Heaton Park: close to the city but peaceful at the same time

Last time out we had driven over to Whitchurch in Shropshire. On this occasion we made the short 20 minute trip to Heaton Park just a few miles north of the City centre.

The park itself is in an area of Manchester known as Higher Blackley.

If you check it out on the map using postcode M25 2SW it will take you to the main entrance on Middleton Road.

At over 600 acres, it’s the largest park in Greater Manchester and as far as I understand it’s one of the largest municipal parks in Europe.

Rolling back the years

I used to be a pretty frequent visitor to the park. Many years ago, Heaton Park was a regular haunt of mine. Back in the 1960’s my family lived about a 15 minute cycle ride away, and it was a place I frequently cycled to with my brother and friends.

We had a lot of fun there taking rowing boats out on the lake, tearing round the well surfaced pathways on our bikes and even daring to walk out on the frozen lake in winter time!

Over the years we have been back a few times with our own children and now of course with our grandchildren.  I can’t quite recall the last time we were there but it really did seem like a long time since our last visit.

Heaton Hall

In addition to the rolling parkland, the boating lake and several play areas the park is also home to Heaton Hall which is a Grade I listed 18th-century country house. It’s a fine looking building although it wasn’t open when we were there.

The hall was built at the back end of the 18th century and it’s pretty impressive. A little internet research shows that Heaton Hall was originally a country mansion for the Egerton family, who were one of the wealthiest landowning families in the region.

In 1902 the estate was bought by Manchester City Council to create a public park, which is what we now know as Heaton Park. You’ll find some images from the park in the first picture set below.

Picture set one – park snaps

The pictures in this first set are snaps from a wander round the park and so I think are pretty much self-explanatory.

Picture set 2 – a peacock and a bee

There is also a small animal centre in the park (not surprisingly the Heaton Park Animal Centre).

It’s located in and around the restored old stables. There are a few different animals: chickens; goats; geese and pigs as well as some pretty big tortoises. Best of all on our visit was the sight of a beautiful blue peacock opening and displaying his tail feathers (or more properly his train). The peacock we saw seemed to be pretty relaxed about people being around and I think the images in the picture set below speak for themselves.

Lily’s bee

There is one non peacock picture in the set and it’s the bee sculpture that is located outside the Animal Centre.

It’s actually called ‘Lily’s Bee’ and was done as part of Manchester’s 2018 Bee in the City art trail.  The bee was donated to Heaton Park after the 2018 event​.

Picture set 3 – tired figures

There’s a bit of an odd area that is home to some run down figures. They look as though in better days the ‘canvas’ type coverings were illuminated from the inside. I can imagine in the past they would have looked pretty good when lit up but as it is at the moment they need some serious maintenance work – but still of some interest to small children!

Last but not least – ice cream

There is a cafe alongside the boating lake selling refreshments – including ice cream, as good and enticing as they may have been, we walked on a little and bought very decent 99’s from an ice cream seller who was parked about 100 yards further down from the Lakeside Cafe.

It was quite a decent way to end this trip to Heaton Park.