Boating Lake, Heaton Park

HEATON PARK NEW LAKE - The work will be begun shortly of making the new lake in Heaton Park. The lake will be 10.5 acres in extent. The situation of the lake - as the plan shows - is near the corner of the main road leading from the Grand Lodge at the corner of Bury Old Road to the hall and of the road from Heaton Park Station. Facing the familiar direction board is a wooded clough lying below the level of the road. It is the beginning of a little dale which runs along to the east for-three or four hundred yards, and which may be said to end in the Timber-yard, an old wood that lines up to the Heaton Gate entrance. There are one or two cottages within the Timber Yard; which obtained its name from the fact that the Earl of Wilton, the former owner of the park and hall, had a sawmill there. The new lake will lie along the bottom of this depression, and the water level will be within the 250ft. contour line. A brook flows down through the park from point near Clark's Cross which is just outside, and after passing through this hollow, runs under Middleton Road and so into the Irk about 200 yards on the other side of the road. This brook, which, summer and winter, has a fairly constant flow, will be the main feeder of the lake. The water in the lake will have a depth of three feet.

The works, as the Mayor stated at the City Council meeting on Wednesday, are to be carried out by the of men otherwise unemployed and taken from Labour Exchange. They will be men who have lived in Manchester for a qualifying period of twelve months; and the making of the lake will find work for five hundred or a thousand of them for the rest of this winter and the winter following. After the floor of the lake has been cut out it will be puddled with clay to make it impermeable by water. The clay will be got by cutting down a slight hill on the other side of the road. The soil which is taken out for the lake cutting will be thrown up into two tiny islands. It is the intention of the engineers to disturb the public or disorder the park as little as possible.  The clay hill and the lake will, therefore, be enclosed with hoardings, so that the operations will not be visible. The clay will be carried from the clay-hill to the cutting under the road, which is on an embankment at this point. The materials will be carted in from Middleton Road, turning into the Timber Yard just by the shelter. In that way the cutting of the turf into cart tracks will be avoided. [Manchester Guardian 6 January 1911 page 9]

HEATON PARK LAKE - The minutes of the Parks Committee were presented to the Council, along with a supplementary minute recording the proceedings of a meeting held on Tuesday. At this meeting the Parks Committee had accepted the tender of Messrs. Tate and Gordon, of Manchester, for the formation of the new lake in Heaton Park, at cost of £17,457. The work is to last over two winters. [Manchester Guardian 5 January 1911 page 3]

Opened        17 March 1913

Reference    Manchester Guardian 5 January 1911 page 3
Reference    Manchester Guardian 6 January 1911 page 9
Reference    Manchester Guardian 18 March 1913 page 6 - opening