When Worcester City Council gave up on pleasure

The conflict centred around a substantial swathe of land in the Arboretum area, which today is covered by housing.

And therein lay the problem, because it wasn’t always like that. 

The roots of the rumpus went back to the early years of the century when the splendidly named and liberally minded Sir Charles Trubshaw-Withers allowed people to “pleasure walk” across his land, of which he had quite a lot.

It stretched all the way  from Sansome Style, just outside the city wall near the site of today’s Roman Catholic church, all the way north to the hamlet of Barbourne and east to Merriman’s Hill and was known as Sansome Fields. 

Although on Sir Charles’ death his estate was split up, a fair proportion was bought by a private company, which called itself the Worcester Public Pleasure Grounds Company Ltd, and laid out by the eminent landscape gardener William Barrow.

Part of the Arboretum with lodge, fountains and cannons and the 1865 proposal for a new Royal Porcelain works, which never materialised

The aim was obviously to tap into the growing Victorian fashion for promenading and outdoor pleasures.

The gardens opened in July, 1859 and covered 25 acres. They had been designed with terraces, flower beds and promenades There was a large central fountain, plus a cricket ground, tennis courts, a bowling green and archery butts.

The pleasure gardens tennis courts in Sansome Walk. Sansome Mews is now built on this land

The mayor performed the opening ceremony, 200 dined in a marquee erected on the cricket ground, two marquees housed horticultural exhibits and a band provided music. Worcester Corporation gave £1,000 towards the project and in return the public were allowed free access one day a week. Beyond that they paid.

The grounds had imposing medieval-style entrance gates built by Hardly and Padmore and dwarf boundary walls with massive ornamental palisading. The fine fountain was of similar design to one at Witley Court and at the end of the main driveway was a crystal pavilion. On either side of the driveway stood two Russian guns captured during the Crimean War. All in all, experts of the day rated Worcester’s pleasure grounds as being among the best in the country, certainly outside London.

Sansome Walk photographed from the railway bridge in 1918. Image courtesy Ray Jones

But they were not to last. Despite a host of attractions, such as a three-day horticultural show attended by more than 6,000 people, circuses, fetes and a concert by the band of the Coldstream Guards, the Pleasure Grounds Company went bust.

The park was sold to the Worcester Engine Company for £13,000, which promptly offered it to the city council at cost. Lord Dudley of Witley Court chipped in with £5,000 leaving the council to find only £8,000, a prospect made more attractive when a committee overseeing the project pointed out the annual running costs would be less than £250 or 1d on the rates.

But councillors’ hands remained in their pockets, so the land was sold for housing and the pleasure grounds were quickly obliterated.

The guns were removed to the forecourt of the Shirehall, until the Second World War when they went for scrap and the glass pavilion was dismantled and sold.

The Pleasure Grounds ornamental entrance gates, railings and wall, which became the entrance to Worcester Royal Infirmary, now part of the University of Worcester

The main gates together with some of the dwarf boundary railings and stonework were used at the main entrance of Worcester Royal Infirmary, where they still stand today in Infirmary Walk, a reminder of a Worcester wonder long gone.