HISTORIAN Ken Spencer was born in a house overlooking Scott Park, Burnley, in 1928 and has lived almost all his life within a quarter-mile of it.

The park was created in 1895 on land formerly owned by the Halsteds of Hood House and farmed by Robert Schofield and his son Henry.

Ken’s mother called one part of the park ‘the kitchen garden’, because that was what it had been in the Halsteds’ day – and she always called the streamside Schofield’s Clough.

Near to the top gates, she told Ken had been a farm called Appletree Carr and that was the old name for Park Avenue. Its back street was known to farmers delivering milk as Swanks Back.

Ken remembers four pools on the stream in the park, each dammed by a stone waterfall and carefully de-silted every year. A stone-built shelter was home to the Moscovie ducks.

A big noticeboard on the gates set out the rules for park visitors, while trees and bushes had name plates, so everyone could identify them.

Said Ken: “The park was everyone’s garden. My father took his cue from what was going on there.

“There were unofficial names for various parts of the park: the jungle path and the monkey rack, for example. The monkey rack was a rendezvous for young people in the park’s early days.

“Maybe it was superseded by the monkey parade outside the Grand and Palace when those were built.”

Ken’s friend Brian Stuttard lived next door throughout their childhood and they often played in the park.

Youngsters had names for the pools, such as the devil’s stewpot and the devil’s gate, while a roughcast sort of seat on one of the paths was called the monkey, or wishing chair.

Said Ken: “The Scott Park ghost was sometimes mentioned. It was before my time, but there really was such a thing. At least there was a young man going round the park at night dressed in a white sheet!

“I have read somewhere that he was caught and served a short prison sentence.

“The park bell was a sound we all knew. It was attached to the foreman’s house and was rung to give people time to leave before the gates shut. Sometimes one of the keepers would also go round shouting ‘All out’.

“After the house was demolished the keeper blew a whistle instead.”

He continued: “The park keepers were two elderly men, who carried a fair amount of authority then. They were called ‘parkies’, but have been superseded by ‘rangers’.”