1970s Skateboarding

Stamford Park has one of only two known surviving Northwest 1970s skateboarding sites

Patrick Quinn, a distinguished archaeologist at University College London, and Ian Borden, a colleague of Architecture and Urbanism Professor, are both working on a book to document what remains of 1970s UK skateparks. Based in the Southeast, they recruited regional research volunteers to help dig out historical records, photographs and newspaper articles.

The researchers include Knutsford resident David Brown, who recently celebrated fifty years on a skateboard, and actively skated at the North West's earliest skateparks. David remains a pioneering spirit as he is still skateboarding in his 60s, despite coping with Parkinson's Disease.

Patrick is making field trips to interesting sites around the country, using a remote-controlled drone to take stunning aerial shots of each site while taking in details at ground level that only his archaeological eye would notice. Recently he visited Stamford Park in Altrincham.

Easily overlooked between the playground and tennis courts is a mysterious stretch of asphalt, banked on two sides and with a path sloping down into it on the third side. On the fourth side is a palisade of upright logs acting as a retaining wall for the roots of a nearby substantial tree.

Many years ago, in the 1970s, the tree was much smaller, and the patch of asphalt was rectangular, with banks on three sides. Originally a children's paddling pool around one metre deep, the historic evidence shows that this was lined with concrete in 1978 to form a skateboarding bowl, which proved very popular. Some years later, the 'pool' was made shallower and covered in asphalt, possibly for safety reasons. Later still, an enlarged area of root-protecting soil around the growing tree encroached and covered one side of the rectangular 'bowl'.

David was recently searching newspaper archives and came across a passing reference (see below) to Altrincham in the leading 1970s skateboarding magazine, which described the local council recreation officer coordinating with the excitingly named '‘Hale Sports Hot Riders', of whom nothing more is known. David pinpointed Stamford Park and was amazed to see the outline of a rectangular area of tarmac. Making enquiries on Facebook groups, he was able to track down a video from around 1983 (but no photos so far). David realised the park is well cared for by Trafford Council and the Friends of Stamford Park (FoSP). He contacted Jackie Richards of FoSP to learn more, so that an entry could be included in Iain and Patrick’s forthcoming book.

Stamford Park is remarkable in being one of only two known surviving Northwest 1970s skateboarding sites, the other being at Rathbone Park, Edge Lane, Liverpool, which Patrick and David also visited.

Patrick and David felt confident that with the addition of an embankment (concrete or fibreglass, for example) along the existing palisade, much of the usability of the original design would be regained. This would also help retain soil that is currently leaching through the palisade.