Author: joolsjack

Here’s wishing all our members and website viewers a happy Christmas and a peaceful 2026.

Friends of Astley Park have been sent a special Christmas card this year. It is from the Mayor and Mayoress of Chorley – Cllr Alistair and Mrs Jane Morwood. The message inside the card is displayed in the top half of the image below, with a picture of the Hall from the card’s front cover at the bottom.

Regular visitors to our website might be able to guess why we have been sent this card. Yes, it is by way of a thankyou from the mayoral couple to our volunteers who led and provided a commentary for the Mayor’s Charity Walk around the park, which happened back in September.

Question: What is the most winter relevant feature of Astley Park?

Answer: The Ice House. In the 1800’s when Astley Hall was a private residence, ice was collected from what is now known as the ‘Green Pond’(!) – which in those times of severe winters would freeze over – and be stored for use through the following year. Ice houses were a common feature of stately homes and were partly constructed underground with the top covered by an earth mound for insultation. Located in Great Wood on the Astley Park Trail (Point of Interest 3) all that can be seen of the one in the park is the earth mound, as shown below.

There is now a Friends of Astley Park Facebook page.

The link is:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583903655478

Particular thanks are due to our member Sue Howlett for setting this up. Thanks also to members Sue Giles and Stephen Stewardson for volunteering to also act as administrators. A key intention is to use the Facebook page as an additional channel to guide people interested in what we do to go to our website for all they need to know.

Friends’ volunteers have been busy recently planting spring flowering bulbs at the Sensory Garden, in our 20^th Anniversary Flower Bed near the Hall, in the Courtyard Planters and at the Lost Fountain. The bulbs were kindly supplied to us by Chorley Council. The flowers to look out for are pictured below.

The distribution of the bulbs across the four locations is as follows:

Sensory Garden:

Tulip Red Riding Hood

Mixed Crocus

Narcissus Silver Chimes

Narcissus Tete a Tete

The Anniversary Flower Bed:

Tulip Ballerina

The Courtyard Planters:

Narcissus Thalia

Narcissus Minnow

The Lost Fountain:

Narcissus Jetfire

Repeating our success of last year, Friends of Astley Park have once again won big at the 2025 Royal Horticultural Society/North West in Bloom – It’s Your Neighbourhood awards ceremony. We scored a Level 5 – Outstanding mark recognising the various high standard ways we help maintain and improve the Park for the enjoyment of the local community.

Pictured below are Friends’ volunteers Sylvia and David Francis receiving the award, on behalf of all our members, from Councillor Barbara Murray – the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. Sylvia and David are particularly involved in looking after the floral displays in the Coach House courtyard and the Friends’ 20^th Anniversary Flower Bed next to Astley Hall.

An attractively painted stone has recently been left in the Sensory Garden. By whom it is clear as it is marked with the words ‘Doodles – Day Nursery’. That facility is located not far away on Southport Road and one suspects that the children are brought to the garden to enjoy the floral displays. It is positioned at the base of the ‘Astley Mole’ sculpture.

It is not the first time painted stones have been left in the Park. Below is a picture of a ‘Kindness Stone’ of about the same size. These are created typically by children and families using eyecatching designs for other people to find and keep as a way of spreading joy and encouragement.

Friends’ volunteers and the Council’s Rangers teamed up again recently to do more path improvements.  This was on the Astley Park Trail between the Sensory Garden and Great Wood where surface water had partly washed away the surfacing.

 After removing encroaching vegetation and cutting side drainage channels to direct the water away from the path, black limestone aggregate was used to redress the surface.

This autumn appears to be especially good for fungi specimens in the Park. There are about 4000 species of fungus in Britain and many look similar to one another so it can be hard to correctly identify them even with apps and written guides, but here goes…

First off is the more distinctive Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus).

Another characteristic shape is the Dead Man’s Fingers (Xylaria polymotpha).

Many fungi like to grow on timber, whether that be living trees or decaying wood. A good example of the former site is that preferred by the Giant Polypore (Meripilus giganteus) which as the name suggests can grow quite large.

The curiously named Chicken in the Woods (Latiporus sulphureus) appears to like rotting timber.

The Grey Spotted Amanita (Amanita excelsa var. spissa) has the appearance of an archetypal toadstool and beware it is poisonous.

And finally, something which is not a fugus at all. Below are picture galls on an oak tree created by the Cola Nut Gall Wasp (Andricus lignicola). The  females lay eggs in the buds of such trees which respond by growing tissue around the larva, providing it with a protective home and food source. 

Friends’ volunteers have been busy by the River Chor in the Park recently. Firstly, by sampling the river for invertebrate species indicative of river water quality under the Riverfly  [click here ] initiative, meaning this has now been fully started. Pictured below some of our members are carefully counting the range of species caught so a ‘score’ can be calculated and recorded on the national database.

Secondly, Friends’ volunteers have been busy staining the handrails of a footbridge that connects the Park with the Farthings housing estate. Pictured below is the work in progress and the finished result.

This means that over the last two years our members have stained or painted all 12 footbridges in the Park. The materials we used were kindly donated by Chorley Council.