Many will no doubt have seen or sat on one of the four carved stone benches, either outside Lancaster Royal Grammar School, Golgotha Village or within Williamson Park. The eagle eyed may have even spotted that one in the park is a bench with a benchmark and the other has ‘Rev T.R. London 1863’ inscribed. There are plenty of myths and legends about these benches, mostly rather gruesome ones (beheading blocks, coffin rests, witches graves, last chance to rest before being hanged). Hopefully, this should solve the mystery of the stone benches.

1863 was the height of the Lancashire Cotton Famine and Lancastrians, due to their dependence on the mills for work, were finding themselves unemployed and facing severe hardship. One of the schemes created to keep the men busy and give them some form of work was the creation of a scenic carriageway on Lancaster Moor. This precursor to Williamson Park became known colloquially as ‘The Top of Hard Times’. The benches, still surviving in and around the park as it became, date to this time. Other towns and cities had similar public schemes at this time, such as Cotton Famine Road on Rochdale’s Rooley Moor.

Looking at the inscription on one of the two park benches, Rev T.R is Reverend Thomas Richardson, born 1830 in Lancaster. Thomas moved to London and eventually became vicar of St Matthew’s Church in the East End. The Reverend became heavily involved in the temperance movement and spent his life working to improve the conditions of those in extreme poverty in the parish he lived in St George-In-The-East. It is believed that Rev Thomas donated money to his hometown to provide some form of relief, he may or may not have also purchased the very similar benches nearby, though they all share a pew-like appearance.

It is believed that the benches were put there, simply as a place to rest oneself after walking up from the town centre and during the labour that these hard-up people were taking to get to either the carriageway where they were sent to work.