New; Radipole Lake…More Nostalgia.
A couple more old photos have come in my possession thanks to my illicit night time trawling of the auction sites. They show an extensive Radipole Lake before Radipole Park Drive and the gardens were created. The first depicts a wonderful old steam train as viewed from Alexander bridge....
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 Park under Construction…1920’s-1930’s.
Radipole park and gardens is probably one of the 'newer' recreational areas in Weymouth. It was constructed between the two World Wars, at a time when when the country was suffering from economic depression and the accompanying high unemployment. The government of the day had set out loans to those councils that wanted to avail themselves of them to complete public works at very favourable rates. Weymouth grasped this opportunity with both hands and set to expanding it's land. A problem that had thwarted the town for centuries, because Weymouth, or Melcombe Regis of old, was basically built out on a sand spit. Surrounded by the sea on one...
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...