Ashton Park, Preston: the recreation ground west of the city centre

The most straightforwardly useful of Preston's parks, and the least ornamental.

Ashton Park lies west of Preston city centre, in the Ashton on Ribble district between the main road out towards the coast and the river. It is the city's plainest park and its most heavily used for sport, and it makes no attempt at the picturesque.

That is not a criticism. Preston already has ornamental parks at Avenham and Miller and formal planting at Winckley Square. What the western side of the city needed was open ground with pitches on it, and that is what Ashton Park is.

What is in the park

The park is mostly level open grass with playing fields marked out on it, a playground, and perimeter paths under mature trees. There is a bowling provision and hard court space. The planting is around the edges instead of through the middle, which keeps the centre clear for pitches.

The tree belt on the boundary is the oldest part of the park and the reason it feels enclosed despite the openness inside. From several points the ground drops away towards the river to the south.

Ashton on Ribble and the docks

The park's setting matters more than its contents. Ashton on Ribble is a Victorian and Edwardian residential district built between the town and the docks, and the park was laid out to serve it. Walking south from the park reaches the Riversway basin and Preston Dock in about fifteen minutes.

That connection is the reason to include Ashton Park in a walk, not to visit it on its own. The sequence park, docks, river path, city centre makes a straightforward two hour circuit on the western side.

The Guild Wheel connection

The western arc of the Guild Wheel passes between the park and the docks, so Ashton Park is a practical place to join or leave the circuit if you are coming from the western suburbs. There is street parking around the park, which the river path itself does not offer.

For the rest of the city's green space, the parks and gardens index sets out what each park is for; parks and outdoors covers the reserves and the wider routes.

When to come

Ashton Park is at its busiest on weekend mornings when the pitches are in use, and quiet on weekday afternoons. Unlike the ornamental parks it does not particularly reward a seasonal visit; it looks much the same in February as in July, which is part of what makes it dependable.

Ashton on Ribble, and why the park is where it is

Ashton on Ribble was built between the town and the docks in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, as housing for people working in the port and the industries around it. It is a district of long terraced and semi detached streets on a grid, laid down quickly, and it was built with very little open space inside it.

Ashton Park is the corrective. It was laid out to serve that population, on the last substantial piece of ground left undeveloped between the streets and the river, and its plainness is a direct consequence: what the district needed was somewhere to play, not somewhere to promenade.

The western side of the city, on foot

The park is the top of a natural walking line. South from it the streets run down to Riversway and the dock basin; east from the docks the river path returns to the city centre beneath Avenham and Miller Parks. That gives a two hour circuit that stays off main roads almost the whole way.

It is also the least visited of Preston's walkable circuits, largely because the park itself gives no hint of what is south of it. The dock basin is the surprise: a working marina in what was once one of the largest single dock basins in the country.

Where it sits among Preston's parks

Preston's park estate divides fairly cleanly into three kinds. The ornamental Victorian pair on the river slope, the large flat municipal ground at Moor Park, and the district recreation parks — Ashton, Ribbleton and Grange — each serving the streets around it.

Knowing which kind you are going to prevents most disappointment. Ashton Park is the third kind, and judged as that it is one of the better examples in the city.