Wibsey Parks
Continued from last month....

By the end of October 1882 Smith & Gotthardt, the official surveyors and valuers for the inclosure of the Wibsey slack and elsewhere in the area had received tenders for the making of various roads and for the erecting of walls round the recreation grounds.

By January 1883 the Wibsey Recreation ground was partly completed, and by June that year the North Bierley Local Board (NBLB) was told that it should take over the completion of the grounds. £2,050, including the sum already spent on the walls, was the sum allowed for Wibsey; and the work had to be completed within twelve months, i.e. by summer 1884. That deadline date, however, does not appear to have been met, for in December 1884 the valuers wrote to the NBLB suggesting , among other things, that further expenditure on the ponds and recreation grounds should be delayed for a while. This suggestion was not well received by the NBLB which, in fact, objected quite strongly.

The Wibsey Recreation Grounds (this is the way the development was usually named and the word park appears to have been secondary) must, by February 1885, have been nearing completion.

At that time the NBLB was asked to consider a complaint that persons employed by Joshua Wilson of the Moor Cock Inn, now the Park Hotel, had demanded money from people skating on the pond. Remember, that there would have been very few if any buildings between the Moor Cock and the Park, though obviously the boundary wall existed by then. Summoned to a Board meeting, Mr Wilson denied employing men to demand payment. He had, however, issued tickets with his name on to a person who had swept snow off the ice. Mr Wilson was let off with a caution, and the surveyor told that in future he should arrange for the necessary sweeping of the ice. Clearly hard winters were then regularly expected.

Information extracted from Wibsey Parkers, published in 1985
To be continued ..................

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