Stepping down from Friends of the Park
Sadly my wife Gill and I wound down our involvement in Friends of Marple Memorial Park earlier this year after more than 20 years at the helm. The decision was driven by family and health matters causing us to reassess our priorities, plus a number of other frustrating council and park-related matters that are well documented if you dig around on the Friends of the Park web site.
We're pleased that the remaining volunteers have been able to keep the group going and it was good to go out on a high by winning 3 out of 8 categories in the 2024 Stockport Greenspace Volunteer Awards. These were "Achieving as a Team / Friends of Group" and "Working with Ambition" both going to the group, and the "Innovation Award" to me personally. Each award included a voucher for £100 to spend on the park, so an amazing £300 in all should be put to good use by the group as they maintain and improve the park.
It was also very nice to be presented with some photographs of the park by the group as mementos of our time looking after it.
The website continues to support the Marple Community
£1,000 donated to local causes in 2024:
The Marple Website's income reduced significantly this year as it wound down from small part-time business to a "hobby". In 2024 some donations have been achieved by discounting normal hosting fees to local charities and good causes, or with advertising fees being paid direct to a local cause. Hosting discounts were £260 to Marple Local History Society, £140 to Mellor Archaeological Trust, £95 to St. Martin's Heritage Trust and £80 to Friends of Romiley Park. New Horizons will benefit similarly early next year too. £93 of advertising fees were passed on to Marple Dementia Drop-In and a direct donation of £100 was made to Marple Adventure Film Festival, and £50 each to local appeals helping Your Local Shop and The Coffee Bean Dream recover from devastating events.
The website's £50 "photo fee" for the 2025 Calendar was also passed onto the Drop-In (see below) and to round the yearly total up to £1,000 a further Christmas donation of £82 was made via the Marple Community Christmas Card for Marple Dementia Drop-in.
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£18,000 donated to local causes over the last 18 years!
It's unlikely donations to local causes averaging £1,000 a year can be sustained but it would be nice to reach £20k by Christmas 2028. In the future donations to local causes will only be possible if the web site's wonderful advertising sponsors continue to support the site with their banners and business pages. Can your business support The Marple Website too? Please get in touch to find out more.
News and projects supported during the last 12 months
The Marple Website always does its best to support local community groups and local projects in as many different ways as it can.
Here are some of the highlights of 2024:
Iron Bridge future secured for the next generation
I'm relieved to report that the latest remedial works to the Iron Bridge in Brabyns were finally completed in October this year. Repainting of the main structure was finished in 2023 but the remaining top-side works, including more vegetation removal, cleaning and repainting of the original railings and touch-up and maintenance works to the modern intervention (the green parts), were not done until this summer.
The scour remedial works below the waterline on the north abutment have also been completed and, happily, were not as extensive as expected. The inspection report that suggested a stone block had been washed out was not accurate but there was an area of bedrock that had been eroded on the north abutment. This has been repaired and Stockport Council has shared a more detailed report.
Getting the council to discuss or act on concerns about the bridge's condition raised with them in 2020 was incredibly difficult this time around. Fortunately I had the support of the same Conservation Officer involved in the original Iron Bridge Restoration (now retired) but even so it took more than 2 years of industrial strength nagging before an inspection showed the bridge was at risk again.
It's now 23 years since the website's campaign to restore Marple's unique Iron Bridge began, and 17 years since it was successfully completed. In another 15 - 20 years nobody at the council will have first-hand knowledge and I will be well into my 80s (if I'm still here at all). So it's likely someone else from the community will have to take up the baton to ensure the bridge's owners are doing their duties.
If anyone chooses to do that, you'll get a head start from the material on this web site and documentation now stored in Marple Local History Society Archives. Maybe I'll be around and have enough marbles left to contribute too!
Marple Vintage Calendar 2025
The Marple Website and Marple Local History Society were delighted to collaborate with Sarah Laker at Marple Stationery Supplies for the second time to create a 2025 Marple Vintage Calendar. Published by Sarah and printed by HB Printing, this was Stationery Supplies' seventh calendar to raise funds for local causes.
