Town Walk 2026 - Part 15 -
Through Victoria Park
w/e 19 April 2026
All of this week's pictures were
taken with a Nikon D3300 camera..
This part equates to parts of Stage 23 and 24
from the original Town
Walk from 2004.
Moving on in our walk, from
the Ormiston Academy which stands "a patch of land purchased
from the Duke of Rutland", we've reached the end of
Bristol Road which runs along one side of Victoria Park. The
park was also created on land "gifted to the people of
Ilkeston" by the Duke in 1897 "to mark the Golden
Jubilee of Queen Victoria". Named after the Queen "the
Duke formally opened the park on 28 August 1902."
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If you walk this route, there is no designated way through the
park and you may want to just wander around at your leisure to
view different features but in 2004, the first thing I included
was a photo of "these imposing pillars" that
were "taken around 1900 from the old Nottingham jail
or 'House of Correction' as it was known and moved initially
to Rutland House on Heanor Road" before being moved
here. When I took this photo (last week) men were at work
painting the newly erected lighting columns, one of which can
be seen here, and the newly painted columns blend in much better
with their surroundings than this one.
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Victoria Park of course, has been featured many times on this
site over the years since 2004 and many events held there have
been covered. One of them "A Celebration" marked the completion
in 2017 of the Heritage Lottery funded work which included the
refurbishment of the bandstand. There's also a whole section
on the site devoted to the park here.
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In 2004 in a similar position to this I wrote that the bowling
green was hidden "behind the hedge on the right"
where "a quiet game can be enjoyed in relative seclusion
and very pleasant surroundings." Whilst that is still
true, the hedge has been cut back and is much lower now but the
other significant change (as well as the new lighting columns
awaiting their coat of paint) is that the once colourful flower
beds in the centre of the park have all been removed.
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"Our way out of the park ..... leads to
Manners Road" but before we reach the exit we pass another
path that leads to the children's playground. This too
has benefited from some new equipment since 2004.
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Another more recent addition to the park is this information
board which tells more about the Lottery Funded refurbishment.
Click
here for an enlargement in a new window.
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After passing the information board a left turn takes us
to "this broad path that leads to Manners Road where
we will have a choice of routes as we continue our Town Walk".
We had reached this point in 2004 in July of that year and
the trees were full of leaf. Now, early in the year, leaves are
still to burst forth but the view is very similar except for
the fact that one of the trees has gone and one of the newly
installed lighting columns stands in approximately the same place.
I remember a large greenhouse, where plants were grown to be
planted out in the park, and also public toilets standing to
the right of this path but they were removed a long time before
2004.
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In the original Town Walk series I made the point after leaving
Victoria Park that there was a choice of routes. One was to follow
Manners Road and walk "past the Victoria Leisure Centre
(left) to the bottom of Bath Street and then back to the Museum."
The other which I am again following this time to keep in
sync with the original was "to turn left here into Manners
Avenue" extending the route "by about a mile
and a half to approximately four miles in total."
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"But before we continue, a glance to the left reveals
a nursing home that in a previous life served as the Mines Rescue
Station." Fionn Taylor's excellent website has much more
about the Rescue Station and is well worth a visit. The building
is now the Victoria Park Care Home offering residential and nursing
care.
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Around the corner from the Care
Home is the Ilkeston Ambulance Station in Manners Avenue. This
is part of EMAS, the East Midlands Ambulance Service. Regular
visitors to ilkcam.com who have also followed the Walking For
Health routes will be familiar with this area as most of those
walks start from the Victoria Leisure Centre and many of them
follow Manor Road (just beyond the Ambulance Station) to its
junction with Manners Avenue before spreading out in all directions.
Part 16 will resume at the Manners Link footpath which is just
a few steps the other side of Manor Road.
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