At the end of this month of July, school holidays will begin. A question many parents will be asking themselves is where could they take the children for a good day out which will not break the bank!
I remember as a young girl waiting with my mother and sister at the bottom of Briggate for a tram to take us up to Roundhay Park. I recall many trams had Belle Isle on the front of them and I wanted to know where the beautiful island was. When our tram arrived, we were delighted when the conductor asked us if we wanted a “Penny Park Ticket” which we did not know about. As money was tight for us we happily said, “Yes”. The Leeds Corporation introduced these tickets for children in Leeds during school holidays to travel at little cost to the famous Park which the Corporation had bought for its ratepayers.
The former Leeds Corporation, the predecessor of Leeds City Council, had a fine record of building houses and providing leisure facilities not only for the tenants of its corporation houses in Belle Isle but also for all Leeds children and adult ratepayers. Belle Isle, along with other pre-war housing estates, were laid out with twelve houses to the acre so that there was plenty of health-giving green spaces which was very important in a densely populated and heavily polluted industrial town with thousands of coal fires. Belle Isle was, therefore, aptly named.
However, Roundhay Park was bought in 1872 because of the drive and enthusiasm of one Corporation councillor John Barron, a wealthy cloth and clothing manufacturer who at the time was the Mayor of Leeds.
At the time corporations were legally entitled to spend only £40,000 on one project and John Barron personally advanced most of the rest of the purchase price. The following year the restriction on corporation spending was relaxed and the Corporation reimbursed him.
John Barron was lampooned in the newspapers as having bought a White Elephant with cartoons of him with an elephant`s trunk because Roundhay was on the Leeds outskirts and public transport in the form of horse-drawn trams went only as far as Spencer Place in Harehills. But he was proved to be right as today over one million visit and re-visit Roundhay Park each year. Later, Leeds was the first town in the UK (it did not become a city until 1899) to run an electrically driven tram to Roundhay with electricity generated from the Corporation’s own power-station.
At 700 acres Roundhay Park is reputed to be the biggest park in Europe (although Temple Newsam, another park bought by the Leeds Corporation in 1922, is bigger!) Roundhay Park had had a succession of owners living in its Mansion, the last being Thomas Nicolson who created the two park lakes in disused quarries.
The Upper Lake is shallow and is a haven for wildlife. The Lower Lake required a dam to hold back water from Wike Beck and, as it was built by discharged soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, it was named Waterloo Lake.
There is much to see at Roundhay Park. There are vast beautifully landscaped areas in which to stroll. There is the arena where world-class sporting events are held and the famous pop concerts which I introduced in 1982 with The Rolling Stones. Hill Sixty, where most of the audience sit and which is naturally terraced, is named after the first World War battle near Ypres in Belgium.
At the other side of the road from the Park, there are glorious Canal Gardens bedecked with flowers.
At the side of the Gardens is Tropical World with its collection of tropical plants, free-flying butterflies and a colony of Meercats. Small entry fee, especially for Leeds Card holders, to Tropical World but it is well worth it.
We may not have Penny Park Tickets anymore, but we now have something like its equivalent in bus fares costing no more than £2 regardless of distance travelled.
This post was written by Hon Ald Elizabeth Nash
Photo: Shutterstock
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