Latest News

The first training session for Friends’ volunteers to learn how to sample ‘riverfly’ invertebrates has recently taken place. It is a way of gauging how healthy the River Chor through the Park is. The greater the variety and number of a specified range of invertebrates the better the quality of the water environment. It is part of a wider initiative called ‘Turning the Tide’ aimed at improving the River Douglas, its tributaries and the water they discharge into the sea. Many thanks go to Sam Phillips and Sara Clowes from Groundwork who did the training. After further tutoring and assessment early next year the Friends hope to do regular river sampling and submit the results for a catchment wide database. For more information click here https://forthriverstrust.org/lessons/who-is-riverfly/

When we are busy working in the Park, we often get questions from people passing by interested in what we are doing. Whilst we are always happy to pause and explain, we now have a convenient card to hand out. This directs people to our website information and how they can join us if they wish. Stocks of the card are being issued to our members so that opportunities to spread the word about the Friends are not missed. The image below shows both sides of the card.

At a recent Saturday morning working party Friends’ volunteers planted well over 200 bulbs in the vicinity of the Sensory Garden. Many thanks to Chorley Council for supplying us with the following:

• 25    Camassia cusickii
• 50    Crocus “Whitewell Purple”
• 50    Crocus “Cream Beauty”
• 50    Narcissus “Mount Hood”
• 50    Narcissus “Carlton”

For the last few Saturday mornings Friends’ volunteers have been removing ground vegetation that has once again grown over Snowdrop bulbs along a length of the Trail opposite the bowling greens. In the spring extra posts were installed to more clearly mark the Snowdrop positions and now the summer vegetation growth has been cut back to the line of posts to leave cleared ground for the bulbs to flower.

Chorley Council staff have now installed five benches in the Great Wood part of the Park, along the route of the Astley Trail. These robustly constructed oak benches commemorate 50 years of the Chorley Ramblers group and have been funded by the Terry Lewis Legacy in honour of a local walker.

Our annual quiz is happening on Wednesday 4^th October at St Mary’s Parish Centre, off Devonshire Road, Chorley PR7 2BY. It starts at 7.30pm prompt and is open to non-members as well as signed-up Friends, you will be invited to form or join a team. Tickets are £7.50 including a hot pot supper. You need to pre-book but you can pay on the night by contacting Keith Woan on 01257 278759 or via email –   k.woan192@btinternet.com

Once again, the Astley Walled Gardeners are organising an event to celebrate the apple harvest. The details are in the image below. The Friends of Astley Park will have a stall which will feature acorn planting and apple shape colouring children’s activities. Our exclusive member artist designed greeting cards will be available to purchase and you can find out more about what we do to help keep Astley Park looking good. Hope to see you there!

Despite a poor weather forecast in advance of the Chorley Flower Show, when it came to it there was only one short sharp shower, and this not until the Sunday. However, it was a bit soggy underfoot and that affected how we set up the activities in our stall.

This year we had a new large ‘four seasons’ banner designed by our member Sue Jackson, featuring wild flowers, nuts, berries, and fungi she had photographed in the Park. We also displayed our new bunting made by Sue and fellow member Sue Giles. It all made for an eye catching effect. 

We gave away, in exchange for donations, about 120 plants grown by our members. Numerous young families enjoyed the children’s colouring and leaf rubbing activities. The raffled painting was particularly popular, it was won by a Mrs. Cooper from Euxton.

This coming weekend, starting on Friday 28^th July, the annual Chorley Flower Show is happening once again in Astley Park. There are many floral related exhibits to view, trade stalls to visit and fun activities for all the family to get involved in. There are also a wide variety of community group stands including one devoted to the Friends of Astley Park. Here there will be a great chance to discover all that we do in the Park, plus make a donation to aid our work and get a free plant in return! We are running activities for children; you can also decide to buy our specially produced greetings cards and enter a raffle to win the original painting pictured below. Both the cards and painting have been produced by local artist Sandra Sugden who is one of our members. Hope to see you there!

The Friends will be focusing efforts on trying to control the invasive Balsam in Astley Park over the next 6 weeks. We are appealing to anyone with a spare hour or two to join us on our Saturday morning Working Parties on the 8th and 22nd July and the 5th August. Non-members welcome for these sessions.

If you are interested and can help us, please meet at the Coach House Courtyard at 9.30 am on the above dates. Please wear appropriate clothing – long sleeve tops, long trousers and stout footwear would be ideal – and a hi-vis jacket if you have one although this isn’t essential.

Here is a photo of some members Balsam Bashing by the Putting Green.