Jubilee Gardens

Jubilee Gardens at Cleveleys is a green, seafront space right next to the beach. You’ll find it north of the town centre, between The Venue and Jubilee Leisure Park. It’s also opposite the seafront cafe (the building with the egg whisk turbines on top). The address is North Promenade, Cleveleys, FY5 1DW.

PLEASE NOTE: Jubilee Gardens is temporarily being used as a works-compound for the Wyre Beach Management Scheme. A substantial area of park is fenced off, however there is still plenty of green space and children’s play equipment available to use.

Cleveleys is quite an urban place, so this open green space is a welcome break from the buildings. Enjoy beds of daffodils and their beautiful yellow faces in Spring, followed by pretty wild flowers later in the year. The Friends of Jubilee Gardens have planted them, they’re the community group which looks after the park. Much more about them below.

We went for a walk around on a cold and grey January morning, before the Wyre Beach Management Scheme got underway.

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Temporary Use for the Gardens

The Wyre Beach Management Scheme is designed to stabilise the beach and maintain high levels of sand and shingle. In doing so it will protect the shore against erosion and flooding.

• Site offices, plant and equipment are using the hard standing area of the car park. It will be open seasonally at weekends but closed during the week.
• Rocks are delivered to the grass field, unloaded, stored if necessary and distributed to the beach from there.

There’s much more about this project here. Including why it’s necessary and exactly what’s being done.

Look Around Jubilee Gardens

Along with the green field where you can walk your dog or play a game of kick-about, there are other facilities and features in this local park.

Obelisk

There’s an Obelisk at the entrance to Jubilee Gardens, surrounded by hard standing and benches. Erected when the gardens were remodelled, you can see it from the main road.

Above is the most recent one and the inscription on it reads:

Wyre Borough Council Jubilee Gardens Restoration Project
Opened by The Worshipful The Mayor, Councillor Peter J Hawley
18 October 2006
Councillor Russell Forsyth, Leader of the Council
Chief Executive Jim Corry, Contractor Birse Civils Ltd, Engineer Robert Posner

The above plaque on the other side of the Obelisk refers to the opening of the original park. It reads:

Thornton Cleveleys Urban District Council
This tablet commemorates the opening of
JUBILEE GARDENS
by The Rt Hon Lord Stanley PC, MC, MP
1 May 1937
Councillor RO Nickson JP – Chairman of the Council
Councillor A Swarbrick – Vice Chairman of the Council
and Councillor P Rowlinson – Chairman Public Services Committee
Councillors
J Rowbotham JP, JH Catterall BA
RR Wright, C Hampton
J Hilton, JT Grundy
J Keirby, C Rowley
HMM Warbrick
Clerk and Solicitor – J Ronald Wylde, Engineer & Surveyor – Henry Fenton, Accountant TF Eaton, Electrical Engineer AG Cooper

Long Stay Car Park

This is useful for anyone who wants to enjoy the Gardens, beach or seafront. The long stay car park makes use of what was previously the tennis courts of the original park. The car park is also a multi-use area and doubles as hard-standing for events, visiting fairgrounds and such like.

There are other car parks in Cleveleys.

Facilities for Small Children…

There’s a playground for smaller children to enjoy, with all the usual swings and rides. Surrounded by a fence, the playground has a safe, specially designed floor to minimise accidents and hard landings. Children can play here and be safe.

Facilities for Older Kids and Teenagers

There are facilities at Jubilee Gardens for older kids and young people too.

A hard surface multi-use games court (MUGA) has a high wire fence to keep balls in check. There’s a purpose built skate park, along with a shelter for teenagers to gather in and do what teenagers do.

Bowling Green

There have long been bowling greens here, and old photographs show people enjoying tournaments in days gone by.

Jubilee Gardens Bowling Club still has greens in the back left corner of the Gardens. It’s a strong club where the members enjoy playing by the sea.

Footpaths, Benches and Shortcuts

Want to enjoy a grassy field to walk on, or a game of football on a field instead of the sandy beach? Then Jubilee Gardens is the spot to head to. There’s plenty of space here for everyone to spread out.

A hard footpath cuts through the gardens and around the perimeter. Handy for a walk when it’s too windy to go on the seafront! You’ll also find handy shortcuts through the gardens to residential areas around Thornton Gate and Manor Beach School.

Friends of Jubilee Gardens

The Friends of Jubilee Gardens formed in February 2016 with the aim of rejuvenating the park. They want to promote better use of it and improve health and wellbeing.

First they set up the committee, then looked at what they might do to improve Jubilee Gardens for local people and visitors to Cleveleys. They’ve installed new benches, along with flower beds and pots. Now there are lots of spring bulbs in flower each year, and wild flowers in summer.

Restoration of Jubilee Gardens

Jubilee Gardens was to benefit from £45,000 of improvements thanks to a £30,000 grant from the Lancashire Environmental Fund and funding from Wyre Council.

Public consultations led by the Friends group took place in 2016 and 2018 to gauge local opinion and to inform future plans for the park.