The 2025 calendar cost £7.50 with £1 from every copy sold going to Marple Dementia Drop-In. This will add to the £1,300 already raised by previous calendars in support of local causes including New Horizons, Mellor Country House, Friends of Marple Memorial Park and Marple Carnival. We look forward to a report on the 2025 calendar sales from Sarah.
Marple Vision Team
The Marple Vision Team comprises Marple traders, community organisations and local councillors working together to help make improvements to the town, and getting behind the organisers of local events to help keep Marple's District Centre thriving.
It's been good to be a member of the team for several years and this year to provide a page on the website explaining their aims and objectives, and to promote some of their early achievements such as the Community Toilet Scheme, Marple Fest and Make it Marple events, support of the Marple Fest scheme to provide festoon lighting on Market Street and Derby Way, and the Plastic Free Marple Festive cups scheme too. The most recent addition earlier this year was a page about the District Centre Planters, a project that is still ongoing.
Marple RVS Lunch Club
At the start of the year it was great to be asked to share details of the RVS Lunch Club in Marple Senior Citizen's Hall, as attendance was in decline. They're still going this Christmas and hopefully promotion on the website and its socials has contributed to their continuation.
Marple Window Wonderland
It was also rewarding to support the Marple Window Wonderland Community Project by Twisted Trees Productions in April 2024.
2024 Marple Poppy Appeal raises £23,334!
Once again the Marple Poppy Appeal Team has achieved remarkable success by raising £23,334.19 for the Royal British Legion with the 2024 Poppy Appeal. That's a phenomenal amount, especially in these difficult times, and takes their running total since 2017 to over £165,500! So a huge well done to Kevin Murray, who has not allowed his own personal challenges to deter his efforts this year.
It's been brilliant to support the reinvigorated Marple Poppy Appeal Team since 2017 and to follow their success in thinking up fantastic new ideas to raise funds for the Poppy Appeal each year.
It's become a tradition to look back at the web site stats...
This version of the site was launched at Christmas 2017 and is now 7 years old, but the Marple Website has been around for much longer than that and celebrated 26 years online in October 2024. It is very pleasing to see that visitor numbers have bounced back from a 3 year decline, rising to a new record that beat the previous peak in 2020. Hopefully this bodes well for the site's ongoing popularity.
2.36 Million visitors to the Marple Website
Page views of 198,793 so far in 2024 is a new record rising above the previous peak in 2020 and trouncing last year's figure of 152,633. The counter has been running since October 1998, when the original site was launched, and has just passed an incredible 2,357,330.
Note: figures shown include up to 20 December 2024 only.
5.56 Million image views on the Marple Website Virtual Tour!
As I write, the counter on the Virtual History Tour of Marple has reached 5,560,664 image views and there are 15,234 local photos shared. Image views have increased by 220,016, which is considerably higher than last year. In addition to that, the newly created 3rd Generation Virtual History Tour set-up in December (read more below) has already received 70,200+ page views!
Virtual History Tour on the move!
The Marple Website's collection of photos, known as the Virtual History Tour of Marple, began 23 years ago, in 2001.
In 2006 it was moved to a Gallery platform called Coppermine. With the help of Marple Local History Society and many others the "Tour" has grown to hold over 15,000 images that have been viewed more than 5.56 Million times.
In December 2024 migration to a newer mobile friendly platform called Piwigo began.
Migrating so many images will be a long process and progress will be noted here.
While ongoing visitors will need to switch between 2nd Generation and 3rd Generation sites to access all the images available.
Challenges in 2025
Work to migrate the Community Directory is continuing slowly and remains an ongoing challenge because every page has to be manually recreated and checked. Coupled with migrating the Virtual History Tour as well, it looks like I'm going to stay busy for a good while yet!
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Mark Whittaker - The Marple Website
Thank you to Arthur Procter for his traditional Christmas Card dedicated to Marple Website Visitors:
