My name is Terry-Mike Williams and I am the manager of The New Park Heritage Centre.
As a teacher, I spent my entire career at New Park School in Harrogate, although I moved from classroom to classroom in the upper building at various points. One day, as some of the students stood at my desk, one pointed to the high wall in the playground and asked what there was behind it. My immediate reaction was to wonder whether there should be anything behind it. However, as every good teacher ought to do, I followed up on the student’s interest and found that there was a railway tunnel behind that wall. This held both my interest and the rest of the students and so began a class project to find out more. Progress was slow initially but like all snowballs, they suddenly increase in size dramatically.
First, came the immense archives at the Centre, followed by a building, kindly provided by the school, which is used as a visitors centre. There are illustrated talks, provided by the manager, to public groups and a twice annual newspaper illustrating both New Park’s past and present. We also welcome any information or material the public might like to provide, as well as any enquiries the public may wish to make about the existing archives.
The rest, as they say, is history.
