Whitby – Lewis Carroll Park

This interesting little park seemed rather out of place when I walked by it, hemmed in by a Poundland on one side and a car park to the rear. It has though transpired (to me at least) that this patch of land had rather fallen into disrepair and become a location for anti-social behaviour, so it was decided by the council to improve it.

Coming from Norwich, the council here tends to define improving something as knocking it down and building a car park on top of it. Then they can cheer that they’ve managed to encourage even more cars to come into the city centre, whilst not actually managing to ever properly fund public transport. But, in Whitby, money was found to theme this little park around Alice, one of the creations of Lewis Carroll.

Carroll has some connections to Whitby as he came here on holiday on at least six occasions, and it was the Whitby Gazette who published his first poem in 1854.

There are three themed benches in the park, all related to works by Carroll. Given that the park is now of interest to visitors and is a little bit of a talking point, I thought this was rather an charming idea by local residents and politicians, and there is apparently more work planned for the site.