Sites and Monument Record: Victoria Park (SMR 1334)
Description
In Bo’ness the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated in 1897 by a permanent memorial in the shape of the Victoria Public Park, which was formally opened on 22nd June. The ground for the Park, formerly called the “braes,” was a sloping strip of ground on the north side of Philpingstone Road west of Cowdenhill Road. It was in grass and impossible to enclose for grazing and was used more or less as a public playground. The steep area of about 9.5 acres was feued by HM Cadell of Grange to the Town Council for £35. At the same time he created Grange Terrace as a westward extension of Philpingstone Road and feued the land to the south for building. Trees were planted along the north side of the new road and terrace paths created throughout the park.
Part of the new park was known as the “Barrel braes” from a water spring that filled a barrel set into the ground. The local inhabitants would dip their own containers into the barrel to obtain their water supply. Now that they had piped water the little spring, constantly trickling out of the hillside, was landscaped at the expense of Provost George Cadell Stewart. Rock work and plants were placed in the hollow and a ceramic fountain obtained from Doulton & Co, to be known as the Diamond Fountain (SMR 1333). This area was surrounded by iron railings supplied by Alexander Callendar of Bathgate at a cost of 9d per linear yard. A cast iron drinking trough fed from the spring was placed outside the enclosure for the public to use.
Henry Cadell brought four old Carron cannon from Bellary Fort in central India in 1900. Three of these were scrapped during the First World War, but one of the larger guns, an 18-pounder, was kept. It had been presented to Bo'ness Town Council for King Edward’s coronation and was placed on a concrete plinth next to a flagstaff in Victoria Public Park in 1902 opposite to St Andrew's Church. It was nicknamed “Big Harry and between 1902 and 1915 was used to bring in the New Year with a single blank discharge. Thereafter the practice ceased and the cannon was finally scrapped in 1940 during the Second World War. It was taken to P & W McLellan's yard and broken up with a sledge hammer.
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