The Darlington Denes are 1.5Km from the town centre in the north west of the town and goes right into the heart of Cockerton Village in the west and North Road to the east forming a long thin park with six distinct Denes What3Words locations as follows:
Paddly Dene - https://w3w.co/mobile.news.mess
Football Dene - https://w3w.co/period.flying.soft
Bowling Dene - https://w3w.co/dine.fakes.middle
Play Dene - https://w3w.co/audit.beam.sides
Sheddy Dene - https://w3w.co/sooner.affair.game
Tennis Dene - https://w3w.co/jumpy.line.actor
The Denes is a 10.8 Hectare 1.5km linear park alongside Cocker Beck and is popular with people and wildlife. It has two play areas and three tennis courts and tow basketball hoops as well as chainsaw carving. A football pitch and basket ball hoop in the Footie Dene. There is a well maintained path through the Denes with good disabled access. Apiary in the Bee Dene. Community garden and many peaceful seating areas.
Bats, birds and over a 1000 trees some of which are specimen trees. Daffodils and Snowdrops in the spring. Many habitats provide a valuable green corridor for wildlife.
The Denes have an active Friends Group who work in the Denes and run events including Teddy Bears Picnic, Summer Fun Day and Christmas Fayre.
Social media - Face Book Friends of the Denes
E mail contact - friendsofthedenes@gmail.com
Getting there - There is a good local bus service to and from the town centre and ample street parking adjacent to the Denes.
In the 1860s the Pease family developed two lavish estates in the countryside to the north-west of Darlington: Pierremont and Brinkburn.
At the heart of their pleasure gardens was the Cocker Beck Valley, with paths laid out across its course.
The estates were broken up at the start of the 20th Century and terraces of houses now cover most of the land.
But the valley was too deep to build on and so it was saved, first as allotments during the First World War. It then became a public park, which opened on September 4 1925.