Parks, Pitches, Cemeteries & Reserves

It can be taken, as a general rule, that if there's a bit of green in industrial Tyneside it was once a quarry (or a pit head). In other words, if it could have been built on, it would have been. 

In Felling, there's the Windy Nook Nature Reserve (Kell's Quarry)

 Felling Cricket Ground (Boiston's Quarry), Heworth Burn Cemetery (Brown's Quarry) & The Bankies (Felling Quarry).

I had always surmised that Felling Park could have been the exception because it was right next to The Urban District Council's Offices and it was their floral bragging rights. There's no doubt that because it was next door it was given special treatment and we've seen how their desire for a big floral splash has wained since their removal to Central Gateshead. Oh, I know there's a squeeze on finances just now but, if there was a will, Felling Park could be a big splash again since the cost represents only 0.001% of the Council's available finance...£2,000 out of £200 million)

Anyway, I now realise that it was a park because this was the lumpiest part of Holly Hill. Not only did it lend itself to a tiered flower display to be seen by the heavy traffic that used Sunderland Road but it was also, yes you've guessed it, a quarry. It was known as Quarry Banks

It was opened on Wednesday 27th July 1910

I've no doubt, in times to come when "raftcrete" gets invented they will be able to economically build on filled in holes but for now we can be content that we will retain Felling Park as a space and, thanks to pensioners and school bairns who titivated the park in 2014, the Council will splash  a thousandth of one percent of their budget on filling part of that space with floowers, at least for the next three years of the WWI Centenary. They will...if, when you next speak to your Councillor, you use the words "Felling Park" and "Nigel Farage" in the same sentence