Mesnes Park

This morning we took a short drive into Wigan to visit the park, which has recently benefitted from a £6.1m national lottery grant. As you can see Mesnes Park (pronounced Mains) is looking pretty splendid with it's restored fountain, refurbished pavilion (ice cream parlour and cafe) and bandstand with new power supply, which can be seen off to the left. When we arrived today there was a commemorative service taking place around a new memorial, a statue of a soldier from the Boer War. This new statue (situated directly in front of the pavilion, at the top of the steps) has replaced an old one, which apparently was more exciting, as the soldier was brandishing a flag and sword (in NLN's opinion) There is also a new statue of Sir Francis Sharp Powell, which is out of shot, to my left. It was replaced as apparently it had a hole in one of his shoes, due to generations of local people rubbing his foot for luck!