On Friday August 7, 1936, the Cornish Times published the Borough Surveyor’s plan for the King George V Playing Field, now known as Thorn Park, as a memorial to the recently deceased Monarch, King Charles III’s great grandfather.

The area where the play equipment is today, was earmarked as the ‘Site for Bathing Pool’. The land for the playing field and the bathing pool was donated to the town by Albert de Castro Glubb of Pendean House, where a plaque in his memory has recently been unveiled.

The newspaper article went on to state that ‘It should be recognised that Mr Glubb’s gift is a really magnificent gesture, and when he follows it up with a promise of £200 in cash [towards the Bathing Pool] it becomes rather difficult to find the right words with which to make due acknowledgment’. Other donations towards the cost of Liskeard’s only open-air pool were £100 from Mr and Mrs Chynoweth, and £25 from an anonymous donor.

The Cornish Guardian reported on August 13, 1936 that ‘The Ministry of Health required that any such pool should have a filtration plant, unless the water was running fast enough to fill and empty the pool once a day. To comply meant expenditure of at least £2,000, beyond the resources of the King George Memorial Fund.’

On November 5, 1937 the executive committee of the National Memorial Fund announced that 1,600 schemes to provide playing fields as memorials to King George V had been given consideration. Of these, 725 were registered and 41 finally approved. Nine fields had been officially opened to date, including one in Liskeard opposite Thorn Terrace, but sadly with no bathing pool.

By Brian Oldham, Liskeard Museum volunteer and Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow