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Bath Road, SLOUGH, SL1 3SS

It's a sign of changing demand for facilities but the grass on the old bowling green now grows roughly where there was once a fine green sward. In 2006 the local council wanted to build a splash park on this site ready to celebrate the park's centenary in 2007 but were unsuccessful with their application for competitive lottery funding.

The centre is in a lodge near the Bath Road entrance to Salt Hill Pleasure Grounds.

The 1881 Ordnance Survey map describes this earthwork as The Mount, a Supposed Barrow. At that time the Mount was the main feature in the hamlet of Salt Hill. The urban sprawl of Slough had yet to consume it. However the mound's main claim to fame is that until 1844 it was the destination of the Eton Montem when every Whit Tuesday the boys of Eton College Image marched, army-style, to the location collecting 'salt' or money from visitors and passers-by. The ceremony dated back until at least 1561 and was regularly patronized by Royalty. In its later years it became a triennial event, with the tickets to the 1838 event costing one shilling. However in 1844 the masters of the College decided that the boys should be studying rather than indulging time in making their Montem costumes, decided that the ceremony was anachronistic and should be abandoned forthwith. In truth the real reason for its demise was that with the advent of the railways the ceremonies of 1841 and 1844 had attracted rowdy crowds brought by train from London, and the authorities feared that a serious riot could break out in a subsequent event. The Times, reporting the 1844 event tongue-in-cheek, described the crowd as "mixed"... Evidently the hoi-polloi were not to be welcomed. One wonders what would happen today if the ceremony was to be revived...!

Viewed from the Bath Road end.

A local benefactor, James Elliman, provided the space and paid for the landscaping when the park was opened in 1907. The Barn dates from that time and was built to provide facilities for users of the park, although it does give the impression of being a cricket pavilion above anything else. It is now in use as an Indian restaurant called the Park View.

Boarded up and slowly deteriorating one wonders how much longer disused municipal facilities of this type, of which there must be thousands up and down the land, will be left standing. They are redolent of an earlier age of innocence and naivety.

"The park keeper’s lodge, the Barn Café and landscaping of the park were designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, an eminent architect of the time." - https://www.slough.gov.uk/parks-green-spaces/salt-hill-park