Potternewton Park

Potternewton Park — where Europe’s oldest West Indian carnival begins

Thirty-two acres of sloping green between Harehills and Chapeltown, two miles north-east of Leeds city centre, and once a year this park is the most important piece of ground in the north of England. The Leeds West Indian Carnival — first held in 1967, the oldest of its kind in Europe — starts and finishes its procession here, and on the same bank holiday weekend the park hosts a free open-air reggae concert on a scale nothing else in Europe matches. For the other three hundred and sixty-odd days it is a working neighbourhood park: a Grade II listed mansion of about 1817 at the top of the slope, a bowling green, tennis and basketball courts, a skatepark, a Saturday morning five-kilometre run, and a playground with a zipwire and a giant chess board.

Highlights

• The Leeds West Indian Carnival — founded in 1967 by Arthur France and the first West Indian carnival in Europe; the park is both the assembly point and the finish of the procession, and the August bank holiday draws crowds in the hundreds of thousands.
• The Black Music Festival — formerly the Leeds Reggae Concert, held in the park on the bank holiday Sunday and billed as Europe’s biggest free open-air reggae concert.
• Potternewton Park Mansion — a neat neo-classical house of about 1817, Grade II listed, built for the woollen merchant James Brown when it was called Harehills Grove, and home to the Jowitt family from 1861 to 1900.
• The playground — aerial zipwire, slides, swings, sandpit and climbing frame, plus a giant outdoor chess board that gets used far more than you would guess.
• The sports cluster — two tennis courts that need no booking, a basketball court, a seven-a-side football court, a bowling green, outdoor gym equipment and a skatepark, all within one boundary.
• Potternewton parkrun — the free timed five-kilometre event on Saturday mornings at nine, run over the park’s slopes rather than around a flat circuit.

What you’ll find

The park is built on a slope, and that shapes everything: the mansion sits at the high end, the open ground falls away below it, and the flatter areas at the bottom carry the courts and the play equipment. It is a park with more hard facilities than ornamental planting, which is exactly right for the two densely populated neighbourhoods it serves.

• Open grassland on the slope, big enough to absorb a carnival crowd and a concert stage.
• A children’s playground with zipwire, climbing frame, sandpit and the giant chess board.
• Tennis, basketball and seven-a-side football courts, plus a bowling green.
• A skatepark with ramps and street features.
• Outdoor gym equipment set out along the park paths.
• The listed mansion at the top of the site, in institutional rather than public use.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Carnival-goers — the August bank holiday is the reason most people outside the area know this park, and being at the start of the procession is a different experience from watching it pass.
• Music audiences — a free open-air reggae event of European scale, in a public park, with no ticket barrier between you and the stage.
• Runners — the Saturday parkrun uses the slope honestly, which makes it a harder five kilometres than a flat course and a better one.
• Families — a playground with genuine variety, from zipwire to sandpit, and courts alongside for older siblings.
• Casual sport players — tennis courts that require no booking, basketball, seven-a-side and bowls all in one place.
• Local historians — a Grade II listed merchant’s villa of 1817 standing in what were once the grounds of a whole cluster of vanished Leeds mansions.

Getting there & practical

The park lies between Harehills and Chapeltown, roughly two miles north-east of Leeds city centre — close enough to walk from town in about forty minutes, and quicker still by bus. First Bus services 2, 3, 36, 48 and 91 all run through Chapeltown and stop within easy reach of the park. Entry is free, the park is open all year, and the sports facilities are unbooked and first-come. On accessibility, every entrance but one accommodates wheelchairs, and the paths are negotiable for wheelchairs and pushchairs, though the site is genuinely hilly in places and some routes are steeper than others. An hour is enough for a circuit and the playground; carnival weekend is an all-day commitment, and worth planning around, because the park’s normal uses stop for it entirely.

When to visit

Spring brings the park back into daily use after winter, with the courts busy again and the slopes drying out — a good time for a quiet visit before the summer calendar starts. Summer is dominated by one weekend: the August bank holiday, when carnival and the free reggae concert turn thirty-two acres into a festival site and draw crowds from across the country. Come for that if you want the park at its most alive, or avoid the weekend entirely if you want the park at all. Autumn returns it to the neighbourhood — the parkrun, the playground, football on the courts, and the slope under leaf colour. Winter is bare and often windy on the open upper ground, but the hard courts and the skatepark stay usable, and the outline of the listed mansion at the top of the slope is at its clearest against a stripped-back landscape.

Good to know

The name is old: the area was a place of pottery manufacture in the Roman period, and “Potternewton” preserves that. Over the centuries the land passed through the hands of the Mauleverers, the Scotts and the Hardwicks, and later the Earl of Mexborough and the Earl of Cowper. By the early nineteenth century a cluster of mansions stood in this part of Leeds — Potternewton Hall, built in the 1730s, and Newton Hall, owned by the Lupton family by the mid-nineteenth century, among them. Both had vanished by 1935. The one that survives is Potternewton Park Mansion, a neat neo-classical house of about 1817 built for the woollen merchant James Brown and originally called Harehills Grove; the Jowitt family lived there from 1861 to 1900. In 1900 Leeds Corporation bought the mansion’s grounds of over thirty-two acres, and the park opened to the public in 1906; the mansion itself was in educational use by 1929 and later served as an annex to Park Lane College. It is Grade II listed. The park’s modern significance is more recent and no less documented: Arthur France, born on Nevis in September 1935 and settled in Leeds from 1957, founded the Leeds West Indian Carnival here in 1967, the first in Europe. France has recalled hearing the St Christopher Steel Band playing in this park in the years before the carnival began — the sound that helped start the whole thing.

Visitor tips

• If you are coming for carnival, come early and come by bus — the procession assembles in the park, the surrounding streets close, and parking is not a realistic plan.
• Start any walk at the top of the slope near the mansion and work downwards; the sports and play facilities are on the lower ground, so gravity does you a favour.
• The tennis courts take no bookings, so a weekday morning or an early evening outside school holidays is the reliable way to get one.

Questions & answers

Why is Potternewton Park famous? It is the home of the Leeds West Indian Carnival, founded in 1967 and the oldest West Indian carnival in Europe. The procession both starts and finishes in the park.

Who founded the carnival? Arthur France, born on Nevis in September 1935, who moved to Leeds in 1957 and organised the first carnival in 1967.

What is the Black Music Festival? Formerly the Leeds Reggae Concert, a free open-air reggae event held in the park on the bank holiday Sunday, and described as the largest of its kind in Europe.

How old is the park? Leeds Corporation bought the mansion grounds in 1900 and the park opened to the public in 1906.

What is the mansion in the park? Potternewton Park Mansion, a Grade II listed neo-classical house of about 1817 built for the woollen merchant James Brown, originally called Harehills Grove, later home to the Jowitt family and afterwards an educational building.

What sports facilities are there? Two tennis courts requiring no booking, a basketball court, a seven-a-side football court, a bowling green, outdoor gym equipment and a skatepark.

Is there a parkrun? Yes — a free timed five-kilometre run on Saturday mornings at nine o’clock, over the park’s sloping ground.

Is it accessible? All entrances but one accommodate wheelchairs and the paths are negotiable with wheelchairs and pushchairs, but parts of the site are hilly, so route choice matters.