Millhouses Boating Pond - do you remember it?

[Setchy]

Cor... How the years pass. as a child I remember in the 60's playing in the now sadly disused paddling pools, playing on the swings. on the boats, in the cafe having ice creams and toasted tea cakes. In later life Oooh 14 15 years old. getting into the Lido. with my mates and watching all the girls in see through bikini's.. those are my fond memories. Ones like yours to cherish. how times change.

[baz52]

The boating lake is now pretty well derelict but I remember it in it's hey day with people queing for a boat. The swimming pool is just about as bad. The whole park has been neglected.

[Albert T Smith]

The boating lake is now pretty well derelict but I remember it in it's hey day with people queing for a boat. The swimming pool is just about as bad. The whole park has been neglected.

 

That sums up a great deal of my own thoughts.

' The whole park has been neglected '.

What wants asking is ' WHY '.

 

A Mr Pollard was the Manager or the Parks Dept until around 1970.

He worked with a Secretary, Mainly the rest were 'hands on the job' workers.

 

Mr Winning (Now Retired) arrived from Scotland during the early 70s. being appointed

Director of Recreation shortly after. It is standard practice for Directors to require assistant Directors whose first duty of ' self preservation ' is to build a empire of Area Managers, District Managers and Managers, each requiring pen pushing paper staff all require paying. This leaves the Parks Department starved of funds to employ the required number of hands on workers to do the practical work required.

 

It is also one reason why, ' The whole park has been neglected ', though they have a lot of guides to read'.

 

One Example: In the early 1960s I acted as the volunteer warden of the Bird Sanctuary in Eccelsall Woods. If I required a Nest Box or one of the forms which are situated around the sanctuary perimeter repairing, I would telephone Mr Pollard. He would invariably say, ' I'll let Jack know but if you see him, let him know that its OK with me '. (Jack (who lived at Totley)was foreman of the Saw Mill off Abbey Lane).

The job was normally done within the week. How long would it take today?

 

Shortly after Mr Winning took up his job in Sheffield, I left Sheffield to go to Surfleet, Spalding, Lincs., After I left, Mrs Betty Moore, who lived on Newfield Crescent, Dore. along with others set up ' The Sheffield Bird Study Group '. Hopefully someone else replaced me as the warden.

 

Perhaps if they did and are on the Forum, or someone knows them, they could let everyone know what happens these days when dealing with a similar or same situation such as replacing nest boxes etc..

 

'Why has each and everyone of our Parks in Sheffield been neglected '.

 

A perfect opportunity for one of the Directors from the Parks Department to tell us now?

[Greybeard]

I feel sure that at in the 1940s the boating pond was just like a ordinary pond. It was later given a brick surrounding with the ashphalt pathway when the paddle boats stated in the (1960s?) Can anyone confirm this?

 

I can't be sure of exactly when I first took my model yacht to Millhouses pond - it would be 1948 or 1949; but the brick and asphalt surround existed then.

 

The dam from which the pond derived originally supplied a water-driven grinding hull known as the Bartin Wheel built in the 1630s but seems to have been abandoned in the 1850s,- the weir for this dam was a way further upstream.

 

The weir near the kid's playground supplied the goit and dam for the ancient Ecclesall Corn Mill. David Crossley in his book about Sheffield water wheels says this was converted to steam at some time in the late 1800s and continued to operate into the early years of WWII. Do you remember it still working ?

 

The building survives as the park-keepers equipment store.

[tatty dumps]

I remember taking my grandkids to Millhouses in the '90s. They had converted the stream into a tiered paddling pool and it was always packed then. Sadly this was emptied when the water became diseased. But this has been gone for ages so why was it not refilled. The kids thought it was fantastic - just like being at the seaside. There were ice cream vans and occasionally a fair. What a waste!!!

[Albert T Smith]

I remember taking my grandkids to Millhouses in the '90s. They had converted the stream into a tiered paddling pool and it was always packed then. Sadly this was emptied when the water became diseased. But this has been gone for ages so why was it not refilled. The kids thought it was fantastic - just like being at the seaside. There were ice cream vans and occasionally a fair. What a waste!!!