This funding now means that new play equipment for older children can be installed. Plus a seaside themed play area, complete with sensory planting, seating and a play equipment trail where adults and young children can play together. To welcome visitors, the Jubilee Drive entrances to the park will also be improved, with signs and new planting.

Would you like to help? For more information Join the Friends on Facebook

Preparing for Cleveleys In Bloom

The Friends of Jubilee Gardens put a lot of effort into preparation for Cleveleys in Bloom 2019.

The Friends are doing a lot of general weeding, tidying up and litter picking around the gardens to keep it looking nice.

In addition to working in the gardens, the Friends had also been busy fundraising, to pay for the new plants and planters.

The Friends have also adopted one of the large planters on the promenade at the top of Victoria Road near the clock shelter. They’ve bought the plants and been looking after it.

Wyre Boat Angling Club

Are you a regular visitor to Rossall Beach at Cleveleys? If so, you’ll have seen the small fishing boats. They’re pulled out to sea by tractors.

The store for Wyre Boat Angling Club is tucked away in the corner of Jubilee Gardens, against The Venue. Members collect their tractors from there to pull their boats onto the beach and into the sea. They wait against the seawall until the boats return later in the day to collect the fishermen from the water’s edge.

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You’ll see fishermen and assorted boats, shackling up at the side of The Venue to get ready for a day at sea.

Two Jubilee Gardens

Did you know? There are two seafront parks called Jubilee Gardens on the Fylde Coast, and not that many miles away from each other?

• More about Jubilee Gardens Blackpool – it’s at the northern side of Gynn roundabout.

History of Jubilee Gardens

Jubilee Gardens dates back to 1937 – originally built to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. It was officially opened by Lord Stanley on 1 May 1937, cheered along by a huge crowd which gathered to mark the event.

Back then you could enjoy a ride on the miniature railway. There was a boating lake and paddling pool. Crazy golf, pitch and putt, bowling greens and tennis courts.

The next old aerial photo shows this section of seafront back then. Jubilee Gardens is, of course, the oblong grassy space, almost centre of shot.

The big building in the bottom left corner is The Venue. You can also see the ornamental areas and old park shelter buildings. They were along the seawards side of Jubilee Gardens.

• See more photos of old Cleveleys here

Many of the original features remained, prior to remodelling the promenade and Gardens.

Take a look at these old photos of the Gardens through the years. Do you have fond memories of spending time there?

Maintenance of these old features was a problem, and some of them had become disused. Rebuilding the sea defences at Cleveleys offered an opportunity to remodel Jubilee Gardens.

Remodelling Jubilee Gardens

Work began on Cleveleys seafront in October 2005. The coastal defence scheme included work to the promenade and some seafront buildings.

• See photos of the Cleveleys seawall rebuild in 2007 here.

The hard standing of the former tennis courts became the compound for the contractors cabins.

Contractors Birse Civils delivered the work on behalf of Wyre Council. With Birse later bought by Balfour Beatty, many of the same people went on to build the nearby Rossall Coastal Defence Scheme and carry out the Wyre Beach Management Project.

Later, in 2011, DONG Energy once again used the space as a compound, when they installed the High Voltage cable along the beach at Cleveleys to connect part of the Walney Offshore Windfarm to land.

The tennis courts became a long stay car park a few years later. Handy for the beach and seafront it’s also a multi-purpose events space.

…and More Changes Ahead!

With a large portion of the Gardens being used as a works compound, there’s another reinstatement project to come at the end of these works.

The cabins and plant will be removed and the car park restored, and the rock delivery/handling area will be demobilised too. It’s a good opportunity to retain what’s useful about the facilities which have been installed for the scheme. And to take a good look at what could be done to improve the park going forward.

Watch this space – the Friends of Jubilee Gardens will be working with Cleveleys Town Centre Group to make the most of the opportunities!

Events at Jubilee Gardens

The gardens have always been an events space. There’s been Majorette and Baton competitions, Youth Service events during school holidays, Galas, funfairs and more.

In 2009 the Gardens were the site of Cleveleys Jubilee Day, along with a great evening jazz concert and a firework finale.

On 4 July 2010 it was the venue for Cleveleys Sea Festival. Unfortunately it was one of the worst summer days you have ever seen! Gales and torrential rain stopped it midway for safety reasons!

In 2015, Cleveleys Car Show used the car park and Gardens for funfair rides and inflatables as part of their event. Thornton Cleveleys Gala had a full funfair on the car park the week after, and came back again in 2016.

Roll-up roll-up to the circus – they’ve used the field for their Big Top. The National Scout Car Races has visited a couple of times. This clip is from their first visit in 2015 –

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Murals and Butterflies

Then in 2023, with the Wyre Beach Management Scheme in full flow, Cleveleys Town Centre Group held a Family Fun Day in Jubilee Gardens. This was to celebrate the completion of a new Mythic Coast mural at a fun day event. There people had the chance to paint their own butterflies as part of the design.

The mural will remain on the site fence until the beach-works are complete, when a new home will be found for it in the park.