Monument record MDR22819 - Whitworth Institute public park, Dale Road South, Darley Dale

The Whitworth Institute, which was surrounded by a new public park, was built in memory of the engineer and industrialist Sir Joseph Whitworth, who lived at Stancliffe Hall c 1km to the north of the site. The building and its park were opened in 1890 to provide facilities for the local community. While the park has been retained in the ownership of the Trustees of the Whitworth Institute and remains a public open space, part of the Institute is now (2000) a hotel. From the Institute terrace on the south-west front two flights of steps lead down to the level of the park. The cross-walk below the terrace wall extends as a tree-lined avenue c. 120m north-westward from the main part of the site. Immediately to the north-west of the building, occupying the northern corner of the site, is a set of tennis courts. Cross paths lined with further avenues of trees provide numerous views and vistas and also serve to divide the park into a series of three main compartments, roughly equal in size. That nearest the Institute building is laid to grass, with a bowling green towards the north-west side and a monument along the south-west path. South-west of this, and beyond the monument is a second open turfed area used as a cricket pitch. The third section was originally devoted to a boating lake, now drained and grassed over but clear in outline and with its central island still in evidence. Off its northern shore is an area of rockwork. The boathouse which stood at roughly the centre of its southern shore has gone. There is also a pond to the west of the lake area; the water originally flowed into the small pond from the boating lake. Beyond the pond in the westernmost corner of the park is an area of open grass used as a football pitch. A path leads around the perimeter of the main body of the park, being screened from the land beyond by plantings of trees and shrubs. Across the whole park a large number of the original plantings from the carefully devised botanical scheme survive. See NHLE report for more details. (1)