 

I mentioned this in my post no 16.

 

I gathered that because of the river and stream water pollution, the children's paddling area was closed sometime in 1974 - 7. This being after the local government re-organisation when Managers doing the same job, suddenly became Directors. They required assistants and the required entourage of non-productive bureaucrats, all of whom require paying the excepted standard bureaucrats salary.

 

Probably the reason why the paddling area have not been opened, is because it cost money to open and that money is now spent paying the bureaucrats that have been consistently created since 1974 - 7. The standards expected in 1950 - 75 in all of the parks in Sheffield have dropped considerably since 1976 - upto the present day.

 

Does anyone disagree with that?

 

The sewage pollution problem which lead to its closure was solved a few years ago when Yorkshire Water did extensive and expensive work starting at Totley and Totley Brook all the way down to the Park.

 

So, ' Why is the children's paddling area not open? '

[Albert T Smith]

I can't be sure of exactly when I first took my model yacht to Millhouses pond - it would be 1948 or 1949; but the brick and asphalt surround existed then.

 

The dam from which the pond derived originally supplied a water-driven grinding hull known as the Bartin Wheel built in the 1630s but seems to have been abandoned in the 1850s,- the weir for this dam was a way further upstream.

 

The weir near the kid's playground supplied the goit and dam for the ancient Ecclesall Corn Mill. David Crossley in his book about Sheffield water wheels says this was converted to steam at some time in the late 1800s and continued to operate into the early years of WWII. Do you remember it still working ?

 

The building survives as the park-keepers equipment store.

 

Did a (Quoint?) Channel convey the water up to the weir? Where did the water to fill the pond come from? and was the weir mentioned, situated before the now demolished Beauchief Post Office?

[Albert T Smith]

That sums up a great deal of my own thoughts.

' The whole park has been neglected '.

What wants asking is ' WHY '.

 

A Mr Pollard was the Manager or the Parks Dept until around 1970.

He worked with a Secretary, Mainly the rest were 'hands on the job' workers.

 

Mr Winning (Now Retired) arrived from Scotland during the early 70s. being appointed

Director of Recreation shortly after. It is standard practice for Directors to require assistant Directors whose first duty of ' self preservation ' is to build a empire of Area Managers, District Managers and Managers, each requiring pen pushing paper staff all require paying. This leaves the Parks Department starved of funds to employ the required number of hands on workers to do the practical work required.

 

It is also one reason why, ' The whole park has been neglected ', though they have a lot of guides to read'.

 

One Example: In the early 1960s I acted as the volunteer warden of the Bird Sanctuary in Eccelsall Woods. If I required a Nest Box or one of the forms which are situated around the sanctuary perimeter repairing, I would telephone Mr Pollard. He would invariably say, ' I'll let Jack know but if you see him, let him know that its OK with me '. (Jack (who lived at Totley)was foreman of the Saw Mill off Abbey Lane).

The job was normally done within the week. How long would it take today?

 

Shortly after Mr Winning took up his job in Sheffield, I left Sheffield to go to Surfleet, Spalding, Lincs., After I left, Mrs Betty Moore, who lived on Newfield Crescent, Dore. along with others set up ' The Sheffield Bird Study Group '. Hopefully someone else replaced me as the warden.

 

Perhaps if they did and are on the Forum, or someone knows them, they could let everyone know what happens these days when dealing with a similar or same situation such as replacing nest boxes etc..

 

'Why has each and everyone of our Parks in Sheffield been neglected '.

 

A perfect opportunity for one of the Directors from the Parks Department to tell us now?

 

 

With the news today that ' Council Tax ' as more than doubled in the last ten years. I can not think of a better time for either a politician or bureaucrat to tell us.

' Why has each and everyone of our Parks in Sheffield been neglected or is it just myself finding fault? '.