Eastwoods Park, Prudhoe

Eastwoods Park lies on the eastern edge of Prudhoe, or West Wylam, and was originally known as the West Wylam Welfare.

Eastwoods Park has two play areas, football pitches, a cricket strip and pavilions. 

Drone use
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Eastwoods Park lies just to the east of Eastwoods Road Prudhoe NE42 5DE

Parking is available in the park and all access is off Eastwoods Road.

The restoration of Eastwoods Park in West Wylam is well underway with loads of new improvements in 2019.

This builds on the new play area installed in 2017 and renovation of the seating and Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) in 2018. So far this year there have been a lot of improvements to park buildings and planted areas, with plans for more works yet to come.

Following the success of the new play area in late 2017, the next areas of work were the refurbishment of seating and restoration of the MUGA area. The MUGA is an area of 2 tennis courts which had fallen into disrepair as the fencing had rusted and kick-boards rotted and been vandalised. After consultation with users and residents, the area was re-fitted with new fencing by contractors. Following a thorough cleaning with the street-sweeper, the Council’s road-lining team marked up the area for tennis, basketball, football and netball.

New basketball nets were installed and the hedge and surrounding trees were trimmed back over several days by Friends of Prudhoe Woods, with support from Neighbourhood Services to remove all the resulting green waste. This has opened up the site, reducing the potential for antisocial behaviour issues and gone down really well with users. The MUGA was much enjoyed last summer, but now the third phase of improvements has been rolled out, enabling even more use of the site.

Friends of Eastwood Park have been working with Northumberland County Council to renovate the old bowls pavilion which was built in 1979 but had been redundant since 1997 when the bowls club re-located to Waterworld Leisure Centre. County Councillors Ken Stow and Gordon Stewart put £3, 000 towards the £20, 000 needed by the council to install new wiring and water supplies to the building in February this year, along with work to repair the ceilings and toilets after vandals tore down the loft, damaged the plumbing and blocked the drains. Amazingly, after 22 years of disuse, most of the lights and storage heaters were in good working order!

This work enabled the Friends of Group to redecorate the building and bring in donations and grant money for kitchen equipment, crockery, a new kitchen window and furniture. After a lot of hard work and late nights, the building was re-opened 40 years after it was built in the old Miner’s Welfare Park, as The Miner’s Lamp cafe and community hub, shortly after Easter.

Since opening, the cafe, supported by Asda Fareshare scheme, has been well attended and filled with artifacts and pictures of old West Wylam and the pit community. It has a meeting room for community use; a store of sports equipment for use at the nearby MUGA so visitors can try a range of sports and get fit for free. There are toilets for public use and a branch of West Northumberland’s Food Bank.

Funds are now being raised by Friends of Eastwoods Park to support installation of disabled accessible facilities to the building. Picnic tables are also shortly to be installed by the county council, along with works to remove the old play equipment and spoil heap.

Northumberland County Council has also been getting work underway this spring to extend and improve the football facilities at the old cricket pavilion, which is shortly to be completed and handed over to Prudhoe Youth Club FC as their home venue.