Days of the New Town exhibition opens at Padgate Library on 15th September 2021

The exhibition Days of the New Town: Remembering Padgate’s New Town Expansion Years opens to the public at Padgate Library, Insall Road, Warrington on 15th September 2021, 2pm. It will be free to visit throughout the coming months. The photographs recall the years Padgate and its surroundings changed forever as they became New Town expansion areas from the early 1970’s onward under the stewardship of Warrington and Runcorn New Town Development Corporation.

The photos are accompanied by an exhibition guide which features a foreword and specially commissioned poem from acclaimed poet Ian McMillan, whose first poet-in residence gig was at Padgate Arts Centre when it first opened in the early 1980’s.

The exhibition is a chance for residents to recall the early hopeful days of the New Town. Visitors will see images from one of the last New Town Development Corporations in the UK in the throes of creating spaces for a new community.

The exhibition is the first time images from the Warrington New Town Development Corporation archive have been shown in public. Delayed by the pandemic, but following on from the 50th anniversary of Warrington’s designation as a New Town in 2018, Poulton with Fearnhead Parish Council and York St John University have provided the funding to mount the exhibition of photographs digitised specially by the Local Archive office in Chester.

Padgate Library,
Insall Road,
Warrington,
WA2 0HD

Padgate Library contact phone number: 01925 818096

For more information on Padgate Library opening hours: https://livewirewarrington.co.uk/leisure-and-library-opening-hours

LiveWire Warrington Libraries Covid 19 information: https://livewirewarrington.co.uk/news/2480-livewire-libraries-update-from-monday-19th-july

Upcoming exhibition at Padgate Library Summer 2021

Padgate library was designed as part of the area’s New Town expansion in the 1970’s. To celebrate the Library’s re-opening, we are hosting a free exhibition all about Padgate’s experience of New Town expansion in the 1970’s and 80’s. Photographs from the Warrington and Runcorn Development Corporation archive have been digitised especially for the exhibition, but in addition, we are looking for your help to contribute your memories and your photos. Do you have photographs of neighbourhood life covering the late 1970’s up to the 1990’s that you are willing to share? Are you able to take a good quality picture of your photos and send them into the project? In addition, would you like to write down your memories and reflections and send them in to us so they can form part of the exhibition display? Whether it is your own personal recollections of the beginnings of the New Town era in the 1970’s, or those of older family members, or whether you would like to contribute your thoughts on how the new town expansion changed Padgate, we would like to hear from you. Please consider sending your responses to some or all of the questions below that apply to your experience as direct messages to the Days of the New Town facebook page: www.facebook.com/daysofthenewtown  alternatively go to the project blog: www.daysofthenewtown.wordpress.com and use the contact tab to leave your responses.

Did you move to Padgate during the New Town expansion of the 1970’s into the 1980’s? If so, can you recall what your first impressions were of the area? What attracted you to the area?

Were you or family existing residents of Padgate? How do you think the New Town expansion changed the area?

What did you think of the Development Corporation’s design for the residential areas and recreational green spaces of Padgate at the time in the 1970’s?

How do you think the Development Corporation’s design for the residential areas and recreational green spaces has evolved over time? Have they withstood the test of time?  

Do you mind being named in the exhibition as a contributor, or would you prefer your contributions to remain anonymous?

Would you be happy for Curator Su Fitzpatrick to contact you to follow up on any of your responses? If so, please consider leaving an email address or phone number.

Days of the New Town discussion groups on 17th, 19th and 20th November

Thank you to all the residents and former residents of Birchwood who participated in the three discussion groups held at Risley Moss Visitor Centre in November. It was a fascinating, informative few days and the discussions covered a lot of ground. The discussions form part of the overall data collection of the project which also include one to one interviews with residents and former staff at the Development Corporation. This data will be used in a number of journal articles and a book chapter for an edited volume on place identity in the British New Town.

I aim to host more discussion groups in the new year so please check back in to see where and when they will be happening. Participants in the discussion groups took part in a free prize draw to win a £25 gift voucher for Asda, and it’s my pleasure to report Margaret Worsley was the winner. Thanks to her and to everyone who gave their time, thoughts and reflections to the project.

Days of the New Town exhibition extended!

The exhibition Days of the New Town: Birchwood at 50, a selection of photographs from the Warrington New Town Development Corporation archive, together with a specially collated “People’s Archive” of images from Birchwood’s early days as a residential development will be on show again at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery from November 24th 2018 to January 19th 2019. 

Admission to the museum and exhibition is free.

