A Busy Week of Volunteering: Celebrating Didsbury Park’s Past and Present
THE HISTORY OF DIDSBURY PARK - 1897 ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP
Picture 1 contains a very interesting 1897 Ordnance Survey map of Didsbury. Amongst the many interesting aspects of this map are the following:
It shows that the park already existed in 1897 but, according to the map, it was known at that time as the Recreation Ground.
The Volunteers' Shelter existed in 1897 as the only building in the park - so we are correct to continue to refer to it as a Victorian shelter.
The path from the back of Broome House lead to the point in the old wall behind the Flower Walk where we discovered (during its recent rebuild) the fixtures for a large gate.
At this time, the area identified on the map as Didsbury was more centered on the Didsbury Pub and new St James estate area, rather than Didsbury Village as we know it today.
Please have a look at School Lane! In 1897 it starts, like today, at the Evans fish shop crossroads with Wilmslow Road, but unlike today, it curves around until it meets Wilmslow Road once again near the Didsbury East Railway Station.
Thank you once again to Louise for all her hard work into researching this information and to Manchester Libraries who are the source of many of our images. Thank you Louise.
LAST WEEK - TUESDAY - BEM INVESTITURE
On Tuesday I was delighted to be invested with the British Empire Medal by the Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, at Gorton Monastery. The BEM was awarded for services to charity and the community of Didsbury. This was a very happy and proud occasion for me which I hope shows through in the group hug in Picture 2.
From left to right in the picture are Gill, Mandy, Margaret, me, Lord Mayor Carmine Grimshaw, Lord Lieutenant Diane Hawkins, Allan, Pauline, Emma, Sonia and Brenda. Thank you all for your support and thanks also to Barry for taking the picture.
LAST WEEK - FRIDAY - DELIVERY OF PLANTS
Thanks to Felix from MCC we were able to take delivery of a large variety of over 2,000 Summer Plants on Friday. With some great help form Sonia we soon had them all unloaded, sorted and watered ready for planting on Monday.
Picture 3 shows some of the plants sorted into varieties on the Wild Flower Meadow. Thank you Sonia.
LAST WEEK - SUNDAY - STARS DRAMA GROUP - MERRY OLD LAND OF OZ
Once again the youngsters from the Stars Drama Group put on an amazing production of their annual show in the Bird Garden on Sunday. This year they were performing a variation of the Wizard of Oz which had been specially adapted for children by their talented director Cathy Bates. There were 4, fully attended, shows throughout the day with great audience participation - especially when it came to going along the yellow brick road!
We have permission to show picture 4, which shows the 4 main characters, tin man, lion, Dorothy and the straw man. This was another great success for a great cause (The Christie)! Well done Cathy and well done to Allan, and Sonia who helped me to erect the gazebos at the beginning of the day and take them down at the end!
TODAY
So following a very busy week last week we were once again at full strength today with 47 volunteers working in the park on a warm sunny morning. Our volunteers today included 10 volunteers from the Co-op Bank and returning volunteers Carl T and Augustine. It was lovely to see Grace and Lesley with us once again too. Especial thanks must go to Sophia who baked us some lovely biscuits for our break. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - GRASS REPAIRS
Following a long period of hot dry weather and some damage by the large fun fair vehicles, we decided today that it was time to rake over the patchy area of grass near the rockery and re-seed.
This was an ideal job for some of the volunteers from the Co-op Bank and picture 5 shows them hard at work hoeing the area. By the end of the morning the whole area had been raked, sown with new grass seed, watered and, thanks to Gary, taped off to allow the seeds to germinate. This was a really great job - thank you all.
TODAY - TOP PRIORITY JOB - PLANTING SUMMER PLANTS
Today, almost every volunteer was involved at some stage with planting the summer bedding plants throughout the park:
Picture 6 shows Thanh, Augustin, Shasvat, Lesley and Carl T planting up the new flower bed near Buddy and Lucy
Picture 7 shows Sophia, Christine and Wendy planting up the flower beds on one side near the Wilmslow Road gate.
Picture 8 shows Jude and members of the Co-op Bank team planting up the flower beds on the other side near the Wilmslow Road gate.
Picture 9 shows Grace and Gill passing by on their way to updating all the lecterns and notice boards and the picture also shows Lucy, Joyce, Jude and Julie planting a bed full of petunias around the roundabout.
Picture 10 shows Roger returning with a wheelbarrow load of empty plant pots and pointing out just how many plants had been added to the park just from this one wheelbarrow.
A huge thank you to everyone who worked throughout the park today to add new colourful and interesting plants to our lovely park. It was a mammoth task but with a wonderful outcome. It looks like we are now more than half way through our delivery of plants so hopefully we will finish all our planting next week. A huge thank you everyone!!
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
We also did the following work in the park today:
The woodland team of Kevin, Greg, Anne and Lorna were assisted by the heavy gang to continue with the natural fencing work in the woodland area. Thank you all.
Brenda made sure that the Gillbrook Road entrance was once more looking at its best. Thank you Brenda.
Gary gave the cricket pitch a good cut and fresh markings. Thank you Gary - this new pitch is becoming really popular with children and families. Great work!
Paul from the Co-op Bank did lots of grass mowing around some untidy parts of the park. Thank you Paul.
A big thank you also to Caitlin our MCC Park Ranger who came to our rescue when she brought us a spare key to the taps in the park when we could not find ours first thing this morning. Thank you Caitlin!
LAST NIGHT - GIRL GUIDES NIGHT
We were delighted to welcome the 1st Didsbury Girl Guides group into the park last night for an extra volunteering session. In total there were 25 girl guides and 3 adult supervisors who undertook a variety of tasks including litter picking, watering new plants and helping to tidy away the plant pots from the mornings work by our regular volunteers. They were a great help and a credit to their parents and Girl Guide supervisors and we would not hesitate to invite them again in the future especially as they bought 'chips' afterwards too!
As I was doing this additional shift last night I am afraid my update / blog has been slightly delayed this week!
Once again it has been a busy week for the Didsbury Park Volunteers and I would like to thank you all for your amazing support!