Cheetham Park Shelter

Summary

Park shelter, built 1884.

Reasons for Designation

The park shelter at Cheetham Park, Elizabeth Street, Manchester is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Historic interest: the park shelter can claim a strong social significance being a good representative example of an early park shelter, built in 1884, as a consequence of the public park movement and the Open Spaces Act of 1877, which provided local authorities with a means of improving the health and well-being of the urban working classes;

* Architectural interest: built of quality materials and displays good craftsmanship in its construction, and is an integral part of the original designed landscape, situated on the northern golden section of the central axial path of the park;

* Degree of survival: the shelter retains the principal outlines of its original plan, design and construction;

* Group value: strong visual and functional group value with the contemporary and similarly designed listed bandstand.

History

During the early to mid-C19 the majority of public parks were built in the more affluent areas on the edge of towns and cities, with little consideration given to the urban poor. This situation lead during the late-1870s and early-1880s to the development of the philanthropic 'public park movement' that sprang mainly out of the desire to improve the health of workers, living in over-crowded urban conditions, in the rapidly growing industrial towns. The Open Spaces Act of 1877, together with its amendments of 1881, 1887 and 1890, gave public authorities the necessary powers to provide small parks within dense urban areas.

Manchester Corporation was one of the earliest public authorities to act on the powers granted by the Open Spaces Act, purchasing a two hectare rectangular plot of land from Lord Derby in 1884, at a cost of £9,000. The parcel of land was situated 2.4km north of Manchester City centre and it had been occupied during the first half of the C19 by middle-class villas; however, it had been transformed during the second half of the C19, when the villas were demolished to permit clay quarrying and brick works, together with the building of large volumes of near-by terraced workers houses. The Corporation proceeded to spend £9,175 in transforming the land into a park, enclosing it within a brick boundary wall with cast-iron railings and gates, planting trees and ornamental flower borders, laying paths and a promenade, building a park keepers lodge, a pavilion, rockery, tennis courts, bowling greens, male and female gymnasiums, a drinking fountain, greenhouses, a urinal, ladies toilets, a bandstand (listed Grade II) and a park shelter. The park was opened on 26 September 1885 by the Mayor, Alderman J.J. Harwood.

Like many small urban parks, Cheetham Park has changed over time, many of the smaller buildings have been lost; the lodge having been demolished sometime after 1975, while others have been erected, such as the Cheetham Park Sure Start Children's Centre, which was built over the northern bowling green and opened in 2006.

Details

Park shelter, built 1884.

MATERIALS: cast-iron columns, supporting timber conical roof clad in Welsh and Westmorland slate.

PLAN: hexagonal plan.

The public shelter comprises a hexagonal plan flared conical roof with an apex weather vane, supported on six cast-iron columns. The verge of the roof has timber facia boards with blind arcaded panels, attached to the rafter ends. The roof is clad in alternate bands of plain-cut and fish-scale Westmorland and Welsh slates. The columns have fluted pedestals, round-profile shafts, bowl-shaped capitals decorated with flower motifs and handle brackets; supporting clamp-plates that carry the purlins and principal rafters. The purlins are staged with a moulded cornice set between the rafters. The rafters rise to a braced hexagonal roof structure with a central drop pendant; each panel of the roof has an exposed canted timber board lining.

Sources

Books and journals
Jordan, H, Public Parks, 1885-1914 in Garden History, Vol.22, No.1 (Summer, 1994), Vol. 22, (1994), 85 - 113

Websites
Cheetham Park, Cheetham, Manchester, accessed 31 March 2017 from http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/5092?preview=1
Parks, playgrounds and open spaces / Manchester City council, accessed 06 April 2017 from http://www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/89194/cheetham_park
BBC Domesday Reloaded, accessed 06 April 2017 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-380000-399000/page/10

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