LOCKE Park Tower is the highest point in Barnsley, with the top standing about 700 ft above sea level - but it currently stands about 13 ft short of what it should be.
A prominent ornate weather vane was blown off in a storm about 15 years ago, and last week local historian Dave Cherry went in search of what happened to it.
He found it, and discovered there are plans to return it to the top of the tower as part of an ambitions £250,000 plan to restore the tower to its full glory.
“It’s a marvellous piece of Barnsley’s history,” said Dave, of Saxon Crescent, Worsbrough Bridge, who featured in the Chronicle last month after he tracked down the head of the Atlas figure which used to adorn the front of the Alhambra Theatre, demolished in the 1980s.
“Someone who’d seen that story in the Chronicle collared me in Dodworth Club, I didn’t know him from Adam, but he said he’d got another one for me.
“He got his phone out and showed me this old picture of Locke Park Tower, then he showed me a picture of it now, and asked me to spot the difference.
“Straight away I said the weather vane.”
The 13ft copper structure blew off the top of the tower in a storm about 15 years ago. It turns out one of the Friends of Locke Park Jack Beverley had been walking past at just the moment someone was trying to steal it.
“Jack collared him and said ‘you’re not taking that, it belongs to the tower’.”
It ended up being taken into the care of David Allen, chairman of the Friends of Locke Park, and Mr Cherry said he was really pleased to hear there are plans to put it back on the tower, taking it back it its original height.
“We do want to incorporate it into the renovations to the tower,” said Mr Allen, who has been looking after the vane for the last 15 years.
About £85,000 was spent on work to the tower a few years ago, but these were just the most basic and urgent repairs which allowed people to safely go up the tower again - something which now happens with the support of the group every first Sunday of the month from 2 to 4pm.
But the long-term plan is for a more comprehensive £250,000 restoration of the whole building, bringing the stonework, ornate carvings, balustrading and roof back to their full glory.
The aim is to raise funds, and use some of the proceeds of the sale last year of two properties, the Locke Park Lodges, towards the match-funding of a grant application.
But he said there were three other priorities which needed sorting out before any more work to the tower.
“Our priorities are toilets, improvements to the bandstand, and footpaths. The toilets we have now are wholly inadequate for any major event, or any event that attracts more than a few people.”
He said there were also plans to bring power supply to the bandstand to allow performances of all types, and urgent repairs were needed to the paths through the park to make sure they remain safe.
But he said he hoped in the next few years to be able to press ahead with plans to restore the tower and its weather vane.
“We don’t want to use all of the proceeds from the lodges. The idea is that money, held by the council, goes towards capital spending in the park, but we want it to be available to the next generation, and the generation after that.
“We want to use it to match-fund larger grants from people like the Heritage Lottery Fund and other funders.”
The Friends of Locke Park group is appealing for new members, who can just turn up to meetings held on the first Tuesday of every month in Locke Park Cafe from 6pm.
HISTORY OF THE TOWER
LOCKE Park Tower was opened in 1877 and had been built at a cost of £11,000 - equivalent to about £1.2m today.
It stands 70ft tall and about 700ft above sea level at its highest point. The park itself was a gift to the people of Barnsley by the great railway engineer Joseph Locke’s widow Phoebe.
The original park, then called the People’s Park, opened on June 10 1862.
It amounted to about 17 acres.
In 1874, Phoebe Locke’s sister Sarah McCreery donated a further 21 acres of land in memory of her sister who had died in 1866. This more than doubled the area of the park.
Sarah also instigated the building of the tower. It formally opened on October 20 1877. The weather vane bears her initials SMC.
