Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

I promised to up a photo of the new plateau which I was wittering on about in the recent post 'the fence' so here it is. It has been built upon the back of the original plateau...'right lads up and down the plateau's'...

To all of you who follow this blog and especially to all of you who have contributed/helped us to celebrate all that was fantastic on our beloved Kenton Bar Estate over the last 2 years of the blog's existence... from Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

This is the children’s home in the park at the end of Studdon Walk. I was only ever in their a few times and I tell you brothers it was a real eye opener. No longer did the parental threat of being sent to the children’s home have the same fear inducing capability. The children’s home was massive, they had a pool table, table tennis, nice places to sit. I WANTED to be sent to the children’s home for god sake!! The home itself is still there and thanks to G.O.M fr this fine picture. I am not sure if it is still a children’s home though?

Here it is...this photo was taken looking back up Hazeldene Ave...It ran down the west of Hazeldene Avenue the idea being it marked the boundry of the estate and would keep the kids off the farmers fields ( get off moy land ) It was soon breached by bounders & ruffians (no doubt from down the bottom) for the purpose of exploration, den building,bonfire night bonfires and trap making... kids used to jump/sit on the top of it to bend it down( it was made of thin wire ) to make like hammocks...needless to say I never did this, me being a sensible cub scout type who understood that a fence= a boundry marker for the safety and protection of property and the humble resident...alas now it is no more... the concrete posts still stand like accusing gravestones(I wonder how many there are?-someone please count them)...but they have totally removed any trace of the wire...spot the block of cube flats...the Western Bypass is 50 yards to the right hidden by the trees/hedges they errected to co...

Greetings... I happened to be laying flowers at the grave of our beloved pyramid today and overheard a conversation between 2 passers by re the metal fence erected by kenton school which prevents access to the fields by the kids on the estate...they were reminiscing about the 'good old days' when the kids on the estate could just go up on the fields to play football, cricket etc but now they had nowhere to go and play and were complaining that apparently the residents were not informed about the fact that a fence was to be erected round the fields... So we can therefore deduce these facts: a)The metal fence was erected without notification of residents on the estate...apparently this made many residents unhappy...I wonder why?... b) There is no 'park' on the estate(why dont they redevelop the old park site at the end of Hartburn?)....its not rocket science... ps:In the background the plateau was in the process of being redeveloped(this photo is 2 years old)- have they ...

As you can see those residents on our beloved Kenton Bar Estate have naught to fear from the inclement weather conditions now (Dec 2010-the amount and weight of snow turning to ice has ripped down the horizontal guttering af hundreds of houses on other estates apparently )why doth the residents need have no fear?... those geniuses Gordon Ryder & Peter Yates anticipated the problem 30 years ago: 'flat roofs good, slanted roofs bad'(4 legs good 2 legs bad...) ...this resident of Hartburn Walk does not need to have his guttering repaired for he has none...however unfortunately the other poor sod now has a problem...

I wrote a message, tied it to a balloon and sent it up the chimney for Santa Claus...it read: Dear Santa, I am the ghost of mensforth (its a long story...) I would be very grateful if you could give me the following xmas presents: a) One of the concrete boulders from the blue bit at the pyry b) A 1" square grey tile from our beloved pyramid c) One of the concrete maps of Kenton Bar Hope this does not inconvience you too much, (I believe in you Santa and know you exist) ghost of mensforth...

I suddenly thought 'I wonder if the other street signs on Red House Farm Estate have 'Gosforth' above them like on the Broomley Walk photo(see post 'Broomley Walk' Nov 2010)...so I went and reconnoitered the estate and found...that no other street sign on the estate has the 'Gosforth' above the street name in black capital letters! So that is a legacy from the time when Studdon Walk on our beloved Kenton Bar Estate was known as Broomley Walk!... Here for example is the 'Broomley Court' sign on Red House Farm...fascinating eh?...hmmm... oh oh...just noticed that this sign is written in black whereas the Broomley Walk is in red font with Gosforth in black capitals above... I wonder if only the 'Broomley Walk' sign is written in red?...now I need to go and look again at other signs on Red House! my goodness... will the trials and tribulations of ghost of mensforth ever end?...