Residents at The Towers, with Ken Harcombe standing back right

The Towers is off Holmfield Avenue, behind Cleveleys Duck Pond on Victoria Road West

The Towers access gate

Inside The Towers

The Towers is just off West Drive and Holmfield Avenue. It's got a long and interesting history, which you can actually read all about in the new Cleveleys Weatherspoons.

A group of Cleveleys residents has joined forces with Wyre Council in a pledge to conserve this public woodland which is valued by the local community for it's environment and wildlife.

Local volunteers recently conducted a survey in March to establish what improvements people would like to see in the area and presented their findings to Wyre Council, which agreed to implement a number of recommendations.

These include improvements to the pathways and seating, emptying bins more frequently and other remedial works aimed at alleviating anti social behaviour and enhancing the overall appearance of the area. The key finding from the survey was that people wanted to create an area where wildlife could feel secure.

Wyre's rangers are also working with local schools and youth groups at the site, to provide a better understanding and appreciation of local environmental conservation.

In addition, the council has secured funding from the Forestry Commission's Woodland Improvement Grants to carry out environmental management work at both The Towers and Pheasant Wood in Thornton. This includes felling of unsuitable trees, replanting native species, and improving boundary treatments, access and pond management.

The residents' group will continue to steer the development of The Towers and intends to create a number of community projects for people to get involved in.

Do you know about any of the history?

Ken Harcombe, spokesperson for the residents' group, said: "It was a really interesting exercise. We are very fortunate to have The Towers on our doorstep and hope that small improvements will help keep it as an oasis of calm in an otherwise hectic world.

"One of the suggestions was to place a history board in the Towers, to inform visitors of how it developed over the past 100 years or so. We know it was initially a hunting lodge and ended up as Highfield Girls School, but if any readers have anything to add that may be useful, we'd be very grateful if you could get in touch and tell us".

More about The Towers:

The Towers is a beautiful woodland area which once housed HIghfield College and has significant history dating back to the early 1900s and the land is now an urban retreat.

The Towers can be accessed from several gateways that surround the area, including one on Holmfield Avenue. They are the only surviving pieces of the shooting lodge estate that once was called The Towers. It later became known as Highfield College which was a private school, until the main building was demolished around 1970.

In the eighteen hundreds, because of the ICI estate and the success of Cleveleys as a seaside town, The Towers was where the wealthy people came to spend their holidays. The woodlands extended over a much larger area and provided the shooting grounds for these visitors.

The Thornton Through Time website tells us that The Towers was originally the home of the Horrocks family, and was later bought by

Mr. T.G. Lumb (Thomas Gallon Lumb), an engineer and architect. He was the visionary of Cleveleys, who was instrumental in the installation of the electric tramway and worked with Edward Lutyens to develop the houses that still stand today at Rossall Beach, and instigated the 1906 Cleveleys Cottage Exhibition.

You can find out much more about The Towers along with the history of Cleveleys from the fascinating Thornton Through Time website at this link