Stanley Park is a park in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, England, designed by Edward Kemp, which was opened on 14 May 1870 by the Mayor of Liverpool, Joseph Hubback. It is significant among Liverpool's parks on account of its layout and architecture. It has a grand terrace with expansive bedding schemes that were once highlighted by fountains. It includes the 1899 Gladstone Conservatory (recently restored and renamed the Isla Gladstone Conservatory), a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

built by Mackenzie & Moncur of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. 50–60% of the land consisted of open turfed areas, suitable for sport, with most of the rest being laid out as formal gardens and lakes. Kemp designed a horse-riding track ('Rotten Row'), though it did not catch on and was restyled as a cycle track around 1907. Stanley Park is known for dividing the home grounds of rival Merseyside football clubs Everton and

. However it was also the original home to a fledgling Everton Football Club in 1879 before the club moved to nearby Priory Road and then Anfield Road. Part of Stanley Park was to have been incorporated into the area of Liverpool's proposed new stadium, plans for which were first announced in 2000, ironically the same location Everton F.C. played, but a change of ownership of the club during autumn 2010 resulted in the Stanley Park project being scrapped in October 2012, in favour of expanding Anfield. The park has an Evangelical church located on the corner in between the two football teams. It is named "Stanley Park Church" and is over 100 years old. The park is named after

Lord Stanley of Preston Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, (15 January 1841 – 14 June 1908) styled as Hon. Frederick Stanley from 1844 to 1886 and as The Lord Stanley of Preston between 1886 and 1893, was a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party po ...

Stanley Park in literature and film

Stanley Park featured in

Alexei Sayle Alexei David Sayle (born 7 August 1952) is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th gr ...

's short story ''The Last Woman Killed in the War''. As a film location it partly played a backdrop in Sayle's 1980s BBC documentary for the series '' Comic Roots''. It featured in the 2003 film '' Dad's Dead''.

References

External links

Aerial PhotoAn article on the origins of football in the park from Liverpool's 'Nerve' magazine
Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Merseyside Parks and commons in Liverpool {{Merseyside-geo-stub