Souter Park and Churchill Playing Fields

Following realignment of railway tracks, negotiations were opened between the council and North Eastern Railway with a view to laying out the land left over as a park. This was agreed and took place during the 1920s. Souter Park was named after Councillor C.W. Souter who led the negotiations. The park is a lively suburban park designed for bowls and tennis, plus a small ornamental garden at the south end. There are a variety of low stone walls, low beech hedges, jockey rails and a thick tree and hedge boundary along Osborne Gardens. Trees and shrubs line Marine Avenue and Norham Road opposite the station. There are no formal entrances, just various steps to negotiate the changes in level. There are four bowling greens and six hard tennis courts, four small pavilions and huts. The adjacent Churchill Playing fields have four full-size football pitches, a cricket field, athletics track, hard-surfaced carpark and children's play area. The Fields' main access is a wide ungated entrance at the end of Hartley Avenue, next to a small groundskeeper's bungalow. Views here are marred by rusty fencing and a large 1960s flat-roofed cricket pavilion. A pedestrian access off Marine Avenue is more attractive, with reclaimed sandstone piers and plinth wall. There is a tree-lined path from the Fields below Souter Park's tennis court. Running along the west boundary of the Fields is a public footpath on the former track bed of the gently sweeping Avenue railway branch. A metal finger post and low timber 'waggonways' sign stand at the grassed corner off Hartley Avenue.