This post is as much a request for information as it is a recollection of one of my childhood playgrounds, now vanished.
Back when I was around nine or ten years old, my friends and I would often play on the pile of rocks in the photograph above. It was located in a field behind College Road. You can see Toner Avenue Primary School in the background of the photograph.
This field was once the location of Sandy Bottom Lake, also known as the Fourth Lake. The Lakes were drained in 1959, following the drowning of four boys in 1956 and the subsequent public outcry*. The rocks in the pile were some of the many that surrounded the Lakes, and were originally dug from Hebburn Quarry. The Quarry was situated between the bottom gate of Carr-Ellison Park which was close to Campbell Park road and Leslie’s Sports field (now Sullivan Walk housing estate). You can see in the picture that some of the rocks look like they may have come from a wall, which may or may not have come from Burn Heads Farm which was also once in that area. This aerial photograph from 1937 shows the location of the lake, the quarry and the farm. You can also see another of my childhood playgrounds, the covered reservoir at the top of Mill Lane.
My friends and I used to refer to the rock pile as “The Adventure Playground” and used to have fun climbing on the rocks (showing once again how easily pleased we were for entertainment back in those days!) We believed or had heard that at one time there had been a much more elaborate adventure playground there, so the name had stuck.
From discussions I have read on the Pictorial Hebburn Facebook group and elsewhere, it appears that an actual adventure playground did exist in that location, constructed in the 1960s and lasting until possibly the mid-1970s. According to people’s memories, there was a long steel banana slide going down from the top of the rock pile, as well as concrete tunnels to crawl through. There was a second pile of rocks, and three rope swings on a 15-foot high wooden frame that you could use to swing between the two rock piles.
There was also a smaller, more traditional park closer to Fountains Crescent with swings, roundabouts and a sand pit, as well as climbing frames in the shape of a train and possibly a lorry or fire engine. There were also park benches for people to sit on.
I don’t know why the other park features were eventually removed leaving only the one pile of rocks, nor have I seen any photographs of what the area looked like back then. In fact, the photograph at the top of this page is the only one I have ever seen of our old adventure playground.
Even the rocks themselves are gone now; the whole area was landscaped in the early 2000s as part of a flood protection scheme. Here’s an aerial view of the area now:
You can see where the fork in the path is from the top picture on the page; there is no trace left of the Adventure Playground. It makes me feel sad to think of all the places we played as children being gone now, but as the saying goes, the only constant is change. It also makes me realise that so many everyday things vanish without ever being photographed, as they are just part of the background of life. As a child, I never thought that one day the Adventure Playground or the Reservoir would not be there.
So now an appeal for information as an attempt to preserve the memories of Hebburn’s Adventure Playground. Did you ever play there as a child? Can you remember what it used to be like or better still do you have any photographs of it? I’d love to hear from you if you do! Please leave a comment on this page, or if you prefer, send me a private message via the Contact Me page.
(Special thanks to Norman Dunn and Ray from Hebburn and our Neighbours for information about the origins of the rocks and the draining of the Lakes, as well as the rope swings and other features of the parks.)
* You can read all about the history of the Lakes and the many people who drowned there in Vikki Holt’s excellent book Hebburn Lakes History.
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