoes were worn out, foot out to stop it. Over near the Park Keepers house was "the horse," it provided seating for several to rock back and forwards all at the same time enacting your favourite cowboy, a different one for every night of the week. The horse, wooden at first but I seem to remember it being replaced with a metal one, painted red. 

"Betty and Kathy" about 1946

The other side of the path, a green space always reserved for a multi aside football game that went on from morning to dusk. Two coats on the grass either end marking the goal, all ages from those who could just manage to kick a ball to dads who sometimes joined in. Didn't matter you had to go home to eat, there was always someone to take your place. Remember losing a front tooth in goal, when I was allowed to play. Well, I shouldn't have let my face stop the ball.

The cinder path stopped at the entrance to the railed off playground. Following the grass towards Shiregreen Cemetery, there was a track taking you alongside the cemetery down towards Woolley Woods or you could follow the winding path through the Park. Somebody had fixed a rope dangling from a tree for a tarzan swing across the stream in the ditch. When it had rained the clay soil was slippery and you were in danger when landing of sliding down in to the water. Walking towards the woods and the golf course on the left. Watch out for golf balls! 

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In summer, sliding down the steep grassy bank on cardboard, until chased off by golfers or "Parky." One winter, remember several of us, boys on the front and me on the back of a large sledge sliding down towards the stream. The lads rolled off before the stream, leaving me to go into the frozen stream and through the ice.... the  water  was  cold!!

Into Woolley Woods a carpet of bluebells in the spring with a scent that could knock you over. Building dens and playing hide a seek. The "Haunted House" in the woods... Well, that's what older one's would tell you. 

Remembering "Our Gang" age ranged 4 to about 10 years, accompanied by Mandy the cream coloured Alsation, playing happily, parents little or no concerns. Mandy, soft as a brush with us, but if anybody she didn't know came near she'd growl and bark.

It was different for little ones to play then... more freedom, simple games, all that space and for free and no, the sun didn't shine all the time, we played in the rain if it wasn't too heavy. 

It made this little girl very happy. 

"My Seat" about 1953

 Photographs by William Arthur Smith. 

Yes, time's moved on and when I returned 2003, no flowers, no benches, the playground moved, areas fenced off, no children playing football, no bowling, no Pavilion. The Leisure Centre offered indoor activities at a cost. It hadn't been "My Park" for nearly 40 years, it's "Somebody Else's Park" now. Please take care of it. I still have my memories, hope their memories will be as happy as mine. 

More Picture Sheffield photographs. 

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[Ponytail]

Woolley Wood 

Leaflet devised and written by Mel and Joan Jones. Watercolours and Maps Bob Warburton. 

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

 

[Lysanderix]

Thanks, ponytail, for more pleasant memories of my childhood and early adult years..!

Having read the initial entry ,again ,I was reminded of the possibly apocryphal tale my Family told of the First World War anti aircraft gun site on Wincobank Hill .It would seem that having spent dozens of nights manning the guns…with no enemy aerial activity…..on the night the Zeppelins raided the City…the officers were at a Ball in town and the NCOs were skiving and having a drink in a Grimesthorpe pub. As a result ,not a single round was fired at the intruders…there being no one to give the orders to fire!

I also remember being shown the site of an unofficial drift mine to extract coal from the hillside ,above the woods ,during the General Strike…and for many years afterwards during the Great Depression.

[Ponytail]

The layout of Concord Park of my childhood, the Children's Playground with the swings, roundabout and horse would have been shown on the next map down. 

We lived at 2 Oaks Lane until just before my 3rd birthday and my dad's home built greenhouse is even mapped at the bottom of the garden. 

[Ponytail]

More upto date images of Concord Park. 

 

 

The playground at the bottom of Woolley Wood

 

[Lysanderix]

As a child ,my parents recalled that during the War a couple of aircraft crashed into the park. I find that the first was a Handley Page Hampden bomber which is thought to have hit a balloon barrage cable. The incident happened on 19 April 1941 and one crew member was killed. The aircraft burned out and was a total write off.

A couple of years later another Hampden made an emergency landing in the park.No one was killed and a few days later the aircraft was able to take off under its own power…safely.

 

[Ponytail]

My parents also told the story of the plane crash and recounted it wasn't a pleasant sight. They thought more of the crew had died, there again no one was told much detail or reported too much information in the press. 

 

[Lysanderix]

The aircraft was, at the time, only carrying a crew of two. The pilot, Pilot Officer Alsebrook, parachuted to safety. His companion ,Pilot Officer Ranson , was the fatality.