This urban green space is a boon for nature
The charms of People’s Park cannot be overstated, and it is one of many Calderdale parks well worth a visit in the Autumn
OUTSIDE PEOPLE’S Park, bushes bulge with buckthorn berries, orange as miniscule pumpkins.
Around the fringes of this 12.5 acre park, the ground is lathered in soggy brown leaves, slippery with recent rain. Pretty and popular in summer, People’s Park has much to offer in the later months too, and provides a splendid showcase of quiet autumn colour.
Nestling between the terraced streets of King Cross, People’s Park was created in 1857, given to the people of Halifax by Sir Francis
Crossley, manufacturer, philanthropist and Liberal politician.
On a visit to the White Mountains, USA, Crossley decided to recreate a microcosm of the area’s impressive scenery in Halifax, in order that every working man... (could) stroll there after his hard day’s toil.
Designed by Joseph Paxton and his assistant Edward Milner, People’s Park has served the local population well ever since, and, with its bandstand, flowerbeds and pond, is a quiet oasis just a stone’s throw from Halifax town centre.
At the western edge, stone statues are weathered in faded grandeur. Trees stand high, ash leaves hanging like wrinkled fingers of crinkly crimson. Flowerbeds still shine in soft colours - yellow rudbeckias curling and fading, anemones shining like snowflakes, glowing with gold stamens - and are bordered by sedum, purplish as autumn sunsets.
But while the floral features are the stuff of planning, this urban green space is also a boon for nature.
In summer, flowers throb with bees and butterflies, bushes bustle with busy rodents, hungry thrushes comb the grass for worms.
In autumn, wildlife is scarcer, though occasional blackbirds tread twigs or plod through puddles, and the shallow waters are home to ducks that perform their grooming quite untroubled by walkers, pic-nicking families and playing children.
Sometimes, a crafty rat will dart from bank to water, snaffling grass or sprinting along the stone lip of the pond. Last November, I watched two zig-zagging in elaborate, dance-like rivalry, racing to patches of ground where they could grab the fruits or insects that make up much of their wild diets. Eventually, one vanished into overgrowth, plucky face emerging moments later from a distant flowerbed, like a burglar caught in the act. The other slipped subtly into the water, paddling to the opposite bank and diving under cover of holly.
Beyond the Japanese style bridge above the pond, pigeons amble over sandy banks, or stud the branches arched over the water, like fluffy blue baubles.
A walk in the park may not seem an obvious pastime for a chilly autumn afternoon, and in a region rich with wild places it is easy to overlook more conventional sites for nature spotting.
But the charms of People’s Park cannot be overstated, and it is one of many Calderdale parks well worth a visit not only in the warmer months, but now, also, when the flowers may be fading, but the birds still sing, and the trees glimmer softly in the russet rust of autumn.