An Autumn Walk In Corporation Park, Blackburn.
Corporation Park, opened in 1857, is a traditional Victorian ornamental style park with lakes and fountains etc. but perhaps it's best feature is The Conservatory, opened in 1900 it is now an English Heritage Grade II listed building.
It has a central rectangular section with a gabled roof and a clock at the front. The centre section houses the more exotic plants from hotter climates while the wings are home to plants from a more temperate climate.
It also has a central louvred chimney.
The building is constructed entirely of glass and iron and is richly ornamented with arches, pierced spandrels and columns.
It is probably the only surviving large scale example of the fine ornamental ironwork originating from Lockerbie and Wilkinson of Birmingham. The only other iron work by Lockerbie and Wilkinson still in existence, but on a smaller scale, is the Mermaid Cafe and former Railway Clock Tower in Cleethorps, Lincolnshire.
In the low autumn sunshine I managed to get a great shot of the sun silhouetting and shining through the glass of the conservatory.
From The Conservatory we walked up onto The Broad Walk to take in the beautiful autumn colours.
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| Barbara, Mani & Heidi on The Broad Walk in the autumn sunshine. |
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| The Beautiful Autumn Colours In Corporation Park |
The Broad Walk was constructed in 1863-4 to provide work for the hundreds of unemployed cotton weavers during the Cotton Famine. It is a magnificent avenue lined with lime trees on its southern edge (LH side below) where The Victorians and The Edwardians would promenade.
Continuing east along the Broad Walk we always leave the park to climb the 'Sixty Steps' that make up Brantfell Road.
The view from the top at the junction of Revidge Road looking south east across Blackburn. Not quite the 'New Jerusalem' but certainly not 'the dark satanic mills of old'. (It is grim up north). Cutting back through the park, and missing out on this occasion The Tank and The Cannons, (another day, another blog maybe !?), we finish our walk along Alexandra Road to look at the architecture of the houses there.
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| Terraced Houses on Brantfell Rd. |
The view from the top at the junction of Revidge Road looking south east across Blackburn. Not quite the 'New Jerusalem' but certainly not 'the dark satanic mills of old'. (It is grim up north). Cutting back through the park, and missing out on this occasion The Tank and The Cannons, (another day, another blog maybe !?), we finish our walk along Alexandra Road to look at the architecture of the houses there.
THE END
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