Sidney Park

Recent reports of the sterling work of the Sussex Rec Community Group have drawn attention to the importance of looking after our public open spaces, including not only the Sussex Recreation Ground but also the nearby Sidney Park. So let’s take a look at the history of both of these recreational areas. And because Sidney Park was the earlier of these two, I’ll deal with it first. 

It was the local authority, the Cleethorpes Urban District Council, which set the ball rolling. Sidney Sussex College owned all the northern part of the town and since the mid-1880s had been rapidly turning the land over to housing. This, and the increasing population of the area, prompted the Council to ask the College for land for a recreation ground. The College readily agreed and gave 12 acres to the town in 1898.

T.H. Mawson was engaged to design a park. The Council referred to him as the ‘well-known gardener from Windermere’. They were not to know that he would go on to become the leading landscape architect of his day. Eventually, his clients included Queen Alexandra and Andrew Carnegie. He designed many public parks and was involved in major town-planning schemes in Canada and European countries.

His design for Sidney Park was influenced by a growing national belief that parks should not be just about flower beds and having a stroll but should also provide for active recreation. Accordingly, his scheme for the park was to fit recreational activities into a pleasant overall design. Almost every inch was planned to be used for some active pursuit, including bowls, tennis, model yachting and good-sized playing fields. And the whole was to be divided by walks, avenues, hedges and shrubberies; to present a pleasant whole. You must judge for yourself whether his scheme is still evident.

The opening ceremony of the park in 1904 was performed by Charles Smith, the Master of Sidney Sussex College. The occasion was marked by mutually complimentary speeches by him and Council members about the good relations between the two bodies.

Then, in 1925, the Council purchased a further four acres from the College to add to the park. And, to provide work for the unemployed,

the Unemployment Grants Commission gave a grant towards the cost of levelling, fencing and drainage work. The additional land was open for public use in April 1926. It is that part of the park which backs on to Elliston Street. 

Meanwhile, in October 1925, a reminder of the First World War was removed when the German gun which had been on display in the park was disposed of by the Council for £7.

And just to show that vandalism is nothing new, in 1930 eight boys had to attend a Council committee to be told off for pushing over seats in the park and other disorderly conduct. Six months later the Council contacted the parents of five boys who had been climbing on the roof of the park shelter – the same boys? And in 1939, a member of the public complained about the obscene language being used by youths playing football in the park extension – the same boys nine years older? – or their younger brothers maintaining family traditions?

So how did the well-behaved users of the park enjoy themselves in the 1920s and 1930s? According to the Council publicity:

‘The adult visitor to this Park is charmed with the ornamental flower beds, whilst the children delight in the Model Yacht Pond, upon which many exciting races take place during the summer months. Here, too, are excellent grass Tennis courts and Bowling Greens, also a Putting Green, all of which are open to the public’. 

Tennis players could show off their skills, or lack of the same, by hiring a tennis court for one shilling an hour. Budding golf champions (and their mams and dads) could practice their putting skills on the Putting Green for three pence a round. And members of the bowls fraternity each paid two pence per hour to use a green.

But as well as these day to day recreational activities, the park also earned its keep by becoming a major venue for many public events, which I am sure I will refer to now and then in the course of future articles.

But, for the time being, we will take a look next week at the unlikely story of how the need to improve the town’s drainage system led to us getting the Sussex Recreation Ground. Yet another example of the truth of Cleethorpes’ history being stranger than fiction!

© Alan Dowling 2008

Published initially in the Cleethorpes Chronicle, December 2008.

Not to be reprinted without the permission of the author