I took this photograph in the summer of 1985. A helicopter service was offering flights around town for £10.00 a go, taking off and landing on the Cloffocks. The Technical College can clearly be seen in the centre, with the Rowe Hall entrance facing the camera. Now due to be pulled down to make way for a new hospital, the original red-brick Grammar and Technical Schools (or "Trades" ) on Park Lane were recently subject to much controversy in the local press. It would seem that it was infeasible to integrate this handsome structure into the proposed new development.
In the foreground one can see Oxford street, with the DSS office (formerly the Department of Employment and Productivity) on the corner of Oxford Street and James Street. The red Post Office vans mark out the rear of the sorting office across the road. The Masonic Hall is at the extreme right hand of the photograph on the corner of Gordon Street, with the Town Hall across Oxford Street, still in use prior to the construction of "Perry's Palace" on the west end of the Cloffocks. Vulcan's park looks tidy, with the war memorial and bandstand visible, and a group of bowlers enjoying a game in the hazy noonday sun.
Behind the Town Hall is the old Cumberland County Council Health Clinic & Treatment Centre, and Park Lane allotment gardens behind that. Vulcan's Park was created from another set of allotment gardens in 1925.
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