work and play
Queens Park
A group from local charity Back on Track worked with local historians to uncover facts and stories about Queens Park. They also got creative, making artworks and composing poems inspired by the park. Explore, learn and enjoy!
Our group visited Queens Park, Philips Park and Sandhills. Click to find out more about each park.
Queens Park is a well-used community park in Harpurhey, just off Rochdale Road. It's known for its rose gardens and for the old art gallery in its grounds. Our group were inspired by seeing and hearing the beautiful nature in the park, and by their memories of the park from throughout their lives. Click to read Anna's three poems all inspired by Queens Park!
The opening of Queens Park
Queens Park was opened in 1846 on the same day as both Philips Park and Peel Park in Salford. An English landscape designer called Joshua Major was given the job of designing the park (along with Philips Park). He was given 50 guineas to get the job done. He needed workers and tempted many away from their jobs on the railways. His design included serpentine paths, lines that casually meandered through the park in order to promote rest and relaxation.
Group member Liz imagined the opening of the park from the perspective of a working class woman of the day
The Opening of Queens Park
22nd August 1846
by Liz
My name is Charlotte Square, I am a scullery maid
My jobs are cleaning, washing
Today I am making sure all chores are done
So I can walk and change into my Sunday best, my day started at 5am
And I can still be doing work 16 hours later
However, today is the opening
Of Queens Park so I’m excited about meeting up with Tom
I’m so fond of him
Queens Park art gallery and museum
Did you know Queens Park used to attract thousands of visitors to its art gallery and museum? It was built in 1884 on the site of the former Hendham Hall. These days the gallery isn't open to the public. It's used by Manchester Art Gallery to store artworks which they don't have on display.
Group member Anna created an incredible model of the gallery with details like period furniture and wallpaper!
Queens Park art gallery and museum - now and then
Owd Ben
There was once a statue in Queens Park of Benjamin Brierley, a local poet known as ‘Owd Ben’. Sadly the statue was vandalised and eventually pulled down from its pedestal, and today only the plinth remains. Fragments of the statue were stored in the boathouse of Heaton Park, before a fire destroyed them completely.
Sian was inspired to write a poem about the plinth
Sympathy between a tree trunk and a statue plinth
Both missing their better halves
An angry protest of jagged stumps instead of canopy –
Stripped, crumbling, rotting wood; dry and dusty.
Are these marks of surgery done by man
Or are they the geometry of nature
The plinth can tell some of its story written in plain words;
Prominent and literal record of the past.
Your story is also carved on your eroded body,
But who will care to pause and decipher it?
Sian
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Our group visited Queens Park, Philips Park and Sandhills. Click to find out more about each park.
Back on Track Manchester
Registered charity 1017467
Thanks to Historic England for making this project possible
