Saturday Wasn't a Walk in the Park

Tonbridge Racecourse Sportsground

We all have different names for the park area in Tonbridge.  Some call it The Recreation Ground and older members of the community tend to know it as The Racecourse or The Sportground, whilst younger people affectionately call it The Park.

Recently I was contacted by a number of readers asking what the official name for this area is. The best I could do was to photograph the TMBC board at the entrance to the Recreation Ground, Racecourse, Sportsground, Park.

Recognising Tonbridge Recognised

Recognising Tonbridge detail

The close up detail on this week's Recognising Tonbridge was part of the wheel on the railway carriage at the miniature track in the park.  Both Steve Abrahams and Peter@greenhares spotted this correctly.

Tonbridge Daily Photo #57

The green carriage is a former 1939 British Rail delivery van and is used by members of the TMEC as a refreshment and meeting area.

The miniature railway track was built in 1951 by The Tonbridge Model Engineering Club, who run the steam trains at weekends that attract queues of eager childen waiting for a ride from these puffing engines during the summer months.  Since 1951 the track has been extensively extended and is about a third of a mile long all complete with signalling.

Canoe Mystery Solved

After a number of ideas of where this picture was taken, it seems the most popular answer was that it is on a part of the river that curves around the park ... a small building can be seen in the distance on the right, next to a footbridge, which is probably part of the old open-air swimming pool. The new building now fills the space to the bridge.


The canoe is positioned close to the newer wooden bridge that leads from the model steam railway track,which would now be in the distance behind the boys, to the inner park playing fields and former racecourse.


Thanks for all the input and the photos that were sent in to solve the mystery.

Identical spot 2012