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You are here: Home > News > Four Seasons Project To Celebrate Friends 10th Birthday

• Four seasons project to celebrate friends 10th birthday

• Date:

  15th April 2008

• Contact:

  Sarah Egerton

• Organisation:

  The Civic Trust

The essence of Green Flag Award-winning Mesnes Park has been captured during a Park Watch event which will celebrate the four seasons.

To celebrate 10 years since the Friends of Mesnes Park formed, students from Wigan and Leigh College joined pupils from St Mary’s and St John’s Primary and the friends to record the different facets of this beautiful site.

Participants used writing, poetry, drawing, painting and video cameras to record the various moods of the park in spring. Similar events will now be held in July, October and December. It is hoped that the collected works will feature in an end-of-year exhibition.

Those taking part were encouraged to find their own way of enjoying the park and recording their feelings about it. This ranged from children pond dipping to find the bugs and wildlife living there to just taking the time to relax on benches and reflect on what the park means to them.

Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust recently won a £3.4m Heritage Lottery grant to return the park to it’s former grandeur. This includes upgrading the famous pavilion, paths and bandstand.

However, the Friends of Mesnes Park are hoping a Wigan business will be prepared to sponsor a new fountain, similar to the original built when the park opened in 1878. Torn down in 1921, the Coalbrookdale Fountain, with its cast iron dolphins and serpents, was seen as Mesnes Park’s crowning glory. The fountain originally cost £150 but estimates indicate the current cost is likely to be between £200,000 and £300,000.

The friends are also applying for Heritage cash to put steps to the Sir Frances Sharp Powell statue so that his lucky foot can easily be rubbed.