Address: Museum Street, Warrington, WA1 1JB

Opening times of the gallery are:

Mondays to Fridays 10am to 4.30pm

Saturdays 10am to 4.00pm

Sundays CLOSED

General enquiries: 01925 442399

Museum website: https://wmag.culturewarrington.org/

 

Days of the New Town focus groups

Hello, If you are free for an hour on any of the dates and times given below, please consider coming along to Risley Moss Visitor Centre to share your thoughts on Birchwood past and present. Days of the New Town: Birchwood at 50 is hosting these focus groups to ask people what they think about the green spaces in Birchwood, both in the early days and through time to the present day. Coffee, Tea and biscuits will be provided and there is the opportunity to enter a free prize draw to win a £25 Asda gift voucher as a thank you for people donating their time and their thoughts. If you are able to come along, please post a message to the Days of the New Town page or email Su Fitzpatrick on s.fitzpatrick@yorksj.ac.uk as space is limited. You can do this closer to the time if convenient.

Risley Moss Visitor Centre Classroom space:
Saturday 17th November
session 1: 1pm to 2pm
or
session 2: 2pm to 3pm

Monday 19th November
session 1: 1pm to 2pm
or
session 2: 2pm to 3pm

and the foyer space of the Visitor Centre on

Tuesday 20th NOvember
session 1: 1pm to 2pm
or
session 2: 2pm to 3p

Days of the New Town Exhibition now on at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery

The exhibition of photos from Warrington New Town Development Corporation and a specially collated ‘People’s Archive’ will run in Warrington Museum and Art Gallery until 15th September. A huge thank you to all the residents who donated pictures and other materials from their own archives to the exhibition. The full set of photographs will appear here on the blog soon.

An essay entitled ‘The Last Utopia’ by co-curator Su Fitzpatrick accompanies the exhibition, it is available as a pamphlet at the Museum and also here:

The Last Utopia

Visitors to the exhibition or this blog, please consider filling in this short 4 question survey by cutting and pasting this link into your browser:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CB9MJDN

 

Days of the New Town exhibition opening soon

Warrington Museum and Art Gallery will be welcoming visitors to the Days of the New Town: Birchwood at 50 exhibition from Saturday June 30th. The exhibition will show photographs of Birchwood as the planners imagined it and how residents lived it. The images will bring to public view some of the Development Corporation’s photographs as Birchwood in its design and early construction phase, and the early days of Birchwood’s “pioneer” residents as they settled in to this frontier town on the edge of Cheshire Lancashire border. The exhibition covers the early 1970’s to the late 1980’s and provides a fascinating glimpse into how both the planners and the residents pictured this new place. To those of you visiting the exhibition from Birchwood, there will be forms in the exhibition inviting you to share your thoughts and reflections on your early experiences of living in Birchwood either in writing or at a group session, please consider filling in one of these so you can be part of the project as it moves forward into next year.

Days of the New Town at Birchwood Carnival. Sunday June 3rd

The Days of the New Town project will be hosting a stall at Birchwood Carnival on Sunday June 3rd. This is an opportunity to have a look through some of the pictures from the Warrington New Town Development Corporation archive of photos of Birchwood in its very earliest days – as you may well have never seen it before! It is also the last chance residents will have to come in person to share photos of  your own early days in Birchwood before the exhibition Days of the New Town: Birchwood at 50 opens at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery on June 30th. Residents past and present have been sharing their photos with the project over the last 9 months so that they can be part of the People’s Archive part of the exhibition which runs until September 15th this year. Please raid those albums, desk drawers, lofts and boxes for photos of your life in Birchwood from the mid 70’s through the late 80’s.  These might be pics of family life, community events, landscapes… Anything that gives a sense of the social life of Birchwood in its early days, and/or how the landscape has changed over the years. Looking forward to seeing you at Birchwood Forest Park on June. If you can’t make it to the Carnival, please consider sharing your photos on http://www.facebook.com/daysofthenewtown or by sending a message via the contact tab of this blog. Here are some of the pics people have donated so far.

 

People’s Archive day Saturday May 12th, Birchwood Shopping Centre

Just a reminder that the second People’s Archive day will be taking place in Birchwood Shopping Centre on Saturday May 12th between 10am and 3pm. Please bring along your photos of the early days of Birchwood.  Photos and documents will be scanned in and returned to you straight away, your photos will be part of the People’s Archive in the exhibition Days of the New Town: Birchwood at 50 at Warrington Museum opening on June 30th. The stall will also be exhibiting some photos from the Warrington New Town Development Corporation archive.