Gate Piers, Gates And Walls To Williamson Park

LANCASTER

SD4861 QUERNMORE ROAD 1685-1/5/351 (South side) Gate piers, gates and walls to Williamson Park

GV II

Gateway. 1880. Sandstone ashlar with cast and wrought-iron gates. The gate piers flanking the main carriageway are of square plan with moulded bases, have fluted pilasters carved with rosettes on their friezes, moulded cornices, and are capped by stones whose semicircular elevations have fan-like carving. To left and right are pedestrian entrances with moulded semicircular arches springing from moulded imposts and with carved keystones and spandrel decoration. At their outer sides are fluted pilasters, and above a moulded cornice and blocking course. The friezes are carved: 'WILLIAMSON' and 'PARK 1880'. To each side are low stone walls of S-plan which originally carried railings (now removed) between rectangular piers with cornices and sunken panels. Cast-iron lamps remain on the outer piers, the right one broken but the left one retaining its glass globe. The pedestrian gates have friezes of roundels and are cross-braced with a central boss with foliage decoration. The central gates have borders of roundels and have shields of arms in the centres of their upper panels. HISTORY: Williamson Park was laid out on the site of disused quarries and moorland. Some development began during the Cotton Famine of the 1860s, but large-scale development only began during the 1870s when James Williamson (Senior) paid to have the landscape developed to the designs of Mr Maclean of Castle Donnington. James Williamson (Junior) handed the park over to Lancaster Corporation in 1881.

Listing NGR: SD4892961597