Original Steps.

Our gardening volunteers play a vital role in the work we do in the Rose Garden, Quarry area and the Oxton Fields. We meet on Monday mornings (weather permitting) at 10am in the Rose Garden.  Here you can see three of our hard working team enjoying a well deserved brew by our shed and potting area.  

We set regular goals for ourselves, with mass bulb planting sessions, or composting the hanging baskets from Oxton village, and many more.  It was an idea to try to uncover the original steps which our local ancestors would have trodden to get down into the Quarry.  Local men would play quoits in the Quarry on a Sunday, while children played on the seesaw.

When the Earl of Shrewsbury gifted the land to be used as a recreational ground, it officially opened on the 30th March 1912.
 

In the very old picture postcard above you can see the original steps which you could take down into the Quarry when entering the park from Ingestre Road.

Here you can see some of our regular volunteers embarking on the huge task of uncovering the original steps which led down from the top path. It has become extremely overgrown and the steps are hidden below lots of soil and ivy.

 

Finally, the original steps start to appear.  Here you can see one of our volunteers John Fairclough hard at work.

Although the top path is edged with railings now so that you have to enter the quarry a safer way further along, it is still fascinating to uncover the past and imagine what it would have been like in its heyday, back over 100 years ago.  Now our generation will be able to walk those steps once more, steps which have been hidden for so long.  Hopefully it will inspire others to read about the history of their local area.