Memories
Please let us know your memories of Onchan Park through the contacts page.
How long have you been coming to the park for? Have other generations of your family used the park?
Do you remember any special events on Onchan Park?
What was the park like in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s?
What did you do here when you were a teenager/child/toddler?
What makes Onchan Park unique? How is the park historically significant? What ordinary, everyday events happened here?
If you have ideas about the future of the park, please use the survey or the contacts page to let us know.
After moving to the area in 1994 I regularly used the park to play tennis with a friend as well as it being my local polling station during elections.
Now as a parent I take my daughter to use the playground and as she gets older am sure she would like to use the football and tennis facilities.
A fantastic facility, lovely surroundings and a great mix of things to do for all ages. I’ve been lucky enough to use them and so has my daughter. Hopefully her family can too.
My mum lives facing the park in the house that used to be my grandparents and I have many happy memories of playing on the park / fighting for the swings with my cousins.
David, 24
Final year advertising student at the University of East London
I grew up playing on Onchan park and have so many happy memories. Too many kids these days staying in playing on video games as it is, I urge you to support the local parks, it’s such a wonderful resource.
Clare, Nottingham
Such a lovely park…my grandad used to bowl here….spent alot of my childhood on the park!
Charlotte, Basford
…this place holds special memories…learned to play tennis here in the 70s…..please don’t build on it!
Dieter, Buenos Aires
I went to my friend’s 3rd birthday party at Onchan Park. I went on the baby swing and played with my friends. The mums and dads sat on the grassy bank. We ate party food. We all took home a football as a party gift.
S, age 5 1/2
When I go to the park, I play hide and seek with my sister. I like looking for money.
If we didn’t have the park everyone would be sad. When I’m bigger, I want to meet my friends at the park. We could play at bowling or play dob.
M, Year 4
I have just attended my first meeting, having moved back to Oakdale Rd. I moved to Onchan Ave in 1957 as a six year old with my parents.The park was built the following year and my friends and I would be daily visitors. Mum and her neighbour would help out with catering when a bowls match took place, the park was kept immaculate and I remember the park keeper Arthur Henson would be there daily and taking great pride in ‘his’ park.
It’s so sad that the pavilion has been neglected along with the bowling green, but hopefully with help from the community it can be restored to its former glory!
Christine
In the early 70s I remember going to the park with my big sister and her boyfriend. I had the unenviable job of being ballgirl and can remember running about endlessly.
I think ice creams were the ‘reward’
My first reaction on hearing the proposals were how diabolical and atrocious that such a resource could be considered for sale by the council.
Margaret, 55
“I have been in Carlton since I was six years old. Onchan Park has always been the park, I grew up on the place I met my friends to hang out on. I attempted to play tennis there, I had my first kiss on there, did the log dance from dirty dancing on the spider that used to be there with my first boyfriend, also ripped a pair of much loved MC Hammer style trousers on the railings there lol. These are just a few of my memories.
When my daughter was born we went for walks there and my mum and I would take her on the park to play. It’s still a beautiful place where she still goes to meet up with her friends and hang out.
I love Onchan park for so many reasons and to loose it would be a travesty for all of us and for the future generations to come who will hold Onchan park in their hearts and create their own memories.”
Amanda
I think we cycled up from the bottom of Oakdale.
It was ’76 and so very hot.
We had just finished our last GCE paper.
Climbing was probably not appropriate as we were 16 but no health and safety back then!
So relaxing and playing around was what we did.
Such a shame if the bowling green, courts and park were to go.
M
Memories from Janice: “I am 72 years old now, and moved on to Onchan Drive when the council houses were built, I think that was around 1948. In those years we had loads of places to play. There were the Cow Fields running down the sides of Greenhill and they stretched as far as Southdale Drive. The area where the Elwes is was fields down to the railway.
The area where the park is was a lovely place to play even then, and I can remember it was always full of wild flowers. There was no church, or houses on that side Cliff Road and there were only about 10 houses at the top of Douglas Avenue. That land also went all the way down to the train lines and lead to Colwick Woods. The only shop was a little shed at the top of Douglas Avenue. Because the shop was sited at the top of a hill the shed rested on the ground at the front but at the back there were tall wooden supports down to the ground to make it stand evenly. After it closed at tea time we all used to rush to the area underneath the shed to hunt for either coins or small sweets that had dropped through the huge gaps between the planks on the wooden floor.”