Parks are one of the great determiners of a person’s age. A park to a young child means swings, skinned knees, and climbing equipment. To a teenager, they are a third place (not home, not school) of social experiments like drinking out of date cider and kissing Bella Gershwin from the dodgy end of town, while Anne Dennison, your current girlfriend, blocks you from all her socials and will make you the class pariah tomorrow.
To frazzled parents, it is a place to give your child its government-mandated one hundred breaths of fresh air, to keep the Social Services at bay. To the elderly, it is a place to pretend that you did none of the above, and throw stale bread at/to ducks (it should be noted that bread of all forms is harmful to ducks, especially Subway bread, which is technically a cake).
As I hover dangerously close to the latter category, I have made it my mission to renew my love affair with parks. They are places where parkruns are provided (yes, that is the correct capitalization; capital letters in brands cost extra in the 21st century), where benches provide moments of zen, and they are where I usually go when I want to be out of my tiny flat for longer, away from the watchful gaze of my unwashed dishes.
Anyway, none of this is telling you anything useful about Hesketh Park, and that is kind of the point of all this. I’m not going to patronise you by telling you what a park is in terms of its constituent parts, but whatever you imagine should be in a park is in Hesketh Park.
To objectively judge a park isn’t really possible, unless it is covered in dog poo or hypodermic needles, but since Hesketh Park is a bit too genteel for all that, here is a beautiful picture of a rose.
People, and I too (for I am one), often remark that the wonderful thing about parks is how the outside world seems so far away. This also works in reverse; it is easy not to know that such an oasis exists a 5-minute walk from Southport’s main, busy thoroughfare, and miss it. This would be a shame if you did. Until I challenge you to a mini-golf duel and take your car in the resulting wager. Ha!
For those who are here to actually learn something about Hesketh Park parkruns, they are held every Saturday at 9 am, and my girlfriend tells me they are very well-run (no pun intended) and professional. Give it a go! Check out their website here.
Hesketh Park, 17 Park Cres, Brentwood Ct, Southport PR9 9JN
North West Day Trips 