SALFORD’s oldest park has been given a  new year funding boost.

This is fantastic news for a grand old lady of a park who needs some TLC after all these years. 

Salford City Council has successfully bid for £54,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund as the next stage of its £2.1m redevelopment of Peel park.

The funding, which comes on the heels of improvements to the park entrance, will be used for research into the history of the park. This will then be used to reflect new designs for the park and to develop a programme of community events.

Councillor Gena Merrett, assistant mayor for housing and environment, said: “This is fantastic news for a grand old lady of a park who needs some TLC after all these years. 

“Peel Park was opened in 1846 and is one of the oldest in the country and forms part of the largest green space in central Salford. We are working with the Friends of Peel Park and the University of Salford to restore this lovely have.”
 Peel Park.

Friends of Peel Park

Work has just finished on refurbishing the entrance of the park off The Crescent. This included resurfacing the path, installing new fencing and lighting and removing self seeded trees to open up views across to the Crescent Meadows.

Confidential wrote a piece about the adjacent Meadows last year (click here), and the potential for this area to be an impressive, exquisite space in the central areas of Salford and Manchester. 
Queen Victoria in Peel Park - 1851

Queen Victoria in Peel Park - 1851

Queen Victoria's Diary Thursday 9 October, 1851

In her diary the Queen wrote: "From one o'clock in the morning Albert was very unwell-very sick and wretched-and I was terrified for our Manchester visit. Thank God! by eight o'clock he felt much better, and was able to get up. . . . At ten we started for Manchester. The day was fine and mild and everything to a wish. Manchester is called seven miles from Worsley, but I cannot think it is so much. We first came to Pendleton, where, as everywhere else, there are factories, and great preparations were made. School children were there in profusion. We next came to Salford, where the crowd became very dense. It joins Manchester, and is to it, in fact, as Westminster to London. . . . The mechanics and workpeople, dressed in their best, were ranged along the streets, with white rosettes in their buttonholes; both in Salford and Manchester a very intelligent but painfully unhealthy-looking population they all were, men as well as women. We went into Peel Park before leaving Salford, the mayor having got out and received us at the entrance, where was indeed a most extraordinary and, I suppose, totally unprecedented sight - 82,000 school children, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics (these children having a small crucifix suspended round their necks), Baptists, and Jews (whose faces told their descent), with their teachers. In the middle of the park was erected a pavilion, under which we drove, but did not get out, and where the address was read. All the children sang "God Save the Queen" extremely well together, the director being placed on a very high stand, from which he could command the whole park. We passed out at the same gate we went in by, and through the principal street of Salford, on to Manchester, at the entrance of which was a magnificent arch. The mayor, Mr.Potter, who went through the proceedings with great composure and self-possession, beautifully dressed (the mayor and Corporation had till now been too Radical to have robes), received us there, and presented me with a beautiful bouquet.