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Historic Lancaster public space reveals new look

Monday, 1 August 2022 10:39

Popular Lancaster public space, Miss Whalley's Field, has been spruced up with the official opening of a new pathway.

The Friends of Miss Whalley's Field in Lancaster have recently been successful in raising funds through the Dulverton Trust, enabling the installation of drainage and new paths improving accessibility for all users of the field.

The new paths were officially unveiled yesterday with the leader of Lancaster City Council, Councillor Caroline Jackson, cutting the ribbon.

Councillor Jackson said: "Congratulations to the Miss Whalley's Field committee and all their superb volunteer team. The new path makes the field hugely more accessible to the local community, it encourages active travel through the grassed areas and is beautifully designed to entice people up off the road just to see where it goes.

"Many thanks are due too to the city council officers who supported the project all the way to completion."

A spokesperson for the Friends group, said: ‘’It was a beautiful sunny day, which it always seems to be when we have a public event.

‘’We were delighted to welcome our MP Cat Smith, our County Councillor Lizzie Collinge and our City Council Leader Caroline Jackson, to open the new pathway from Kentmere Road into the Field.

‘’It’s rare when all three can attend an event together and we are very grateful to them all, and to Lancaster City Council for their advice and support.

‘’Wild flower seeds were distributed and these were sown in the soil alongside the path so by next spring it should all look much more ‘natural’.

‘’Thanks to the efforts of all our local volunteers we have achieved an enormous amount in the past year or two. It just shows what is possible if everyone pulls together. Coming up with new ideas on how to improve the field and helping to deliver these ideas is something we can all do to protect this unique local asset.’’

Miss Whalley’s Field on Derwent Road was bought with money bequeathed by a Miss Frances Geraldine Whalley, who died in 1939, aged 57.

She stipulated that the land should be ‘for the use and enjoyment and benefit exclusively or mainly, of children residing in the Borough of Lancaster’ and was given in memory of her brother, Julian, who was killed in World War One, and their father, Colonel J Lawson Whalley.

In the Trust Deed, Miss Whalley states that the reason for her generous gift to the City of Lancaster, was to commemorate the lives of her late father & brother.

The plot is a crucial historical link between the Field & the City of Lancaster, and the field is protected protection from development and is no longer in the Local Plan.

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