The Ground Beneath your Very Feet…
As a continuation of the history of Radipole park and gardens, here's a couple more photos from the 1930's showing their construction. Pictured below is the partly infilled, swampy land, and the original, very much shorter, Alexander Bridge, with Hanover Road running off into the distance and Lyndhurst Terrace facing the the tracks. Most of the garden's were formed with the dredging of Weymouth's estuary floor, redeposited via pump to infill the ground. Only problem was, it wasn’t filling it quite quick enough. The solution? It also became the town’s tip. Unfortunately, those frequent dumpings of debris brought with them a certain noxious aroma! Definitely not one that local residents...
Radipole Lake before Radipole Park
I love this old image in so many ways. It is a snapshot of where I grew up in Hanover Road, living virtually next to the original Alexander Bridge shown here. But more importantly, it shows just how extensive Radipole Lake ( the Backwater) was until Radipole Park Drive was built in the 1920's and the land between the new road and railway lines was infilled for Radipole park and gardens in the 1930's. You can't see it in the top image, but on the lake side of the railways lines stood the Western esplanade, created for Victorian nannies to walk their delicate charges along when the...