Family

Two young Mums with their prams have stopped beside the lake in Birkenhead Park to let the kids have a run. On this glorious afternoon the sun is quite low in the sky, so the mums have probably collected the older children from school and are now walking back home through the Park. On the way, they will probably pick up some things for tea from one of the many small shops you could find on most streets in Birkenhead, - no home fridge or supermarkets then of course, so most shopping was done on a daily basis for the next couple of meals. Those prams would easily hold a few pounds of potatoes and a nice bit of fish, all wrapped in newspaper or brown paper bags, - it would be 15 years before plastic carrier bags were introduced.
Birkenhead Park, with its municipal funding and free access for the public, was quite a novel concept when it was laid out in the 1840s. It is thought that after visiting the park in 1850, American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted used many of its features in his design for New York's Central Park.